This year, WIRED is sponsoring a one day unconference, WIREDcamp, at Showcase Ontario. I think it is realy cool and plan to attend. But I can see a lot of people scratching their heads out there?
“What the heck is an unconference?” they are asking. And “Why should I take a whole day out of the great learning opportunities that Showcase provides to attend one? Especially since there is absolutely no indication of what I will learn there, what value I will receive!” Or “How can I make the case to come into Toronto for a day to attend this “unconference” when I don’t know what it is or what I will get from it?”
So let me explain a little about what an “unconference” is. Hopefully, it will give you some idea of:
- why unconferences are so cool
- why the organizers couldn’t list the topics and the takeaways in the program
- what are some of the things you might learn there
What is an “unconference” and why are they so cool?
There are a few ways of describing this. The easiest is to say that an unconference is the “2.0″ made physical/real world and applied to a conference. (I say it that way just to get Darren’s goat.)
Another way is to use mathematical notation for the geeks out there:
unconference:conference sessions::facebook:social relationships::flickr:photographs::YouTube:videos.
We can think of “old style” websites as ones where someone gathered content they thought interesting and others came to look, and “new style” websites as ones that are really a platform for visitors to bring their own content. Similarly, “old style” conferences are ones where someone gathered content they thought people might be interested in and others came to attend sessions and “new style” ones are really a platform for particpants to bring their own content – an unconference. The unconference provides the structure and infrastructure and the participants provide the interest and content.
At many conferences I’ve been to, the chief value lies in meeting other people who are working on the same sorts of things and the most productive time is that spent in conversation between sessions. Another way to describe an “unconference” is to say that it takes these, the best parts of a conference that tend to get sidelined, and makes them the centre of the attraction.
Why the organizers couldn’t list the topics and the takeaways in the program
Now that you know what an unconference is, it should be clear why they couldn’t list the topics in the program. The topics aren’t what they are providing. They come from you. At the beginning of the day they set out a big grid with time slots down the left side and locations for break away sessions listed along the top. Anyone who wants to lead (or facilitate) a session can put the session title in the grid. People can go to wehatever interests them (although if you’ve put a session up, you have to be threre, of course).
Since the grid is filled out by the participants on the day of the conference, it’s plainly impossible to list the topics of discussion in advance.
What are some of the things you might learn there?
Despite the fact that the agenda for the day hasn’t been set, there are some things that you can count on being on the agenda. All the e-Gov web folk will be there. You’ll notice that there are no regular Showcase sessions on OPSpedia and the other things we’ve been working on. This is your chance to hear about them, ask your questions, and find out where things are going. We are also expecting a good turnout from the Strategic New Media Office in Cabinet Office Communications. I expect they might also be filling some squares on the grid (I know they’ve been doing some research into best practices around blogging – perhaps we can prevail upon them to lead a session on that).
And if none of these catches your fancy, WIREDcamp is the one place you can be sure that whatever is most important to you gets put on the schedule for a session. All you have to do is put it there yourself!
See you at WIREDcamp! (Register now while spots are still available.)
