We’ve all been to seminars and conferences where the “hype and promise” exceeded the actual delivery. Being the owner of a marketing firm should have prepared me to set my expectations lower but I still get caught up in the stellar line-ups and lofty agendas that some morsel of knowledge will drop in my lap and revolutionize my way of thinking. The unconference has come about as the new way in which to conduct meetings. Imagine committing to your boss the rationale for having to spend big bucks to attend a conference, in another time zone with hotel, airfare and entertainment costs, only to have no agenda this time to convince her San Antonio makes sense in January.
Unconference Board of Ideas
Unconferences have no scheduled programs, no one knows what the sessions will be about or who will speak but the topics are guaranteed to be relevant and stellar. Relevant because attendees are tasked with coming up with the content upon their arrival and on-the-spot! One of the other great attributes attached to unconferences is that they are generally low priced or free, due to the lack of expenses associated with larger conferences. These types of conferences have been around in one form or another since the early 80’s yet are becoming more successful and consequential today. Why, because more people want free flow of ideas vs. canned and boring PowerPoint presentations coming from the same talking heads. Imagine attendees with ideas getting up and grabbing markers to scrawl ideas on sheets of construction paper as an animated moderator runs from person to person with a microphone. Subjects are thrown out as quickly as the critique and input.
Inc. Magazine recently noted that most unconferences are governed by four simple principles of Zen-like simplicity:
- Whenever it starts is the right time. Whenever it is over, it is over.
- The people who come are the right people.
- Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened.
- If you are not learning or contributing, it is your responsibility to find someplace where you are.
Refreshing… You bet!
Heres an example of a recent unconference and a loose agenda for it:
For more information check out this article by Dave Winer:
http://scripting.wordpress.com/2006/03/05/what-is-an-unconference/