Unconferences: But Aren't There More Dimensions?

Doc Searls recently posted that he was headed out for several 'non-unconferences' -- naming Etech (where I am right now), and SXSW as examples. Marc Canter launched into a tirade, where he stated -- accurately, I think -- that those two events are not unconferences at all, based on misreading Doc's post. He subsequently updated the post, when people pointed out that he missed the 'non'.

Perhaps coincidentally, Dave Winer wrote a post called What is an unconference?, that outlines the core features of unconferences:

This observation may turn out to be the Fundamental Law of Conventional Conferences.

The sum of the expertise of the people in the audience is greater than the sum of expertise of the people on stage.

It’s probably much worse than that. My guess is that if you swapped the people on stage with an equal number chosen at random from the audience, the new panelists would effectively be smarter, because they didn’t have the time to get nervous, to prepare PowerPoint slides, to make lists of things they must remember to say, or have overly grandiose ideas about how much recognition they are getting. In other words, putting someone on stage and telling them they’re boss probably makes them dumber. In any case it surely makes them more boring.

Turning things around

So then, how do you turn things around so that we can harness the expertise we just discovered and get a discussion moving efficiently and spontaneously without forcing the interesting conversations into the hallway. I wanted to see if there was a way to get the hallway ideas to come back into the meeting room. It turns out there was.

First, you take the people who used to be the audience and give them a promotion. They’re now participants. Their job is to participate, not just to listen and at the end to ask questions. Then you ask everyone who was on stage to take a seat in what used to be the audience. Okay, now you have a room full of people, what exactly are they supposed to do? Choose a reporter, someone who knows something about the topic of discussion (yes, there is a topic, it’s not free-form) and knows how to ask questions and knit a story together.

And, despite the fact that I seldom agree 100% with Dave, I buy in on this unconference definition.

But I don't agree with the implicit notion that there are two kinds of conferences in the world. I think there is a short list of dimensions, not just one. And here they are.

• Podium Height -- This is the dimension that Dave Winer is getting at, where the traditional distance between the 'presenter' and the 'audience' is diminished, or totally obliterated. But all conferences fall somewhere on this dimension, but as I said, this is only one dimension of what should make up 'unconferences'. The proliferation of 'camp' format get-togethers are growing becuase of the desire to have a low podium, where everyone is a presenter.
• Scale -- The size of conferences have a big, big impact on the experience. They range from tiny to huge, and the larger they get the more likely they are to diminish the involvement of the individual. But if they are too small they lack enough mass to lead to the exchange of a wide collection of different viewpoints.
• Scope -- The range of topics being covered can range from extremely narrow to almost random. Good conferences may fall almost anywhere along this dimension, based on other factors.
• Technology -- How -- if at all -- do conferences incorporate technology to help move the conference forward? Many conferences historically have zilch in this dimension, and very few do much more than telling attendees to use the IRC channel, but this is going to be a major shift in the near future, I believe.
• Social -- At many conferences, like the description about living in Texas from "Blood Simple" where "you're on your own," little or no social channeling goes on. Perhaps a free-form cocktail party. But activities that draw people together, getting them to exchange names and background, especially early in the event, can really change the experience profoundly.
• Format -- One or many tracks?
• Locale -- There is nothing worse than being stuck in a fleabag hotel, near the airport in an industrial part of town, five miles from the restaurant district. Having a supportive, attractive, and fun locale makes a big difference.
• People -- Who comes, and who speaks, makes an enormous difference. Are they smart? Are they attractive? Do they have high quality problems? Are they insightful?
• Sessions -- Are the sessions interesting? Are the presenters/keynotes/moderators smart? Compelling? Life-changing?

So every conference can be described as a tuple, with a value in each of these dimensions.

What is not so obvious is the necessary relationship between some of these dimensions. For example, dropping the height of the podium is much easier with smaller conferences. Thats why 'camps' are going to remain limited to 150 people or less. Note that this is the Dunbar constant -- the maximum number of people you can keep in your head as individuals. That means it's possible to have a complete social experience at a Camp -- you can get to meet and know everyone. But more formal conferences, with hundreds or thousands of people, will have a less complete social experience and a higher podium.

Or consider the relationship of format and size: conferences with many attendees often have multiple tracks, which leads to vastly different experiences. You talk to someone the end of the first day, and it may seem as if you have attended two conferences. This degrades the social dimension.

In the final analysis, the debate about conferences v unconferences is an inadequate reduction of the true set of dimensions involved in conferences. My personal bias is the social dimension, and those factors that have the biggest impact on it. So, I am happier in "human-scale" conferences: I hated Comdex, for example, and I avoid CES for that reason. But I can also trade sociality -- at least to some extent -- for other factors, like really smart people or great topics.

tags: dave+winer, marc+canter, doc+searls, geotag:san+diego, orielly+etech, sxsw, conferenza

Comments

[Elizabeth Albrycht]

Hi Stowe - nice to see you last week.

One big unspoken issue here: Cost. Producing conferences costs money. Often LOTS of money. When hotels are charging $200 a wireless connection in the conference rooms, technology quickly can become an issue. Food costs money, rooms cost money, etc. etc.

Until we have better options than standard hotels/conf centers with their exhorbitant tech pricing schemes, you won't get the kind of conferences that are truly possible today.