Designing a Better Conference
It is a rare conference that is entertaining, educational and worthwhile. My rule of thumb used to be that if I can get one piece of information out of the conference that was useable when I went home, it was worthwhile. Well. That’s a pretty low standard isn’t it? Dave Winer states the problem well:
The idea for an unconference came while sitting in the audience of a panel discussion at a conference, waiting for someone to say something intelligent, or not self-serving, or not mind-numbingly boring. The idea came while listening to someone drone endlessly through PowerPoint slides, nodding off, or (in later years) checking email, or posting something to my blog, wondering if it had to be so mind-numbingly boring.
This observation may turn out to be the Fundamental Law of Conventional Conferences.
The sum of the expertise of the people in the audience is greater than the sum of expertise of the people on stage.
Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine also talks about the problems of standard conferences:
Too many conferences suck. They’re too expensive. They are filled with boring panels. They are all about speeches and not about conversation and argument and learning and meeting. They don’t capture the expertise of the crowd. They enrich the organizers at the cost of both the “talent” and the “audience” (a distinction that is usually random, meaningless, and essentially insulting).
Dave Winer and Jeff Jarvis told the panel to sit down and went in to the crowd.
What other solutions are there? At BlawgThink, for half of the conference they used Open Space Technology. There was no agenda and no speakers. People got up, wrote what they wanted to talk about on a 2 foot by 2 foot post-it Note. They announced the topic they wanted to discuss and put it on the wall. The notes were arranged into various groupings and people went to the groups they wanted to hear or discuss. To be honest, it sounds a little cheesy, but it worked very well.
What are the Guiding Principles behind Open Space Technology? From the Open Space Technology Users Guide:
- Whoever comes is the right people.
- Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.
- Whenever it starts is the right time.
- When it is over, it is over.
- Finally we come to the One Law of Open Space. The Law of Two Feet. Every individual has two feet, and must be prepared to use them. Responsibility for a successful outcome in any Open Space Event resides with exactly one person -- each participant. Individuals can make a difference and must make a difference.
What are People Saying That Have Experienced UnConferences?
Open Space World gives us some excerpts:
Not long ago I did Open Space for an evening with 75 people, talking about the future of their county. They created fifteen substantial conversations about the issues they really care about and came back together to say it was one of the best meetings they ever had. The whole thing took three hours and all the notes are online for people to follow up. That's an example of what can happen in Open Space. -- JeffAitken
Open Space puts any number of people together to share their passions and create something new. If you are open and willing to risk a little, you will gain much. -- MurliNagasundaram?
It is a way to get all people in a group, no matter how big, have their say on equal terms. They make their own agenda with what they have passion for and they organize the discussions themselves. -- IngridOlausson?
Open Space is based in the belief that organizations and communities run on passion and responsibility. It allows groups of any size to self-organize around what they really care about to get things done. -- PeggyHolman
Open Space Technology is a natural communication process that recognizes that people take responsibility to pursue what they are passionate about, and it ensures that what is important to each participant will be discussed. -- developed by a small group during BirgittWilliams' Open Space training workshop in Halifax, Canada
And here is a link to a discussion group of what has been learned after 20 years of Open Space conferences. An article describing Open Space says:
What is Open Space Technology?
1. All of the issues that are MOST important to the participants will be raised.
2. All of the issues raised will be addressed by those participants most qualified and capable of getting something done on each of them.
And finally, Dave Winer talks about what happens after you switch to an unconference:
Once you’re in you’re spoiled. I’ve heard it said many times, by people who had a real unconference experience, that they can never sit in a dark room, with their hands folded, waiting for the Q&A period, listening to a PowerPoint presenter drone on and on, while the heads bob up and down and a dull roar of enthusiastic discussion can be heard in the distance, in the hallway.
Sounds like a winner to me. Howard Spiva and I are looking to do an unconference for the Fall Retreat of the Southern Trial Lawyers Association. I’m excited about it and we’ll let you know how it turns out.
We will be having the unconference in Marsh Harbor, Bahamas on the 22nd of Sept 2006!!!
