I hear there are 120 people at the iDate show in Prague. If you are one of the intrepid 120, send in your thoughts on quality of presentations, attendance and overall value of the show. Send photos to, snap ’em with your camera phone and email to relaxedguy at gmail dot com. Tell us, was the conference worth it? What was the best thing about the show?
I have to say, the last few conventions (tech and marketing) I went to were less than spectacular. We all know the real good stuff happens in the hallways and hotel bar, which is free and where lots of people simply hang out and schedule meetings by the pool.
Over the summer I went to a conference on Identity at Harvard. The format on the last day was called an unconference. All conferences should try this, you get so much more out of it than sitting there falling alseep listening to someone drone on about things you probably know already.
Open Space Technology is an energizing and emergent way to organize an agenda for a conference. Those coming to the event can post on a wiki ahead of time topics they want to present about or hope others will present about. The wiki can also be used to share who is coming because it is the attendees who have a passion to share that contribute to the event and will make it great.
The event begins with face to face schedule making which allows for emerging developments in the rapidly moving technology field to be covered. The opening includes time for attendees introduce themselves and orient to the whole group. Participants are invited to write the name of there session topic and their name on an 8.5×11 paper. They announce the title of their session to the whole room and then post it on a schedule on the wall. Then once all the sessions have been posted the community – standing in front of the schedule wall attendee move sessions around. Sessions are about an hour long with 15 min breaks and an hour for lunch. The day closes with the all participants gathering in a circle one room and sharing for 20 -30 min the highlights of the day.
Fantastic way to optimize your time, what you need to know, guarantee you meet the people that make a difference and the Law Of Two Feet means you can move from group to group whenever you feel like it. I’m enthusiastic that more conferences will adopt the open space format for at least a day.
[Listening to WEFUNK on CKUT 90.3FM Montreal]
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