Big Little ThingsWhy conferences suck
So we spent the day at the PSFK conference yesterday. And it kinda sucked. It’s not that the speakers chosen weren’t doing interesting shit. They were. And it’s not that the stuff these speakers chose to talk about wasn’t (mostly) relevant. It was. Kinda.
Part of the problem was the format. PSFK billed it as a conference. And like every conference I’ve ever attended, NO CONFERRING HAPPENED. People are either giving or quietly consuming presentations. There is no conversation. I’d rather be reading a blog. With a blog, at least you can participate in a conversation in the comment threads. And with a blog (or magazine for that matter) you can control the pacing. You can skim, and skip the boring stuff. Not so with conferences. When you’re bored, you have to wait it out.
The other problem is that while the speakers were talking about the cool and interesting shit they’d done, no one actually talked about why what they’d done mattered and, more importantly, what we could actually learn from it. That sucks because most of us came to the conference to learn stuff that will help us.
The very first speaker presented “9 themes for inspiration” (or maybe it was 11—I was already a little wobbly). Aside from most of them being super-ridiculously obvious (e.g., number 3: “look to the past”), there was no talk about how to actually do that. But there was one theme that stood out as a catalyst for inspiration: Frustration. Which is why I’m writing this post.
What seems so dumb is that we had so many cool people in the room, and we were given no way of mining all the good stuff that was in their heads. We weren’t even given a real forum to discuss the speakers’ ideas. I want someone to organize an event that is really about conversation. I want to be sitting at a round table with the attendees, and given a problem to solve or a topic to pursue. I want a creative matchmaker to filter out the idiots and make groups of people that will blow each others minds.
Anyone wanna help us put something like that together?
July 18th, 2008 at 10:10 am
One way to break this down from inside, as a presenter, is to modify your presentation slides on the fly as you are giving your talk. Ask the audience for input, even ask them to — ahem — confer with each other for a few minutes before providing that input. I did this during a recent talk and it was great. I typed items into a list on a slide as people said them, hit shift-f5, and then went through the items. It’s a balance between throwing a bunch of smart people in a room with zero structure versus making those people sit and listen without interacting. The sweet spot is in the middle, where the presenter is pushing something forward and the audience is helping and engaging.
Good luck with the filter. Let me know if you get that working.
July 18th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Would love to participate in putting something like that together!
July 18th, 2008 at 10:43 am
I was there too and had very much the same reaction.
It got me thinking about a format more like a dinner party: invite a smaller group, like 10-15 people, eat some charcuterie, drink some beers and have some conversations. Maybe a little show-and-tell. Mix up the invite list and have people filter in and out over time.
July 21st, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I think you should organize it. It’s exactly the kind of thing you do: show ‘em how it’s done.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Hey there,
Sounds like you want to come to a DevHouse! Most of it’s hacking, but there’s cool stuff like Lightning Talks, where you get 5 minutes to talk about something, and then everyone gets to talk to you afterward about it all.
Some pretty epic stuff has come out of these things, so if you’re ever in town for one, you should stop by, and conversate. : )
September 5th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
“I want someone to organize an event that is really about conversation. I want to be sitting at a round table with the attendees, and given a problem to solve or a topic to pursue. I want a creative matchmaker to filter out the idiots and make groups of people that will blow each others minds.”
That is interesting…it sounds like you were talking about Project M!
September 5th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Nuzi:
Nah. Project M isn’t really like that.
It’s a young design student’s first inkling that maybe design isn’t just about making something pretty.
September 7th, 2008 at 4:59 am
I know. Project M’s point was not about conversation…but Project M would not be what it is if were not for the many different interactions and “blowing my mind away” conversations between everyone. what I think is interesting about what you said is how it sounded similar to my experience at M…from my perspective.