Alfa Bravo

Updated June 3, 2008
Current conferences have not changed their formats much in the last 20 years, they are still mostly about one-way communication. They look like television in the 80s: a guy telling you what is happening and showing you slides or videos about it. Your role as a delegate is to sit still, perhaps take some notes and hope that the speaker will disclose something you do not know already.
These types of events could still be fun and useful socially, but it is a very inefficient way to communicate, inspire and create real learning. And it is totally out of synch with all other 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
They way most conferences today are organized:

1. The web site is used only for listing the program and signing up the delegates.
2. As soon as the conference starts, the web site is dead.
3. In better 1.0 conferences the web site links to the presenter’s slide shows a week or two after the conference, unfortunately there are just a few that still have the time then.
4. There are no speaker videos on the web site, for fear that it will make people enjoy them at home instead of paying to be at the conference. (But the TED conference made a huge success when they dared oppose this wisdom and started publishing all the speeches online)
5. They drag on for 2-3 days with a stiff dinner or drinks “party” sponsored by a company that you barely know about and where the delegates hang out with their friends.
6. They are all about key-notes, a speaker presenting to the audience, top-down, one-to-many communication with no participation from the audience other than the usual awkward questions from people that want to show off themselves.
7. 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. They are small, 50 -150 people. Smaller is usually more productive. But once per year or so it could be nice to attend a really big event, perhaps with more focus on relaxing and re-charging.
2. They use online tools to let delegates present themselves and their interests and search for other people to meet at the conference.
3. They are concentrated to one day and evening where everything is designed to catalyze business networking
4. There are multiple screens around the stage and the rooms, showing the speakers as well as the back channels
5. Consider lending all delegates a wireless laptop for feedback and input
   (you think this is expensive? look at the €260 Asus Eee mini-laptop!)
6. They use online back channels, (services like Twitter, Jaiku), as well as blogs and discussion forums that are open from long before the conference
7. 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.
8. Everything that happens during the conference is on the web site, (including all the speaker videos), since:
   1. it will inspire many more to come the next time to experience the immersive networking and participation of the physical event.
   2. it is a useful tool for the delegates to use when they summarize and report back their experiences after the event.
9. They consist mostly of moderated discussions on stage with one or several speakers, and many examples are shown of what is being discussed.
10. They encourage the delegates to blog during the conference, and linking to all the blogs on the conference web site.

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.”

                 

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

 Loading ...