Full Circle Associates

Once you start looking for thinking on events, conferences and gatherings, POOF, there are tons of them. I realized I had about 10 draft posts, all with event links, so I'm gathering them all here.

Call for KM Europe "Fringe Event" proposals.

Rick Segal, whose name and blog keep showing up in conversations and posts about events lays it out in TEDGLOBAL vs. well, everything else. I won't quote. You gotaa read the whole thing! He includes kudos to Chris Pirillo for Gnomedex 5.0 which I missed, even though it was in my home town. (How to say no to Italy? No way!) Wait, I came back and edited. This is a great quote:

As a speaker? Refuse to do talks where you don’t have 50% of your time being able to engage 75% of the people. Tall order, I know, but start there. You are driving the bus when it comes to content and you can make changes that matter.

Ed Mitchell's review of Gurteen conference 17-18 June 2005 - 01 Jun 2005. Take a look at his session by session review of how who was invited, format and facilitation impacted the event. I loved particularly the unexpected exercise on space and knowledge which challenged the participants expectations and actions.

Jim Cumming's story of how he put together a gathering of doctoral students and business folks with a thought leader - all organized through email. Note his emphasis on trust.

"1. EFFICIENCY—the entire exercise was negotiated and planned electronically and executed in just over two months—a very short period of time to engage an international expert with 80 local practitioners.

2. TRUST—Etienne, Shawn, Mark and myself would not meet in person until Monday 11 July—so a high level of trust was established on the part of all stakeholders during the planning stage (Shawn and Mark were the only group members who had met face-to-face and had worked together previously).

3. CONVERGENCE—the theory of CoP was enacted in practice in several ways during this exercise—especially in relation to the convergence of experience, competence and technology.

4. IMPACT—it was interesting to observe the pre-existing level of awareness about CoP in Canberra across education, management (e.g. knowledge, information, business), health and environment sectors—to mention just a few—along with a desire for ongoing dialogue. It was also possible to detect a ‘ripple effect’ emerging over a coffee or a glass of wine in a number of conversations that followed each seminar. "

Scoble: Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger

I far prefer the "unconference" style of things -- at least partially. But, on the other hand, at some conferences you just simply MUST make the trains run on time. Why? Imagine the chaos if we allowed the PDC to run the way the single-room 300-attendee Reboot conference ran?

Doc: Pro and Conferences

Two new pieces suggest new ways of looking at, and conducting, industry conferences: Toward the DIY Conference and Hacking the Conference Machine. The former sources Rick Segal's excellent dispatch from TEDGLOBAL. The latter sources the next Digital Hollywood agenda. (Dig the topics: "brand" appears thirteen times, "consumer" eleven times and "experience" five times.)

Drawing folks from Different Genders via Rachel Clarke (yes, human behavior is an issue!)

Comparing last night's get together with one that took place earlier, where Robert Scoble was the speaking guest, there were definitely differences. Last night had a far higher proportion of women, I'm guessing attracted to the Marketing label instead of the Geek one. I saw far fewer cameras and far more notebooks - a lot of people took notes throughout Seth's speach. I'd even go as far as saying the dress sense was more 'business' like than previously. Rick Segal and I were discussing doing a straw poll about why people attended and how they heard about it - but we did not really get much further than just discussing and never took the poll.

One thing that was completely the same was the behaviour a the start of the evening, where everyone stayed on one half of the room and did not move past an invisible barrier provided by a couple of columns. So, everyone huddled, a little cramped at times and did not break the line until food was served.

And yes, Bill, I still owe a response on your comment. I'm making my delay public as I bet others run into this. My procrastination for thinking more deeply is in full gear. Links are easier. That doesn't make it right!


conferences, unconferences, events