This topic has generated a lot of feedback on the blog and in the Twitterverse. Here is a review of some of the talk that has happened.
“…Open up the pool of presenters beyond the same 10-20 names I see at every e-learning conference…. More voices would be a good thing and shows strength (and depth) in our industry.”
Good thought. I know that anyone who wants to present can do so, but they need to turn in an RFP and be chosen. What I don’t know is how many people turn in RFPs. Maybe Brent Schlenker, Heidi Fisk, someone at ASTD or other conferences can tell us the # of RFPs vs. the # chosen.
Another comment from Bill Brandon of the eLearning Guild agrees with me. From what I have seen, Brent Schlenker, Program Manager of DevLearn, has done the best job integrating social media, networking, etc., into the conference. Using Twitter he set up a @dl08 account, a hashtag and a fabulous Twitter board in the lobby. He also created the Pageflakes page, reaching beyond Twitter to videos, picts and all things DL08. He also added in QR codes, but I don’t think they were used very well. At least I didn’t use them – maybe others did. And wireless was great. Bill goes into more details here. Thanks for the info, Bill!
When I put out the tweet on this subject, Brent and I had a short exchange:
KevinDJones:
@bschlenker Access to the presenters before hand – a forum for each, maybe? But this steps up the lvl of responsibility of the presenters…
bschlenker:
@KevinDJones Sounds good. As a presenter I would love to engage the audience in advance. But, from experience, people don’t show up…
Ya, true. I have tried this before with a conference I co-lead and there was little (but still some) participation. Yet, still, as a presenter myself, I would love this. For example, I throw out my topics and main outline. If those who might want to attend gave suggestions or shared what they are going through I can tailor it to specific audience needs.
This was done in real-time at DevLearn08. My topic was 15 Objections and how to overcome them. After I went through the 15 I asked them for theirs. THIS is where the best learning takes place. They shared ones they were grappling with at the moment and
Dave Wilkins and I were able to give ideas of how to answer them. If we could do this ahead of time we could be that much more valuable to the attendees.
YET, at the same time, that means that the idea of a conference being a one time event needs to expand for the audience to get involved before and after. Overall, I think we are slowly moving toward that goal. But I think we can go a lot further. Instead of the one time event, the conference becomes the pinnacle event of a year’s worth of learning and sharing and interaction that is facilitated by conference organizers. Get more people involved and I bet attendance would increase.
Todd Bynum also gave us
this article. Although not completely scientific, it certainly drives home a point I think we all intuitively know. Now, we just need to take advantage it.
What do you think about this philosophy – the ongoing conference with the actual conference being the pinnacle event? Is it realistic? I really think it is, but I would need to devote more brain cycles to figuring out how to make it work.
More thoughts about improving conferences later….
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