Towards Conference 2.0

Following our reflexions on the value of conferences at LeWeb3 in Paris, we decided to take the opportunity to give a try to several ideas on how to enhance a conference. The main motivator was the discrepancy between the basic listing of resources involved and the potential output based on social network theories (such as Metcalf & Reed’s Laws).

Essentially, we think a lot of time is wasted and ideas unexpressed in current conferences and workshops. We provide below two illustrations of how this could be improved.

(1) Case 1: conference

Resources:

• 300 people in the audience
• 10 keynote speakers
• 1 large event space
• 1 full day

Output:

• 10 keynotes
• Random contacts established during coffee breaks and lunch

Waste:

• 300 intelligent people are silent during the keynotes
• Time is wasted if there is idle time
• Networking is very random and quite inefficient as people don’t know eachother (even if a list of participants was provided), with the exception of speakers *who already spoke* as participants would come to them.

And there we were thinking again: this is good but it feels that so much more could be coming out of this. Of course you can limit possible time wasting in events by bringing your laptop and an extra battery so you can take notes and get some work done, especially if you have WiFi coverage (which should be a basic infrastructure in events, just like water).

While taking notes, I also started chatting with text and video with a colleague back in Beijing (what I called a “geeky moment” back in November’s Web 2.0 event). The coolness factor had eroded a bit and I started thinking again: how could this be more productive? I could not find a clear way. 300 people in the audience: they must have ideas and things to share that could be useful to me as a speaker and to the audience itself.

During my speeches, I often try to poll the audience to get some idea of their knowledge and usage of various things. Raising hands this time, quite a few used Facebook and almost none had heard of Cyworld, Mixi and QQ, which are the world’s most successful and profitable SNS (while FB loses money).

A return channel is definitely needed in events. The main issue is too much openness or anonymity promotes uncivil behaviors (as Mena Trott of SixApart experienced during a speech calling for more civil communication).

There is a need for:

• return channel
• moderation of what is broadcast
• proper identity management to enhance responsibility
• nickname/anonymity to promote free speech
• maximizing the value produced during the event by creating an enhanced memory of it (video + conversations + summaries around it)
• networking can be maximized by (a) establish dialogs online during the speeches to identify interesting people (b) encourage P2P introduction (“you have to meet my friend XXX”)

(2) Case 2: workshop

The second case was the workshop organized by the XMediaLab. Already some great ideas were in place. We tried to improve on them.

Resources:

• 5 project teams
• 12 “mentors” (the keynote speakers)
• WiFi
• a bunch of laptops
• 1 full day

The day went like this:

• Project teams introduce their project
• Teams sit down
• Groups of 2-3 mentors are formed
• Each group sits down with a team and spends an hour discussing their business and exchanging ideas, then rotate

Kind of business speed dating.
Waste:

• Each project team ends up repeating themselves to each group
• Groups don’t know what other groups already said

What we did is

• Open a Skype channel with several of the “mentors”,
• Create a share Google document to collaborate in taking notes and jot down questions

Each group then worked on the section relevant to the project team it was meeting. As a result of this experiment, we ended the day with 8 pages of notes and quick ideas that all could share. Not bad for a first try.

The way to go for next time:

• Skype / Google doc are the same
• Take notes
• Write questions
• Summarize / combine questions
• Before each rotation: clean up and clarify the notes just written + read the notes from the previous group
• At the end: rework the whole document to make it nice to read & distribute