Interactive Events/Conferences - What could/should we do?

Let's tap in the collective brainpower of the members of this conversation. What is the alternative to the "talking heads" and formal 20-30 minute presentations of papers at conferences, posters, demonstrations and the predetermined and limited range of pre-conference workshops. Should we throw the baby out with the bathwater, or combine some of the old with the new? What new conference/meeting formats could/should we have that help small/large numbers of people share ideas/create new knowledge together? How do we maintain academic rigor and at the same time create engaging events/inter-activities. For example,the East Side Institute's Annual Improv conferences, Performing the World, ensure that most people are presenters, performers and participants and have a direct experience of the ideas, methods, theories etc. in the fields of psychology, education, social therapy, community development, cultural studies, business development etc. yet the conferences have only a minor technological component. So how should we change the way we communicate and interact as well as the technologies of interaction?

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Julie Mueller on February 18, 2009 at 2:40pm: Hi John, how timely! I was just about to begin a planning meeting for a class tomorrow in which we are using de Bono's Six Hats method to organize a discussion amongst 70 pre-service teacher education candidates. I would like a copy of the process you presented in your post. Take care, Julie; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jared Stein on February 18, 2009 at 2:57pm: Edward Tufte suggests that all presentations begin by immediately stating "What the problem is, who cares, and what your solution is.".

Problem, relevance, solution. I should know in the first 5 minutes if I want to stick around for the next 40. As a presenter if I state these three things straight off, and half my audience leaves, I won't feel bad--I'll realize my session title/description was not accurate.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John Findlay on February 18, 2009 at 2:57pm: Julie,

If you would like to go to www.anyzing.com/LearninginTeams and download the Java applet....and click on the Templates button on the middle button bar.....you will find a host of question sequences to choose from. Or alternatively, here's a link to a manual which lists all the example questions sequences in 12 key learning areas for teachers or students to facilitate their own learning activities.ftp://203.25.66.254/Learning_In_Teams.pdf. The De Bono Six Hats method is copyright material so you would have to go to one of their official websites for information about that. Feel free to use the questions from my post.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Cynthia Hollingsworth on February 18, 2009 at 3:29pm: I'm going to take the "opposite side of the road" approach here and ask your community collectiveness how we can possibly manage to keep up with all of this. I want to be involved in communities such as Ning, create and participate in more interactive conferences and discussions, but between my "she's being paid to do this job" activities and some semblance of family and personal activities, how can any of us manage to e-mail, post, tweet, read, podcast, vodcast, chat, become a virtual world avatar, with any sort of depth without going completely mad? At least my e-mail is intrusive and I must at the least read, file, and/or delete messages, but if I were to just enter each blog, wiki, world, community that I would like to learn from all I would have time to do is click my mouse, I think. Now we're talking about pre, current, and post conferences, too. At what point (or have we already surpassed it?) do we lose the positive values of these tools?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Julie Mueller on February 18, 2009 at 3:36pm: Thanks so much John, I have changed my approach to my presentation at SITE completely after taking part in this discussion. I am transitioning from Psychology conferences to Education focused conferences and they are really different beasts. take care, Julie; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Julie Mueller on February 18, 2009 at 3:39pm: This point is well taken Cynthia. I was just about to click the "stop notification" button to this discussion because my e-mail box was overflowing with notifications of activity, when I read John's reference to de Bono's Thinking Hats. He has sent me (Just in Time) some very useful links and my class tomorrow will benefit greatly. Now I'm conflicted between managing the information overload and missing out on stimulating professional discussion.

Cynthia Hollingsworth said:
I'm going to take the "opposite side of the road" approach here and ask your community collectiveness how we can possibly manage to keep up with all of this. I want to be involved in communities such as Ning, create and participate in more interactive conferences and discussions, but between my "she's being paid to do this job" activities and some semblance of family and personal activities, how can any of us manage to e-mail, post, tweet, read, podcast, vodcast, chat, become a virtual world avatar, with any sort of depth without going completely mad? At least my e-mail is intrusive and I must at the least read, file, and/or delete messages, but if I were to just enter each blog, wiki, world, community that I would like to learn from all I would have time to do is click my mouse, I think. Now we're talking about pre, current, and post conferences, too. At what point (or have we already surpassed it?) do we lose the positive values of these tools?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jim Woodell on February 18, 2009 at 4:24pm: I agree it's difficult to participate in all this stuff. But I think that if people do things before and after conferences, I'm a lot more likely to participate in those online communities than to go and log into other sites that aren't event-driven. When I see it as "preparing" for something or "following up" I think I'm more likely to make it part of my to-do list and routine.

Cynthia Hollingsworth said:
I'm going to take the "opposite side of the road" approach here and ask your community collectiveness how we can possibly manage to keep up with all of this. I want to be involved in communities such as Ning, create and participate in more interactive conferences and discussions, but between my "she's being paid to do this job" activities and some semblance of family and personal activities, how can any of us manage to e-mail, post, tweet, read, podcast, vodcast, chat, become a virtual world avatar, with any sort of depth without going completely mad? At least my e-mail is intrusive and I must at the least read, file, and/or delete messages, but if I were to just enter each blog, wiki, world, community that I would like to learn from all I would have time to do is click my mouse, I think. Now we're talking about pre, current, and post conferences, too. At what point (or have we already surpassed it?) do we lose the positive values of these tools?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Cynthia Hollingsworth on February 18, 2009 at 4:47pm: That's a good point and is logical, but in that case, I think both "events" would need to have specified endpoints or they simply become "one more thing to do".

Jim Woodell said:
I agree it's difficult to participate in all this stuff. But I think that if people do things before and after conferences, I'm a lot more likely to participate in those online communities than to go and log into other sites that aren't event-driven. When I see it as "preparing" for something or "following up" I think I'm more likely to make it part of my to-do list and routine.

Cynthia Hollingsworth said:
I'm going to take the "opposite side of the road" approach here and ask your community collectiveness how we can possibly manage to keep up with all of this. I want to be involved in communities such as Ning, create and participate in more interactive conferences and discussions, but between my "she's being paid to do this job" activities and some semblance of family and personal activities, how can any of us manage to e-mail, post, tweet, read, podcast, vodcast, chat, become a virtual world avatar, with any sort of depth without going completely mad? At least my e-mail is intrusive and I must at the least read, file, and/or delete messages, but if I were to just enter each blog, wiki, world, community that I would like to learn from all I would have time to do is click my mouse, I think. Now we're talking about pre, current, and post conferences, too. At what point (or have we already surpassed it?) do we lose the positive values of these tools?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by DolorsCapdet on February 18, 2009 at 8:25pm: Hi John,
I think that the length does not matter.
The key is to learn to connect with the audience. Offer what audiences expects namely without reiterating clichés.
Best regaards,; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Elaine Hoter on February 19, 2009 at 12:46am: Online conference atmosphere:
Another issue which is important in an online conference is the atmosphere. It's important to give a lot of thought to this. In my opinion having a cafe in addition to the lecturers is not enough. Yes - have online conference preparation to let the potential participants have a say in the conference, but have loads of "fun" activities and competitions to make the atmosphere. If there is a conference theme them work around it-for example "gates in teacher education"-then ask the participants to send in photos of gates, have competitions with questions and trivia from the lecturers, with prizes (given by the sponsors) have exercise time for those stuck at the computer, and have loads of updates sent out to the participants about what is going on and upcoming events etc etc- this was put into practice in 2001 in the first online conference for teacher education - http://vcisrael.macam.ac.il
I think building the atmosphere of an online conference will make or break a conference- what do you guys think??; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Myra Wopereis on February 19, 2009 at 1:45am: it's good idea to engage participants before, during and after the conference or workshops. but some big challenges remain i.e. time, relevance and capacity to engage. We've had successful international conferences in agricultural research, with plenty of presentations. we've tried to change it by having several side-events that feeds into the main conference. this seems to work, a huge number of participants know why they are attending the conference and look for the people they can relate and only attend sessions that is of their interest. the speakers are aware of this, therefore, some of them contact potential participants ahead of time and advertise their own sessions. this type of engagement uses face to face engagement, would be good to expand it through online engagements, especially after the conference, to avoid another talk show.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Vitor Manuel Nabais Tome on February 19, 2009 at 6:47am: I think you are right. Combine some of the old with the new could be a good way to improve the contacts between researchers. I have been in several of conferences where I met a lot interesting colleagues, but I just still in touch with some a few, mainly by e-mail. That is why I think that Helena Stark's proposition is very interesting. If I met my colleagues before the conference where I met them, maybe we would be able to establish a stonger cooperation during and after the conference, specially if we use a platform like this onde that we are using in this conference. I'm from Portugal and I have not a lot of opportunities to go to conferences that take place overseas. So, if I have can met other people of similar academic interests, it will be very important to choose the conferences where I really want/should to share experiences. Like this I will be able to take the maximum profit of my participation in the conferences.; ▶ Reply to This