The Unconference idea

I’m looking at making this year’s meeting a little be less formally structured than most years.  There is no formal program, for example.

What I would like to do is this:

1. At the start of each day, have everyone with a talk briefly describe what they want to talk about.
2. Have people indicate their interest in the different talks.
3. Run the talks that most people are interested in.

In this, I am tipping my hat to the Unconference idea and their earlier counterpart, Open Space Technology.  Unconferences are semi-structured and participant driven.  They recognize that there is a large body of knowledge sitting in the audience, as well as standing on the stage. When I heard about the idea, I thought that it suited the small, friendly group that we have, so I thought that I might try it out.

There are some disadvantages to this.  It is a bit hard to go to your boss and say “I’d like to go to this great ANZDEG 2009 thing” when you can’t point to a list of speakers or topics.  But mostly, if you have been before, you know the sorts of topics that will come up.  If you haven’t been before, let me know and I will ring your boss and convince her how good it will be.

Each year we try to balance technical discussion with non-technical discussion.  We’ve done this in different ways – break out groups, different streams, different days.  I’m hoping that this less structured format will be another way to strike a balance.

And, of course, I’m trying to reduce the work involved in organizing ANZDEG. The easier it is to organise, the more likely it is that people will volunteer to organise next year (I hope).

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