At the opening plenary, Conference Co-Chair Michelle Black of Simply Read Writing Service told delegates about the conference activities she organized around the concepts of bridges and white space. We received much of the content for this set of activities in advance from speakers, delegates and PLAIN listserv members.

The Bridge:  Bridges are structures that help people and things connect. On the bridge or walkway area of the hotel, we brought the work of our international community together in displays of plain language resources and examples. They included:

• Resource tables in our just outside all meeting rooms, where speakers could display, sell or give out resources related to their session.
• A For Display Only table where speakers and delegates could set samples of books they’d published, information about their organizations, or other materials they wished to display.
• A Please Take One section, where speakers and delegates could set any information that people could take away about books they’d published, information about their organizations, or other materials they wished to display.
• Before and After examples of about 15 documents that speakers or delegates had worked on, which were posted on the windows along the Bridge area. Examples ranged broadly: from health information to press releases to government forms, in both their original and clear language versions.

White Space:  Document designers often promote blank or white space to give readers' eyes a place to rest between text and graphics. Our conference white space consisted of informal, unstructured places—in the areas outside the meeting rooms-- where delegates could relax, mingle and consolidate the knowledge they had gained during the scheduled program.

• The Plain Language Map:  This map—a large sheet of bristolboard with maplike background design--was on a table outside the main ballroom. On each corner of the rectangle was a picture representing each of the four themes that served as organizing themes for the conference sessions: Health, Law, Business and Finance, and the Global Village. A pink heart in the centre, with Plain Language written on it, represented plain language’s convergence at the heart of communication.
  
  During the opening Plenary, Michelle explained to delegates that the Map was an opportunity for them to put themselves on the map, by writing names or placing their business cards on the spot in the map where they felt their work fit. She explained that she had put herself mainly in between the health and Global Village corners, since much of her work had been with health information on the Internet.