Ethan Zuckerman from the global voices Network is talking here at Net2. He shared a story about one of their bloggers in China who was arrested…instead of ‘advocating for him’ or speaking for him they ‘pointed’ at what his sister was blogging about. To do this well he suggests that we support people having

• Access to publishing tools
• The knowledge of how to use them
• Translation
• Contextualize
• Amplify

Theses principles are a part of what unconferencing is about too.

Technorati Tags: Net2, unconference

The Business 2.0 article in the June issue about unconferences has three steps listed (it is not on their website yet but GutsyPinay blogged it)… it skips over very important elements needed to make a sucessful events.

How to host an unconference – oversimplified version:

1. Create a wiki
2. Find sponsors
3. Post author harrison Owen’s Law of Two Feet: any person neither learning from nor contributing to a group discussion must walk to another one.

Having put on a few unconferences myself (the Internet Identity Workshop that I co-produce and facilitate and MashupCamp that I facilitate) I thought I would outline the simple steps to host a successful DIY event.

I also must say it is disturbing to see the Law of Two Feet decontextualized out of the context of Open Space Technology’s principles and practices. Open Space Technology and the face-to-face process to create the agenda has played a critical role in making the best unconferences so successful.

Here are at least Eleven Crucial Elements to making a Great Unconference:

1) Think of a compelling topic that could used some focused attention by smart people working in the field.

2) Bounce the idea off some influencers and innovators in that topic area to see if they like the idea of bringing people to talk about it more in depth over a few days. [These are like speakers but not - you can tell others they are coming and others will too]

3) Scout for Venues. Many unconferences happen in companies offices over the weekend. It is good to have a space that has a large open space for all the participants to be together and breakout rooms. Good things to have include

• Wifi + ethernet (with lots of bandwidth),
• being allowed to bring food in (the conference industry is full of venues that don’t allow you to bring in outside food – then they charge you $40 for box lunches)
• White boards – you can improvise with paper if there are none
• Projectors (you can invite attendees to bring some if the venue can’t supply all you need)

4) Craft an invitation that will inspire a range of people who could benefit from discussing the topic coming. (run it by the first invitees)

5) Put up a wiki for the event. Post the invitation on the front page. The wiki is used to share who is coming, post suggested topics, Sponsors, Directions to the venue, Nearby hotels etc. As the event happens the participants will use the wiki to document the sessions, links to podcasts, links to blog posts about the event.

6) Set up registration. If you are going to ask people to pay a little something up front set up a registration page with paypal. Fees for an unconference should be at the level that involves ‘chiping in to cover costs.’

7) Invite sponsorship to support the event amongst companies who play a role in the topic you are covering. Sponsors get community links, thank you’s and build community good will. It is a good value for the money – traditional conferences sponsorships can run between $10,000 and $100,000. You can buy 100 folks a breakfast at an unconference for $800 or dinner at a restaurant for $3000.
Get the word out. Announce it to lists that are related to the topic area. Ping bloggers who write about the subject – invite them ask them to blog about it. Encourage those who are coming to announce that on their own blogs.

9) Figure out the food.

• Have abundant snacks we bought boxes of fruit from the wholesale market and nuts etc from Trader Joes.
• We produced breakfast – begals, cream cheese, fruit, yogurt.
• We bought the drinks for breaks and lunch from costco.
• Lunch it is good to get catered by family owned restaurants you can budget about $10 per lunch. Asian food is usually good this way or a sandwich buffet.
• Consider how you will support caffeination – we had a barista come in for about $800 a day.
• Find a good restaurant near your venue plan a menu and a fixed price per person. We did $20 per person.

10) Sculpt the event. Choose participatory process that will support the group address the topics of concern in the community.

Use the Open Space Technology methodology to create the agenda (it is described in detail below)

Besides open space there are some conversation modalities that could help structure a conversation around critical issues. These include Fishbowl, The World Cafe, Dynamic Facilitation or Appreciative Inquiry.

Support people being able to introduce themselves to one another – they can just stand up and say their name and where they are from or they can play a game like a strong wind blows.

Consider having a structured 1/2 day before the unconference part to orient newbies.

Spectrograms can be a great morning activity in open space to mix things up and let you get a sense for how the community feels about certain issues.

Consider having a visual journalist/graphic recorder or a dialogue mapper to create shared display of the community conversation.

11) Event Day. Create a welcoming inviting space for people.

Have name tags that people write themselves. As a bonus let people identify themselves with stickers from the various communities they belong to.

Create the Agenda using the Open Space Technology methodology. Participants are then invited to come to the front of the room and write the name of there session topic and their name on a 8.5×11 paper. They announce the title of their session to the whole room and then post it on a schedule on the wall. Then once all the sessions have been posted the community standing in front of the schedule wall attendee move sessions around. Sessions are about an hour long with 15 min breaks and an hour for lunch.

The day closes with the all participants gathering in a circle one room and sharing for 20 -30 min the highlights of the day.

Encourage Wikiing of Sessions

Encourage Tagging of Blog posts and photos – Define the tag event initials and then the year is one way.

Encourage Podcasting of sessions and interviews with attendees

Create space for spontaneous interaction
Have a community space that gives people the freedom to meet their needs for connection and interaction

Follow the conversation about the event in the blogosphere by searching for the title of the event and taggs.

Technorati Tags: camps, community, conference, evolutionary, iiw, MashupCamp, Open space, unconference

This is how I explained open space recently to support a partner explaining to their board what it was:

Open Space Technology is an energizing and emergent way to organize an agenda for a conference. Those coming to the event can post on a wiki ahead of time topics they want to present about or hope others will present about. The wiki can also be used to share who is coming because we know great people who will be there and it is the attendees who have a passion to learn and contribute to the event that will make it.

The event begins with face to face schedule making which allows for emerging developments in this rapidly moving field to be covered. The opening includes time for attendees introduce themselves and orient to the whole group. Participants are then invited to come to the front of the room and write the name of there session topic and their name on a 8.5×11 paper. They announce the title of their session to the whole room and then post it on a schedule on the wall. Then once all the sessions have been posted the community standing in front of the schedule wall attendee move sessions around. Sessions are about an hour long with 15 min breaks and an hour for lunch. The day closes with the all participants gathering in a circle one room and sharing for 20 -30 min the highlights of the day.

Technorati Tags: conference, unconference, Web2.0

I was surfing around on sphere and found out about this unconference happening right now in Asilomar – OVERLAP.

From Upcoming.org regarding the Online Community ‘Camp‘

raines wrote:
One difference from the traditional ‘unconference’ format is the $200 price tag. The conference website is kinda light on ideas, and doesn’t yet link to a wiki so I can see who else is involved, before I register.

tedr wrote:
It’s weird that ‘Camps’ are now starting to cost as much as a rented server for the month. I really like the event idea, but I think there should be a different name between Conference and Camp as Camp w definded to be used as a ‘chip in to cover expenses’ event.
Woof and bark

fotogail wrote:
Yep, that’s what folks in the ongoing forum on online communities at The WELL said, too. Camp should mean nearly free or we’re seeing serious terminology creep. Fair point. I have enjoyed their invite-only Online Community Summit events so much that I am willing to pay for this one on the hunch that it will be of similar quality, no matter what it is called.It’s the lack of travel and hotel costs for me as a local that will mean I can afford this (as opposed to driving, airfare, possible hotel plus free event elsewhere).
Mon 24 Apr 2006 at 12:27 PM

The debate about what is a camp erupted a bit after Mashup Camp. Some people got upset that Doug and Dave had not been to a camp so how could they call one or lead it. I am not sure that people who have never been to an unconference or camp should lead them without inviting people who have led them to advise and help facilitate. For MashupCamp Both Mary Hodder (an advisor) and myself (the facilitator) attended the original Bar Camp. I had attended attended many open space events and lead the IIW in that process.

I thought given the comments about the Online Community ‘Camp’ that we could consider the attributes of the various events and discern more about camp creep.
Here are some of the BarCamp attributes:
Bar Camp happened to be a space that was not ‘exclusive’ (like Foo Camp was where it was Tim O’Reilly’s invite list).

• It was Free – anyone could come for any length of time.
• You could hack into the wee hours and camp in a tent or just on the floor in Social Text’s offices.
• They broadcast audio and video live to include people who could not be there in person.
• They invited sponsorships from any company or individual who wanted to make a particular part of the day happen – $200 for breakfast or $100 for a coffee break.
• Food came from Costco and included lots of ‘geek delights’
• An open public wiki that the whole world could access and edit.
• A public list of attendees on the wiki
• The list of proposed topic ideas on the wiki contributed to by anyone.
• A live IRC Channel open to the world.
• Schedual was made by writing on a wall where all session that people want to have happen can.
• A long list of writing
• Is a ‘community mark’ usable by others doing a similar model
• Had T-shirts for free

Mashup Camp attributes:

• was Free
• Had corporate sponsors that took care of food – each covering catering for a meal or break.
• A barista paid for by one of the sponsors
• Schedule made via open space methodology where all session that people want to have happen can.
• Demos were done via Speed Geeking sessions
• Voting for the best mashup
• Different roles were identified on badges – Masher, API provider, enabler,
• A public list of who was attending
• A public list of suggested topics to post to ahead of time
• Had t-shirts for free

The Internet Identity Workshop that I produce has never claimed to be a camp but is hosted in the same spirit of openness and community accessibility. We had:

• APublic wiki where who is coming and suggested topics are listed and editable by all
• A public IRC channel
• A low fee = for 2.5 days students $75, independents $150, corporate $250.
• Invitation for Sponsorship from companies in the space – they covered cost for several meals including two dinners for everyone.
• Healthy snacks available all day (we produced our own)
• Barista serving coffee all day
• Had shirts of all kinds and mugs on Cafe Press

The Online Community ‘Camp’ attributes:

• has a closed wiki where only attendees can get to (and even then many can’t access it)
• Has no IRC Channel
• Has a very high fee for one day $195
• Sessions were limited to 9 total via ‘pitching and voting’
• No list of attendees posted publicly
• A fixed list of potential topics not editable by attendees ahead of time

There has been a lot of discussion about what makes a Camp a Camp.

Technorati Tags: BarCamp, camps, conference, iiw, MashupCamp, occ2006, puppy, unconference

I am at the Online Community ‘Camp’ today. It was ‘inspired’ by Mashup Camp (where i facilitated) and the ‘emerging “open space” conference format’. Open Space is hardly “emerging” having been invented 20y ago and evolving since then. The organizers tried a format quite different then open space or camps where everyone gets to put forward their topics and no one gets ‘cut’.

Here people got to ‘pitch sessions’ and then there was voting about which topics to do. It was frustrating to watch because more then 1/2 of the topics got cut out of the schedule (there were only 9 slots). The topic I put forward along with someone else – Open Standards for Identity and Datasharing are critical issues and highly relevant to online community even if only 15 of the folks voted for it to be one of there three choices they got to vote for. I put a session on at lunch an only 4 people came (well 5 one joined at the very end).

I totally understand that it is hard for organizers who have never been to an open space event to know what it is, how it works and to trust the process. Reading about it in a news article without a description without details is not enough. I just wrote this description for a partner on an upcoming Open Space event.

Open Space Technology is an energizing and emergent way to organize an agenda for a conference. Those coming to the event can post on a wiki ahead of time topics they want to present about or hope others will present about. The wiki can also be used to share who is coming because we know great people who will be there and it is the attendees who have a passion to learn and contribute to the event that will make it.

The event begins with face to face schedule making which allows for emerging developments in this rapidly moving field to be covered. The opening includes time for attendees introduce themselves and orient to the whole group. Participants are then invited to come to the front of the room and write the name of there session topic and their name on a 8.5×11 paper. They announce the title of their session to the whole room and then post it on a schedule on the wall. Then once all the sessions have been posted the community standing in front of the schedule wall negotiates the schedule and moves sessions around. Sessions are about an hour long with 15 min breaks and an hour for lunch. The day closes with the all participants gathering in a circle one room and sharing for 20 -30 min the highlights of the day.

I am committed to writing more how to’s about aspects of the process Open Space Technology Methodology – particularly when running them in the Information Technology/Tech/Geek context. I found this post about what open space is about on a deeper level from practitioners who have been doing it for years.

• Appreciating
• Inviting Choice
• Supporting Connection
• Making Good

I hope Jim will consider really doing open space for the next camp.

Technorati Tags: camps, conference, identity, occ2006, Open space, unconference

There is a great post up by YABOU that summarizes my survey of unconference methods.
Read More…

David Pollard’s thoughts on unconferences…in this post he also puts forward 7 guidelines about what makes an unconference.

So I’m intrigued by the idea of Unconferencing. There is a reason why people like conferences with a lot of unscheduled time between sessions, and why the hallway discussions are frequently more animated than the discussions in the conference rooms. Some people believe it’s because the quality of speakers is inadequate (specifically because they lack the ability to make complex, important subjects understandable and interesting), but I’m inclined to believe it’s more because most people get more value out of one-on-one and small-group conversations with both peers and experts, where they get to discuss the issues and get answers in the context of their particular situation. This is the same reason that students often get much more value out of personal coaching than they do from listening to lectures.

hat has changed the equation substantially is the sheer amount of free reading material that’s available online on just about any imaginable subject. The self-initiated learner can now often learn more in an hour’s online research than in an hour listening to the most profound and articulate expert. And while some don’t have the skill or interest in doing such research, and are willing to pay money to hear someone step them through something they could teach themselves for free in the same time, the freeing of information has raised expectations and lowered the satisfaction of many audiences with formal conference presentations and panels.

At one extreme, Unconferences can be totally unscheduled meetups, with no set topics (just an umbrella theme), self-organized in real time using Open Space or some similar technique. You spend the time talking about the issues you want to talk about with others who want to talk about the same issues. Everyone is an equal participant, and everyone needs to take the responsibility to prepare for the sessions by pre-reading and thinking in advance about the subjects.

My talk at BayCHI on Tuesday went really well. reinventnow: daily reinvention of who we are wrote about their experience. He talks about a pattern that did not make it out to the whole group. The fact that meeting people at conferences can lead one meet those people and then even to relocate to their cities. I posted over on my other blog about what we would do…here is that post.

First I will do picture filled “tour” of unconfernce processes and patterns for about 1/2 an hour and then answering some questions.

The irony of being asked to speak about designing unconferences is not lost on me because conferences have experts or distinguished speakers share their knowledge broadcast style to an audience. I decided that it would only be appropriate to do what happens at unconferences tap into the knowledge is in the room because the BayCHI community has been to many 100’s of events, conferences, workshops, meetings. They know more collectively then I do.

We will use the discovery process of Appreciative Inquiry to share the knowledge in the room about effective and inspiring process at conferences.

The audience will divide up into dyads and answer these questions:
Think of a time in your entire conference going experience, when have you felt most alive, most inspired and most proud. What was it that made it a high point? Please tell that story. Follow up question What seemed particularly effective or innovative?

Then we will gather in small groups of 6-10:
First tell each others story to the others in the group.
2. Merge lists of key qualities and circumstances of peak (un)conference going experiences.
3. Pick from this list the top two elements.

Then with the whole audience will hear from each group the key elements they found in their group.

BJ a Dialogue Mapper will capture the whole audience participation. I will collect the papers that have the merged list of each of the groups and will post them likely on the dCamp wiki.

I have been to OSCON for two years. Since my first event I have become more and more involved in different technical communities. Nonprofit Tech, Identity Gang, CivicSpace Drupal Developers/Businesses, and I have been to a lot of meetings as part of my participation in these communities. The opportunity to meet face to face is one that can often be rare and should be taken advantage of. I put together this proposal to support open source leaders who host face to face meetings to learn more about the process options available to them. I hope to cover at least 10 different ones. Here is a link to the workshop monday July 24th.