UNCONFERENCES, ANYONE?

Betsy McKenzie [Suffolk University Law Library, Boston, Massachusetts, USA] has a great post on Out of the Jungle on unconferences. She refers to the blog, Unconference, by Connie Crosby and a book about them being written by wiki, which is so like an Unconference.

What is an unconference? UCs are put together on short planning schedules, through brainstorming with a group of “influencers and innovators” in the field. They might solve some of the problems we all have with the large association-wide conferences, such as:

Programs are selected so far in advance that new issues aren’t covered. All the sessions you want to go to are at the same time. Unofficial sessions can’t be scheduled at the last minute. Too many panels and “talking heads.”

Connie Crosby [WeirFoulds LLP, Toronto, Ontario, Canada] wrote, “an unconference is more informal, nimble and cheap than any conference I’ve been to. The mantra that drives them is the Rule of Two Feet: Any person not either learning from or contributing to a discussion, should use their two feet to move to another group discussion. The other, huge difference, is that the discussions are much more inclusive -- the audience is part of the presentation. They also help shape the agenda and sign up the day of the conference in a discussion session.”

Unconference: The Book is due to be published this year and is being written collaboratively with the use of a wiki. It started in India, but authors are invited from elsewhere. See the wiki for more information and a table of contents.

URLs:

Betsy’s post: http://outofthejungle.blogspot.com/2007/06/introducing-

unconferences.html
Crosby’s post: http://www.slaw.ca/2007/06/01/unconference-the-book/

Wiki book: http://www.unconference.info/wiki/index.php?title=Book