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.

The Future of Conferences

The conference industry, like all industries in a global downturn, has some tough issues to face. If the recent results of the British Association of Conference Destinations (BACD) is indeed a crucial barometer for what is true of the industry all over the world, the conference sector will have to change gears or re-invent itself.

The BCAD’s 2008 British Conference Venues Survey reveals vital insights into the current state of the industry from a supply-side perspective. The survey based on data supplied by a record number of 446 venues across the UK, shows that the UK conference market experienced a revenue downturn in the period from 2005 to 2007 and registered an estimated value of £8billion compared to £9.8billion in the three-year period before.

• There was significant reduction in the average number of conferences per venue

• A slight shift away from residential conferences in favor of the one day conferencing or what we call as non-overnight conferences. This has critical economic impact as residential conferences account for almost two-thirds of overall venue income.

• 30 per cent of venues noted a shortening of lead times in recent years, with many venues commenting that this was now becoming the norm. Eleven per cent reported greater pressure on client budgets

• The survey also revealed an increased level of interest and awareness of CSR and environmental issues, a higher demand for Fairtrade and organic catering, and an increasing demand to meet special dietary requirements.

• The 2008 report confirms a trend noted in the 2007 survey, which highlighted the importance of public sector and association conferences. These now account for 52 per cent of all meetings and conferences, compared to 48 per cent for the corporate sector.

• The dominance of city venues continues. The huge investment in infrastructure and facilities enjoyed by most city destinations over the past couple of decades is reaping benefits in the business events market.

We believe that face-to-face meetings at traditional conferences as we know it here to stay but must necessarily evolve with the times. There are insights from this survey that gives the industry players an informed view  of how to best manage change, and indeed, even capitalize on current trends.

E.Factor Conference 10th September, New York “New Economy: Do or Die”

We are living in challenging times! We are technically in a recession, or recovering from it, depending on whether you see the glass as half full or half empty. As always, we can hole up or find hidden opportunities to turn an adversity into something positive.

Kevin Kelly’s brilliant essay on New Rules for the New Economy has this to say:

“As power flows away from the center, the competitive advantage belongs to those who learn how to embrace decentralized points of control.”

“As fortunes are made by training machines to be ever more efficient, there is yet far greater wealth to be had by unleashing the inefficient discovery and creation of new opportunities!”

Step up into the future of enterprise !

A number of different paths seem to be converging again, paths that have traveled separately – although always connected – for some years. Many eyes are shifting again to the “new generation entrepreneurs.” By new generation, we do not necessarily refer to a reflection of age. New generation entrepreneurs in a downturn can also be those whose spark of vision, daring spirit and sense of adventure lead them to open up their own shop rather then spend more time working for their employer.

Politicians, economists, financial institutions and many other individuals and organizations are suddenly all-ears to the latest buzz among small business owners. News in both mainstream and online media report on the percentages of new businesses that are started and other valuable statistics that creates an environment in which being part of this “New Generation Entrepreneurs” can actually open you up to exciting opportunities.

Emerging markets, globalization, convergence of technologies and industries, and ubiquitous connectivity, all these have changed many aspects of business. They have also changed the nature of consumers. We have consumers who are informed, networked, active and global. At the same time these events have changed the nature of companies. Today firms can fragment their value chain in ways that they could not have done before. Not just the physical products, but the intellectual part of my company – the business processes, management processes, including research and development, engineering – all that can be fragmented. Businesses today, is not restricted to one geographic location, various aspects of its operations can be located and managed from anywhere. 

Economic experts believe small businesses will help the world to a more positive economic plateau again as they go in for the much needed rebound and come forward to create new wealth !

Now for the questions — how do you manage to start out in this environment, or expand your business in different geographic regions? Where CAN you find funding? How can you leverage new technologies, media and marketing? All of these topics are part of the E.Factor half-day conference in New York on the 10th September – Titled: “New Economy: Do or Die” – this is one afternoon you should mark in your diaries. The sessions are topbilled by Fred Seibert of NextNewNetworks, Tom De Bruyne of BoonDoogle, and Robert C. Raciti of GE Commercial Finance. Howard Greenstein of Harbrooke Group, a social media strategist and evangelist will be the moderator.

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.

Conference-in-Focus: AQ Services International Customer Service Excellence Conference

We first came across this buzzword at the turn of the 21^st century – the term Experience Economy was described in a book written in 1999 by B. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore titled “The Experience Economy”. It is supposed to be that NEXT big stage to follow the agrarian economy, the industrial economy and the most recent so called service economy.

This is exactly the value we drive at Conference Bay – to design and orchestrate memorable events for our customers. We always say delightful conference experience, means conference without the hassle. Then that experience becomes our product! We offer conference going without the hassle commonly associated with it. For instance, we aggregate relevant conferences by topic and location and offer online tools to book conferences or alternatively to save on your conference seat by bidding for it. This, we submit is the natural course in the value added by our business over and above other things.

The experience economy is also considered as main underpinning for customer experience management. We have a classic example to show you here from AQ Services International with their Half Day Conference on Service Excellence.

Goods and services are no longer enough. To be successful in today’s increasingly competitive environment companies must learn to “stage experiences” for each one of their individual customers. Recollecting a delightful experience is remembering the product positively.

They have taken every innovative step to make this event a Conference apart from all their past offerings. First, they have put all bids up for sale. In an interview with Herman van Breemen, he says of this innovation “ At AQ-Services we think that customer service should be on everybody’s agenda. Yes we have put all seats up for bid ! I believe this innovative approach lets every company decide how much they think customer loyalty is worth instead of setting a fixed rate for a conference. With this approach we want to trigger companies to think about this. Yes, why not? It began as a curiosity and indeed, curiosity is fundamental to every achievement!”

Setting the price free is a smart way to persuade people to visit conferences even during an economic downturn. We see this as shaping the way conferences are organized and attended now and in the years to come. “All companies involved with rendering services have to realize that sharing experiences can provide knowledge to all. Knowledge to gain market share, to understand customer behavior, to recognize new marketing methods, to explore the market! Our approach, by setting the price ‘ free ‘ can only attract the real entrepreneurs. It’s not about the money…..it’s about the ideas …….it’s about backgrounds……it’s about sharing…….it’s about winning!”

In this conference, it will be discussed how front line performance can make or break a business in this experience economy. Services, for instance values such as hospitality, are intangibles, Herman van Breemen maintains they can they drive value for customers and grow profit for businesses in solid ways. “In today’s experience economy service excellence plays a major role for the customer. Poor service is the number one reason why customers turn to the competitor. Exceeding their expectation will lead to loyal customers and therewith, growth for your business.”

Herman maintains that the experience is everything and “Nowadays the experience is growing! Various researches show that the experience is considered more important than the product on itself. This is visible in restaurants, luxury stores, hotels etc. There is an incredible downfall when talking about customer loyalty. The customer expects a certain level of service and only exceeding the customer’s expectations can lead to more loyal customers. To benefit from this trend companies must offer the perfect customer experience to prevent them from going to the competition.

A lof other conferences are based on figures, percentages, martketshares, etc. This one is based on something else, something different! Namely people. No business without people! Customer loyalty is underestimated but still one of the major components to continue business relations. So let’s focus on this customer! How can we influence and understand their behaviour in order to learn and benefit from their loyalty. It used to be that “What you see is what you get… but experience goes beyond everything…!”

Serve Better, Sell More! Bid for this new conference experience! You get to meet like-minded, interesting people in this cool venue in Carcosa Seri Negara, Malaysia. How cool is this, no fixed rate, YOU decide how much loyal customers are worth! Make your bid now for the Service Excellence Conference Day.

Head on to Conference Bay simply register and placeyour bid by clicking ‘the service Excellence Button!’ Any reasonable offer will be accepted !