The great news is that you’re (a) thinking in different directions and most importantly (b) thinking about the guest/attendee/customer. Thanks for including us in the conversation and for being transparent with your thoughts/questions. Bravo!

I have a problem I have with the unconference as a model for Like Minds as we have a range of expertise in the room. In my opinion, when there is a standard competency in a subject, then we can have an unconference, and people can learn from the naunces of others work.

But when there is a range of newbies through to experts, I think the most value comes from employing some unconference, as well as some person->people speaking from the front – as well as moderated panels, etc etc

What I do think, from reading Jeff’s previous posts, is that if we keep it snappy, then we can hold attention and not force people. We always have a 20 minute keynote, followed by a 20 minute panel that then discusses the keynote and provides more examples. And because we start the conference online months in advance, we’ve been able to crowd source the questions that people want already.

Thanks for the encouragement. I’ll be commenting here more, now that I’ve been listening for a while.

Not that you asked me but I think you are on the right track. Rather than making your conference FOR attendees, make it WITH them. It’s a minor semantic difference that has huge ramifications.

The opposite of the “1950s model” is The Unconference. A conference completely driven by participants for participants. That’s the bleeding edge. I don’t see our industry moving to that extreme, but I think we can learn much from them.

Social media will play an important role in how we do events today. Social interaction will define how events are run tomorrow. Pay attention to how people are connecting and provide them a platform to do the same around your topic(s) of interest.

My humble 2 cents

I’m doing this type of thing at the moment with my conference, Like Minds, in Feb.

The subject is “people-to-people” – the antithesis of a person-to-people, one person drums information into many, 1950s kind of model.

Jeff your writing is like a glass of water – its so refreshing. And it helps me know that I’m on track.

I agree that Social Conferencing is about the before, after, and inbetween session time just as much as the sessions themselves (hence, people to people). I also think that this understanding can be progresses, using Social Media, to the place where the conference begins way before the ‘touch point’ of everyone being in the room together.

Like Minds is on Friday Feb 26th – but every Friday leading up to it in 2010 we are interviewing speakers and having discussion. The idea here is two fold: 1. to begin the conference now, and 2. to flatten the hierarchy and get people talking to the speakers, rather than having this awe abotut them.

Trust I’m on the right track!

Thanks for adding to the discussion. I love that image that Tart Hunt uses of the bull horn turned around and attendees talking about us. So true. Great thought too that we should look to social technology and social media as a model for events of the future.

I appreciate your point on the creative revolution. Quality and service, once differentiators are now merely a cost of entry so where does that leave business to seperate itself? Creative services is the answer. Stop hiring MBAs and start hiring MFAs. Period.

Final thought Jeff. I think we (event/tradeshow industry) should we looking to social technology and social media as a model for events of the future. Let the community build the event, make it relevant to them and, (scary for show managers) let them help MANAGE the event. Engage them and they’ll deliver more passion than any show manager.