Updated June 4, 2009
Conferences have not changed their formats much in the last 20 years, they are still mostly about one-way communication: a guy telling you his views on things and showing you slides about it. Your role as a delegate is to sit still, perhaps take some notes and hope that the speaker will tell you something you don’t know already.
These types of events could still be fun and useful socially, but it is an inefficient way to communicate, inspire and create real learning. And it is out of synch with all the other evolving forms of modern media in the internet age, where it is about two-way communication and the users are active participants in creating experiences together with the publishers.

Conferences 1.0
Most conferences today are organized like this:

1. The web site is used only for listing the program and the sponsors and signing up the delegates.
2. There is no list of delegates on the web site, so you cannot research and connect with interesting people prior to the conference.
3. As soon as the conference starts, the web site is dead.
4. In better 1.0 conferences the web site links to the presenter’s slide shows a week or two after the conference, bit that is too late for most delegates.
5. There are no speaker videos on the web site, due to fear that videos make people want enjoy them at home instead of paying to be at the conference. (Actually it works the other way around, for example the TED conference made a huge success in 2005 when they dared to oppose this wisdom and started publishing all their talks online.)
6. They drag on for 2 days with a dinner or a drinks “party” sponsored by a tech company that you barely know about and where the delegates hang out with their friends.
7. They are all about key-notes, a speaker presenting to the audience, top-down communication with no participation from the audience other than the usual awkward questions from people that want to show off themselves.
8. They are huge, with thousands of delegates, making it very hard to make contact with new people.

Conferences 2.0
My vision of conferences that are more engaging and immersive for both the delegates and the speakers:

1. Strive for small conferences, 100 - 250 people. Smaller is usually more productive. (But once per year or so it could be nice to attend a really big event with more focus on relaxing and re-charging and networking.)
2. Look for a mix of well-known speakers that draw a crowd and unknown but brilliant minds that can surprise people and give them unexpected insights.
3. Encourage business networking among the delegates prior to and during the conference. For example, have a delegate list on the conference web site where you can search for names, companies, types of business, nationalities and perhaps also list what people offer and what they seek.
4. In the agenda, describe the speakers in terms of what they have accomplished and what they are actually doing now, not just by their business titles. Also use descriptive and catchy session headlines and describe what each session is about and who it is for.
5. Put the audience as close as possible to the stage in order to facilitate two-way communication.
6. Use online tools to let delegates present themselves and their interests and search for other people to meet at the conference.
7. Use big conference badges that displays the name and company of the attendee in very big letters. Also indicate field of interests, business sector etc to facilitate spontaneous conversations.
8. Concentrate the conference to one day and evening (or afternoon + evening) where everything is designed to catalyze business networking
9. Have multiple screens around the stage and the rooms, showing the speakers as well as the back channels.
10. Have a wall screen showing the agenda and a marker with the current session highlighted.
11. Provide a robust wifi-network with capacity for everybody and lots of electrical power outlets for the audience. If you cannot have electricity and tables for everybody, put it along the sides of the conference room so that bloggers are not closest to the stage.
12. Encourage questions from the audience, but only allow one, short question per person. Cut off people that are blabbing away.
13. Use online back channels, (for example Twitter), as well as blogs and discussion forums that are open from long before the conference.
14. The conference web site is the central collection place both before, during and after the conference for inspiring information, links to the speaker sites, blogs, back channels etc.
15. Encourage attendees to search for other interesting attendees before the event on the web site and set up meetings during the event.
16. Everything that happens during the conference should on the web site, including all the speaker videos, since:
    a) it will inspire many more to come the next time to experience the immersive networking and participation of the physical event.
    b) it is a useful tool for the delegates to use when they summarize and report back their experiences after the event.
    c) It increases the value for the sponsors.
17. Have mostly moderated discussions on stage with one or several speakers and show many concrete examples of what is being discussed.
18. Mix short and long talks, but don’t allow any speaker to use more than 30 minutes.
19. Encourage the delegates to blog during the conference, and put links to all the blogs on the conference web site.

See also my post on “Presentation skills Do’s and Don’ts“.

I recommend reading Seth Godin’s blog post “The new standard for meetings and conferences“.

Excerpt: “Here’s what a speaker owes an audience that travels to engage in person: more than they could get by just reading the transcript.
And here’s what a conference organizer owes the attendees: surprise, juxtaposition, drama, engagement, souvenirs and just possibly, excitement.”