Online Tools and F2F Conferences
First, a disclaimer. I'm on the advisory board of Blogher (happening in San Jose, CA, July 30) and I am insanely excited to meet the women who are going. I am heartfelt-ly (is that a word?) greatful to go to a tech-related event where I am not one among the token woman. (Hm, and starting to be one of the "older" women. Oh. My. Gawd.)Phew. Got that off my chest. I am used to being "the other" in many parts of my life, but sometimes it is great to hang out with sisters too. I used to work in maternal child health and in that job, I used to miss hanging out with guys. So if anyone wants to take this on as a bashing thing, fuggedabout it. It is a balance thing. And know I live in a household with three other males. So gimmee a break.
OK, disclaimer done. Over the past year I've posted a variety of things about improving F2F conferences. One of my key interests is how we use online tools pre and post to make the most of precious F2F time. My model used to be discussion board/F2F/discussion board. This is a rather inward facing, private model which assumes the group wants that privacy.
Now we have more options. For example, I'm excited about how Blogher has used blogs, online community and blogfeeds to both build the event and build our cohesion as a group of participants as the event nears. Just cruising through the blogs of registratants at Bloglines | BlogHer's Blogs is mind boggling.
Blogs and tags are opening up a whole new world. I was a believer before Northern Voice, but an evangelist afterwards. The pre-event blog aggregation gave me insights into participants that would have taken teeth pulling to achieve in a discussion board. The collaborative note taking via blogs and flickr picture was astounding. (Note here: look at Gnomedex and you will see that this is starting to induce an "overwhelm" factor, but I suspect the systems will balance themselves over time).
So what is going on here?
Powerful!
Related links:
Chris Corrigan - March 2005
Ton Zylstra - March 2005
Jonnie Moore - March 2005
David Wilcox - April 2005
Me - April 2005
posted by Nancy White at 3:09 PM
2 Comments:
Nancy, I agree with almost everything you say here, and with your many posts about how to improve the "let's all get together in a big room and talk about stuff" events that many of us attend.
But I wonder about a few things here. First, while identity sharing is helpful for making the ice a bit easier to break, early scheduling of whom to hang with can lead to fewer interactions with newcomers. It might not have this effect, but I've been a newcomer at several conferences and it's daunting to break into established cliques.
A second association I have to identity sharing is to a comment the psychiatrist Wilfred Bion made to practicing analysts. Bion wrote that if an analyst knows whom he is treating when the patient enters the room, then he's treating the wrong person. I have my own mixed feelings about not-knowing, but I have learned that thinking I know who someone is can get in the way of getting to know them at all. This is a lesson I have many opportunities to re-learn.
And second, I wonder if we're getting a bit too anxious about efficiency at conferences and the preciousness of face-to-face interaction.
Nancy:
AND...a podcast i did with Johnnie Moore and Rob Paterson at:
http://www.johnniemoore.com/blog/archives/001019.php
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