I’m heading to Bloggercon this weekend. Feel free to drop me a note or post a comment if you’ll be anywhere near Stanford this weekend and want to connect in person.
The thing that has me excited about this conference is that it is an unconference. From the site:
BloggerCon is an unusual conference. We don’t have speakers, panels or an audience. We do have discussions and sessions, and each session has a discussion leader.
The discussion leader
Think of the discussion leader as a reporter who is creating a story with quotes from the people in the room. So, instead of having a panel with an audience we just have people. We feel this more accurately reflects what’s going on. It’s not uncommon for the audience at a conference to have more expertise than the people who are speaking.
The discussion leader is also the editor, so if he or she feels that a point has been made they must move on to the next point quickly. No droning, no filibusters, no repeating an idea over and over.
The discussion leader can also call on people, so stay awake, you might be the next person to speak!
And, on the process:
At the beginning of each session, the leader talks between five and fifteen minutes to introduce the idea and some of the people in the room. Then she’ll point to someone else. She may ask a couple of questions to get them going, then she’ll point to someone else, then someone else, then make a comment, ask a question, etc. Each person talks for two to three minutes. Long enough to make a point.
This is the third time this conference has been run, so it looks like the idea and format are going to stick. And it looks like yet another manifestation of the emerging idea that the current model of one-way, company-to-customer monolgoue may have a challenger.