Unconferencing Some Elements of Mainstream Conferences

Matin Brown of Isite wondered if it could be “The future of conferences?”. He was refering to the BarCamp a form of unconference that’s gaining a lot of popularity among the tech savvy conference-goers. Pam Broviak has so interestingly reported her Barcamp Chicago event in a post entitled Barcamp, Social Media and Pizza.

In a previous post, we have pointed out a few shortcomings of the unconferences and to read that you may hop in here. All these notwithstanding, we understand how innovation is so crucial to the growth of the conference industry thoughout the world. While we do not think mainstream conferences will take the form of Barcamp and other unconference types on the whole, just the same, we are of the opinion that the way future conferences are organized may consider a lot of the elements of uncoferences in it. Here, we came up with this list of what mainstream conference organizing can learn from those who calls themselves “unconference unorganizers”:

1. No Spectators. That’s the Barcamp motto, and is reflective of how a conference, ideally, ought to be designed for maximum participation.

2. More Participant-focused. A regular conference can evolve from the speaker-centered events to an exciting mix of experts engaging the delegates with the more participatory workshop type where the audience are active co-creators of content.

2. Networking Value. Pam Broviak tells of how “I retained more from this conference than I normally would at a more traditional event and met more people”

3. Pricewise. Its low-cost if not totally free. While it certainly cannot be duplicated by high-fee corporate mainstream events for the infrastructure and preparation they mount for every event, it can make organizers re-think pricing models and innovations that gives conference-goers options for smart conference going at less price.

4. Social Media rules! “Because many of us were following each other on Twitter, we could post comments or converse online with others in the room or even with people we knew who were not there.” Pam Broviak on Be2Camp.

4. Real global interconnections. Pam Broviak recounts “I sent out a Twitter about the online tool with a link. Martin Brown picked up on this, as we follow each other on Twitter, and he visited the Web site noticing that it was run by someone in Hungary….So within hours, information from a presentation given in Chicago reached London and then Hungary resulting in the participation of a professional in Hungary at a future barcamp in London.” That’s lightning speed in today’s interconnected world and emphasizes how important connectivity is to a well put-together conference.

5. Conferences can be “fun”. “The basis of the conference seems to be that it is totally informal and completely engaging “. While a lot of conference goers are keen to go about their events in style–urban tastes, exciting destinations– there can be ways to make the rmainstream events features more spontaneous, fun and stimulating.

6. Persistent conversation. Unconferences run attractive wiki pages prior to and after an event where ideas for topics are welcome prior to the event, and collaborations are made persistent and structured long after the event is over. This can be adopted as a way of incorporating social media softwares as a way by which new conference learning styles can be constructed and propagated.

7. Don’t forget cuisine. A specially prepared, full course meal that caters to variety of tastes is part of the entire conference experience that organizers must never fail to consider. Please, no cold, boring lately-served meal that looks like you ought -to -pray -it will be tasty. Otherwise, we’d have to say Barcamp’s “coffee and doughnuts in the morning, pizza for lunch, and a get-together at an Irish bar” sounds far more exciting.

Liveblogs! They Multiply Your Conference’s Value

It’s an emerging media all its own. It pays to use it for those unable to visit a conference and many swear by it as even better than video recordings: it’s the conference liveblogs ! The process is known as liveblogging. A blogger present at a conference, streams a synopsis of each presentation, talk-by-talk. That’s on real time, well almost. It’s a serious job, more than a snarky twit about how bad a conference speaker is.

We are a big fan of the conference livebloggers. The best we have around are Ethan Zuckerman who teams up with Bruno Giussani, star livebloggers both, who came up with a free short 3-page PDF booklet on how to blog a conference with effectiveness.

It works very well for the conference blogger to begin with. When you blog a conference it forces you to pay attention. The requisite focus of summarizing each talk clarifies many ideas for the one writing it. With that, the blogger-conference-goer is then able to share. The really nice thing about perfecting this craft is a “free pass to many high-priced conferences”. It’s a cool thing as conference organizers are increasingly looking for first-rate livebloggers to generate press and future attendees.

The recently concluded BlogHer ‘O8 July 18-20, 2008 in San Francisco, CA have put up liveblogs here.

On the other hand, conference organizers are also urged to keep pace with new technologies to innovate on thw way conferences are conducted. Livebloggers of note are able to report on talks at conferences like Pop!Tech, TED, OSCON, All Things D, because they are well organized, interesting and stimulating. Good speakers makes for easy liveblogging — you get to follow a narrative thread that can be easily digested and streamed through blogs and other platforms.

Are you already liveblogging at conferences? Give us a buzz! Feel free to share them in the comments. If you are conference goer keen to give it a try, then this piece from Ethan and Bruno will be your best bet for kickstarting it!

Tips for Conference Bloggers
By Bruno Giussani and Ethan Zuckerman
2007, 3 pages
Free
Available as a PDF from here

Some cool excerpts:

• It’s relatively easy to blog good and great speakers: They follow a narrative path through their talks and speak at a pace the audience can understand. It’s harder to blog inexperienced speakers(because they may be too technical, confusing, fast, etc.) and multispeaker panels (because the discussion can take many different unstructured turns). But you don’t need to transcribe the whole talk, you need to capture the gist of it. A 20-minutes talk can often be summarized in a 20-lines post.

• Always remember that what you’re writing will be read by people who weren’t in the room, so they haven’t seen the slides, the video, or the gesture. Hence, you have to compensate for the lack of context. Don’t be afraid to create a narrative by saying “He shows a slide with data on …” or “She walks on stage carrying a big suitcase” or “He shows a YouTube video” etc. And if the speaker shows a YouTube video, or a picture, remember that you’re online: Open another browser window, go to YouTube, find that video, and link to it; or go to the speaker’s website, find that picture or another similar or related item, and link to it (or republish the picture within your post). Yes, this requires effective multitasking. It’s at the root of conference blogging.

• Conferences usually give out a program ahead of time. Use it to prepare for blogging: Do a quick Google search for each speaker, and save (in the same text file) links to their sites, blogs, and the institutions they’re affiliated with; write a one-or-two-sentences “biography” for each; and for the speakers you’ve never heard of, try to get a general sense of who they are and what they do. To write the mini-biography, use also the speaker information distributed by the conference organizers (booklet, website, etc.). For the key speakers, save a picture on your laptop (from their websites) and pre-format it for Web use, in case you will need it. If you prepare sufficiently, you’ve got the first paragraph of each post almost written ahead of time.

At the Conference Live: Supernova 2008 Connects with Wharton School of Business

For the last seven years, Supernova conference has anticipated critical developments leading to this days’ ultra networked era. At Supernova, CEOs and bloggers, entrepreneurs and academics, practitioners and visionaries, policy experts and industry thought leaders share insights and build relationships. Only Supernova connects Wharton, one of the world’s foremost business schools, with deep understanding of technology.

Supernova embraces the changes sweeping our world, and the tools that often make the “former audience” better connected and informed than the experts. log on to find the people and ideas that will shape the future of business.

This year the conference will be broadcasted live from June 16, 2008 to June 18 2008 on the Supernova 2008 Mogulus channel.

Hosted by Kevin Werbach and co-produced by The Wharton School, the Supernova Conference examines the profound impact of an increasingly connected world.