Journey of the Unconferences

Assuming you have been in the loop, you have noticed or attended a number of “unconferences”. An unconference is a new trick that people of learned, or at least that people have learned again, to meet, greet and share information. An unconference strips away the preparation and glitz of a conference back to a chaotic meeting place, and bypasses the hospitality industry’s high service/high cost offerings ($15 per guest for coffee service). Unconferences are growing in diversity and longevity.

The journey of unconferences unfolds with repeated occasions of each unconference. The first occasion of an unconference begins with the pure chaos of a few organizers and infectious altruism. The next time that unconference is held, it usually has a few organizing guidelines and a following. Best practices evolve the conference with each successive event, and new ideas start facing some resistance to adoption. If the resistance becomes to high, someone else starts a competing unconference.

A general consensus has arisen concerning the need for a central conference board, the need for snacks and drinks, the transition into a party or bar chat, a basic infrastructure of a wiki and wifi, and a dozen other small concerns. I propose some additional ideas for the journey.

Badges

Badges challenge participants to mingle and talk to each other.

SuperHappyDevHouse had the best badges that I’ve seen. Each badge had a discrete number of ambiguous color coded interests. For example, a red sticker meant either that you liked the Perl language or that you liked Zombies. Having some information was great for building common ground and providing an excuse for less extroverted people to chat. Having too detailed information tends to limit conversations. All unconferences could learn from this ambiguous structure.

A second item, a structure, is to number badges. Episodes of The Prisoner aside, it would be convenient to have a large number on each badge tied to contact information in a wiki and a mailing list manager. It makes it trivial for session attendees or hallway conversations to continue their conversations; just record the badge numbers. There permission system is still there: only those who choose to update the wiki can be contacted by the badge number.

Printing Station

A printing station improves the signage at an unconference. Hand written notices abound about session topics, meeting places, new guidelines or rules, sign-up sheets, and more. A single computer and printer that allowed people to print would eliminate a lot of the useless confusion and foster useful confusion.

Note Taking Template

Most sessions have one or more bloggers. Providing a template for note taking would improve the quality and usability of the resulting notes. A good template would include both the conference tag words as well as tag word for the particular session. Having all blog posts start with the name of the session and link back to the wiki is good, as well as writing down the badge numbers of attendees to catch up on missed connections. Single page blogs, like lists of links or short write-ups, can be printed out and posted opposite the program grid.

Session Classifications

While not usually one to impinge on the informality of sessions, I believe sessions should provide a smidge more information to conference participants. I would like each session to have an icon or keyword to differentiate between the type of session the poster expects. Unconference sessions break into Prepared Presentations, Prepared Tutorials, Thinking About Hard Problems, and others. This lets people vote with their heads before voting with their feet.

So here are some improvements for organizers of unconferences. I hope the journey of unconferences leads to a full spectrum of conferences for more efficient merry making, information transfer, networking, and business.