I attended an interesting event here in Sydney last week – and wrote about it here:
http://www.servantofchaos.com/2010/03/ecitizen-...

There are challenges as you point out, but it really does come down to the presenters (and the organisers) changing the format. Not everyone is comfortable stepping out from behind the podium. And as much as they claim to hate them, slide decks are still a crutch that takes the focus off presenters and their storytelling.

In many conferences they're organising speed matching sessions which are a great way for people to connect. I attended a Media Trust event of this type recently and the format worked well, in just a few minutes you can establish if there's potential for people to work together in the future. I'm also wary of labeling people social media experts and putting them on a panel as you just create a divide, why not hear from everyone? To quote @lesanto 'there is no such thing as a Social Media 'expert'. We are all explorers in this new landscape'.

The Issue With Social Media Events: They Are Events (or conferences to be more precise).

Your laments above sounds like the hallmarks of room-filling and conferencing to me. Nothing has changed for centuries. You could be talking about the ancients meeting in amphitheaters to 'workshop/conference/panel' latest technologies in global invasion.

With all this connection-power, technology and 'any-when' capability, it will be exciting to see the first real step-change innovation that revolutionizes rather than evolutionizes this tired old, 'authors selling books' cum 'event organisers' commercialising events' model. (Hey, nothing wrong with that!). Speakers, aeroplanes, taxis, parking, hotel rooms, bums-in-seats, agendas, schedules, logistics etc etc. Well-worn track. It works. It's very old-world. No amazing technology needed here.

Just saying!

The fact that events such as LikeMinds are leading edge, very popular and superbly well organized remains as fact.

I guess this probably makes me an 'unlike mind' – even 'unliked mind'.

Shine on.

Robin

Amen. Social Media is at risk of becoming like every other buzzword. At it's core is a brilliant idea. Around it the old world is trying to make it fit into their world view.

Robin we've talked it through many times and you know I'm one of your strongest advocates for room filling being the last thing that a thought leader should be doing.

When I think about a virtual gathering I still wonder when the day will come when we can see more than 4 faces on our iChat call. This is the stumbling block for me – because a webinar that you watch creates ZERO participation – and I think the last thing a thought leader should also be doing is getting attendees. We need participation.

We are trying, as well also discussed, to turn the conference into the final touch point of a series of touch points.

And as you know, your challenge is what has birthed much of the innovation at Like Minds. Which makes you more of a like mind than most

Yours-
Scott

Totally. There is much fear to break the mould. And we continually reaffirm this by not pulling these people out.

I'm of the opinion we, as attendees, need to utterly change our expectations and demands, and get vocal about it.

Interesting format. My point is that this can only be *part* of a conference if you are running something larger than 100 people.

I do disagree with Glenn – I think there *are* experts in Social Media. But I completely agree that we must fill the panels not with 'experts' with but those actually doing it. Hence our panels at Like Minds have people you know, and people you don't!

I suspect the thinking has to be much bigger and braver – and may be beyond the scope of our imaginations. The fact that the answer isn't immediately obvious makes this an even more exciting challenge. Humans amaze me at what can be achieved when necessity drives invention.

I know I don't cast pearl before swine in this forum, Scott. You're a leader in this space – even by virtue of you having the guts to even contemplate such radical shift. Most want to play it safe, especially if it risks upsetting their current income stream.

Best,

Robin

And I think a danger is that we are using it too much to talk about itself, rather than using it for other means

Agreed – indeed we are struggling to find the answer and there does seem to be a tech barrier. My concern with also making it too technology focused or blog focussed is that it cuts out a large number of people too.

Do you see a first step that we can make past what we are already doing?

Thanks for the encouragement as always,

Scott

You're very welcome.

Yes.

You won't like it.

Step-change innovation won't happen without diamond-focus and oxygenic levels of urgency.

So…new world thinking demands new world actions.

Burn the ships!

Stop having conferences.

Once this codependent lifeline that sustains mediocre thinking is severed, marshall the bravest and most radical thinkers in your tribe and catalyze the next epoch of innovation.

The gravitational forces of sameness will be an unrelenting headwind against such a move.

It will be the antithesis of the popular vote.

Hence the attraction.

Best, Robin

Could always go the chatroulette route? The problem with a large audience is participation is difficult if everyone shouts at once. Breaking up into small groups was an elegant idea. The question is, are there ways we can stop the disenfranchised feeling? Perhaps with audience votes & other large scale crowd opportunities. We don't mind being one of the masses (as much), so long as our vote is counted.

Very poetic

But I disagree with two points:

1. Like Minds doesn't sustain mediocre thinking. This isn't me being protective – but going by the reviews and feedback we got. Which means the conferences – or rather gatherings of people face to face – are not negative, and can be positive.

2. I think a gathering provides a touch point that you can't get from digital – but I think it is stronger when built upon digital touch points leading up and after. SO I would have both.

I'm not being protective because – 'hey, I've built a conference' – but bc I genuinely see the impact an offline gathering of people creates.

To innovate and really build this, we still lack the tech, don't we? A small group of people need to wrok on this together then?

Thanks for the sensible words. My problem with many of these conferences is that I will simply get verbatim what a speaker has already blogged about, and thus imparted, to me, for free, yet I am paying to have a seat in the same room. I want to see more examples of success (of which there are still precious few), not how-to's.

Furthermore, your right, we need to change the mindset. I actually believe it might help if we stopped talking about social media, and start talking about it in terms of the wider Marketing/PR/Comms challenge. As Olivier Blanchard said at LikeMinds “There is no such thing as a social media strategy. You have a PR or Marketing strategy, of which SM forms a part”. People-to-people is not exclusive to Social Media, its a Marketing-wide challenge.

I agree Graeme – our conversation need to change. But like I said, when everyone idolises content, it is hard to.

For instance, when I write about Social Media, I get lots of engagement. When I don't, I sometimes get no comments or retweets. So clearly I am demotivated when I do the latter.

How do you think we can go about doing this?

Scott

What has stood out from Like Minds (apart from it being local!) was the organisation. It is the 3rd SM event I have attended in the last 6 weeks (TRU London and SMWF) and see the one bit the organiser can control is the organisation which you had under control better than most I have seen. However, whilst I think the organisation was “good” does it not kind of fly in the face of the whole SM ideal?

As you point out, it is a bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation re content but think more discussion time in smaller, somewhat transient groups is a way forward. When the Internet was still new and access to information was more difficult to come by, conferences were good places to go to learn. Now, every delegate is so well informed that they expect so much more maybe? I know I hope for more than is often presented albeit a tough one to crack.

Well done for opening up this debate and recognising that Like Minds was not perfect. Personally, I think the lunch idea was the shining light and if that could maybe be extended to morning and afternoon slots as well that may work?? It's a tough one and will be staying updated with this as I am one of the talking heads at the next event in April!!

Next time in Tavi do let me know.

Peter

Scott & Robin:

You know Scott that I'm a fan and that we both think similarly regarding events and allowing attendees to engage with each other and the content. Too much content being thrust at attendees in short time spans is not just an anomaly for social media conferences…it's happening in most conferences and events. The real learning occurs in the hallways, over meals and in informal gatherings. And trying to stuff that much content into anyone's brain in a short amount of time does not have much ROI.

I think Robin is on to something. I'll take his ideas and add a twist.

I submit that instead of stop having conferences, have conferences and attend them. Once onsite take the learning back into your own hands and don't allow it be guided by the conference organizers.

How do you do that?

If the conference organizers have not allowed for adequate, facilitated attendee discussions about the content–this is different than the informal networking sessions–create your own informal really live chat sessions. Attend a general session. Then don't attend the next one. Instead, use social media to create an informal, real-time flash learning mob. Gather like minded individuals, sit in hallways or pre-convene areas and spend the next 60- or 90 minutes conversing with each other. Talk about what's working and what's not and pull content from each other.

This is the difference between push education (where the conference organizers decide all the content that learners need to know) and pull education (where the learner seeks out content and pulls it from a variety of sources.) We can either consider conference gatherings as bus rides where the drivers decide where we are going, what we are going to digest, and what's coming next. Or we can consider conference gatherings as bicycle rides where the rider decides where he/she is going, where to stop, who to bike with, etc. I personally like a mix of the two…being provoked by the bus rider and then biking where I want to go with that content.

It's time to take back the control of your own learning. The conference organizers are watching and if they see that people are not attending all the sessions and instead are creating flash learning mobs, they'll get the message. And, then hopefully, they'll change the format the following year.

Thanks for this. I'll respond point by point:

- I think good organisation is essential – because it says I care about you enough to fully prepare for you. To me, that is the essence of Social – serving each other.

- Agreed. The way that I try to break the content cycle is, lo and behold, creating content. Therefore a good conference, or gathering, means we can talk and not have to create more content…

- Thanks re: the Lunchtime Talks. They were a great way to get people connected.

- What are you talking at in April?

Best,

Scott

Jeff, Robin,

I think Jeff you have a great adaption there. I struggle with it, and I'll be honest and tell you why:

When I read about having 'hallway discussion' I often don't trust the attendees to do so. I half expect them to chat about somethiing else – somethign that I haven't 'planned'. Shame on me.

My model for guidance vs governance says that you need to let people guide it, and this is done by providing strong leadership that inspires people. This is the change I'm having.

As you know Jeff, with the future events we're planning, we're really emphasising the people-to-people aspect to be AS IMPORTANT as the person/persons to people aspect.

I love what you say – “It's time to take back the control of your own learning” – which is why unconferences do a great job for those who can handle them.

For me, this is why I think the expectations that we have as attendees need to change, as well as our aims as event organisers.

I am talking at the Social Media in Recruitment conference on 22 April at the British library. It is in it's 2nd year now and also very well organised. Can't vouch for the speakers this year mind lol

Exactly what I have been thinking all day. I am not an expert, I have only attended seminars and I haven't implemented social media in any great depth where I work. But I am about to kick start it.

My first task is to present to my MD on why we should adopt and use a SM strategy for our company (Management Consulting). Trying to piece together useful viewpoints and examples from the immense pile of theory out there is nigh on impossible. But what is clear – there is too many people talking about it, and not enough people actually doing it!

The amount of events trending this week beggars belief. Surely it's time to get on with it now!?!

Wow – congrats!

Have fun and do let us know how it goes.

“T”he amount of events trending this week beggars belief. Surely it's time to get on with it now!?! – Totally!

Few people, like you say, are doing it. And those of who are, have contracts with NDAs so we can't disclose what we did!

BTW more than happy to chat to you on the phone Rob if you need some advice.

Thanks Scott – I've bookmarked your site in case I do need that advice.

Will be having some fun! Have a breakfast seminar in London to around 100 next week which is going to be quite interesting due to the message/slides about social recruiting. If we can't have fun why do it?

I like where you're going here Scott.

I think honestly we are just more practiced at broadcast events. I see this in the large organizations where I work. So there are a couple of things I find useful here.

1. Assume positive intent, even if results are spotty. In other words, just because we are more practiced at broadcast it's what often happens, but please can we stop assuming that lack of interactivity is because 'no one cares' or 'organisers just want to make money' etc. I don't think you did this in your post (just to be clear but it happens a lot that when we are dissatisfied with stuff other people do we often don't distinguish between INTENT and COMPETENCE. When faced with a lack of competence, e.g. a group process that feels too broadcast-y, we often make negative attributions of intent. So shall we all cut each other some slack maybe? (and again making this as a general point not giving you indirect feedback)

2. Given that we need practice to build competence, shall we try some smaller more informal events with more participant input before the day, and ask people to help co-innovate? The key idea here is WE ARE BEGINNERS in doing things a better way, so let's all use that word to manage our own and others' expectations. We are beginners. Deep breath

We have all these great tools for group conversation, and (we say) lots of expertise to help groups sense their environment and take action…so let's do that with a conference. Which may not be super awesome/perfect, but participants know coming in that we're all experimenting and innovating. We are beginners.

This may not be for people who want a Social Media 101. That's fine. When I'm new in a topic I like expertise and content. And very very shortly after, I want to learn informally in a more interactive environment. I find most talking heads events supremely frustrating & learn loads more from small group Q & A or even fishbowls (public Q & A). But that style is not for all and frustrates those who've come to listen and be told.

Good post Scott, and I felt Likeminds 2010 went leagues toward what I feel is a better way of doing these things.

Your authenticity about distrusting attendees is refreshing. It sounds very familiar to many corporation executives distrusting their employees to say the right things in the social space and their distrust of the public controlling the corporate brand image.

Does the conference organizer's desire to control the conversation differ from a brand wanting to control the conversation about their product? And taking it one step further, in social media, we often tell corporations to go where their customers are and listen.

I would say this is the same model that should be used in designing conferences. If the message that is planned does not resonate with the audience, then allow the audience to discuss what they want that meets their needs. And the organizers should go and listen to those hallway conversations.

The brilliant conference organizers, and I consider you Scott one of them, will be out in front of their attendees leading them to discover new territories, new paths, new ways, new insights. Brilliant conference organizers will provide strong messages that provoke attendees to discussion. Lukewarm and indifferent messages fall on deaf ears. You intention of guidling versus governing is critical to the success of your conference. You beleive in the guide on the side versus the sage on the stage.

And no matter how hard we try in organizing inspirational messages, sometimes those words fall on rocky, thorny soil or by the road. It's just not their time yet. For some the conversations may never occur no matter how hard we try. (Couldn't resist the analogy.)

Impressive! How do you get these speaking slots?!

Thanks for the encouragement Jeff. I figure we might as well be authentic and get things done!

I agree – what I say is that we are broadcasting a social message. Completely back to front.

And yes – some will fall on ground that won't take it. I have to keep reminding myself you can't please everyone!

Thanks for your input here. It really confirms again what we're aiming to do. I just have to make sure now I don't get boxed in as an event organiser!

No probs!

I'm old Seriously though, I've been doing what I do for 20+ years and have a great client list and hopefully a good strategy ergo I get the recognition etc. Happy to share in more detail if you would like to know more.

AJ! My friend!

Thanks for the comments.

1. Yes – assume positive intent. That totally changes the mindset and I agree we must do this. Chris was telling me that he does this a lot – he never treats people like they know more, nor less, than him.

2. Beginners and intermediates do need different events. When we have both at event, that does put pressure to cater for both simultaneously, which is hard!

I've already got an idea to work these ideas in for the next things that we do

Well be keen to know where you're at to see I can come listen sometime

Hi Scott

I agree with your points and many of the great comments on here as well. We've been speaking to lots of conference and corporate meeting planners in lots of industries and found that the common piece of feedback is that the audience wants to be more engaged and that they need better networking.

We decided to try and solve some these problems using visualizations. We produced a “Weave” for a social dev camp conference last year and got a lot of positive feedback. We've been working on integrating the feature into conference content and briefing the attendees on who is in the room and what they are looking to achieve/learn – this then helps the speakers shape their comments. The primary aim is not to use social media but to enhance the face to face time and allow attendees to meet the right people as quickly as possible. Social media is the medium for before and after then event. You can check it out here: http://weavethepeople.com/weave/basic?wn=650

I'd really appreciate your thoughts on what we are doing.

Hi Scott,

I am such a fan of yours and your No Non-sense, straight talk. Needless to say that I adhere to what you are saying so my comment is more geared towards giving my 50 cents as I would love to push the discussion further.
Your latest article is and should be a good wake-up call for the social media “community of professionals”.
One of the definitions the dictionary gives of Social is living or preferring to live in a community rather than alone. Us, as Humans need to have or imagine some kind of interactions with others. Social, however, does not take out the true nature of people. Even with social media, We are going to be egocentric, needy, insecure, confident, talented, and you will have those being sociable.
When you say that Social events are not social, my question is: How can social events be social when people are still trying to figure what social means. It will take time, education, belief, motivation and good …. and doing what we preach.
We must understand that social media, communications (as suggested by Olivier) is about the People, about how to really, truly, engaging with them.
Your point about content is right on. I could not agree more. The content is cooked, refried, frozen and reheated over and over. I am surprised that more people don't stand up against it. That is probably the problem.
What we need to understand, as a people, is that Social Media is a new way of relating to each other, the tools don't matter, what is important is creating a sense of belonging to a community that as human, we long for. I don't have the numbers but I am pretty sure people came to Like Minds to meet new people, content was good but the highlight was the connections that happened at the event and online. The same thing with sxsw, even those not attending, created a community to be able to relate to each other.
A couple of months ago, I was presenting to a group of women entrepreneurs, they were surprised that my presentation was interactive. Yes, the content is there but more importantly, it is a consultation, a discussion in which I invite everyone to participate and throw in their real-life cases. This is the way I always speak.
Social media (we ought to find a better term for it ) is really a deep cultural, societal shift in the way we interact with each other and our microcosm. The technology is nothing new, as such, the tools have been there. People are at the heart of our life, whether corporate, personal. Now, as professionals, we have to start understanding how businesses work and facilitating the integration of social media within existing structures. Plus, there has to be BS radar, good salesmen rarely make good strategist and operations people.

If more of us question the status quo, more concrete actions will happen.

Hi Alex,

Good to hear that you're hearing the same stuff – that participants to, well, participate!

This weave is incredible. So is this a weave of all those attending? I'd be keen to understand what you're doing with more clarity.

Hey Karima

Where to start?!

Thanks for the encouragement first of all. Good to know that when I say crazy things, there are those that support me in it – but of course, balance me too.

Few good points there to pull out:

1. Interaction must happen. I don't call them delegates or attendees but participants.

2. BS Radar – yes! We must have someone that when content is being repeated, or there is jargon, we need to have someone who stops it and says, “this is approaching BS”

3. Social also includes anti-social. This is what Jeff says when some seed falls on thorny ground. Yes, there will be anti-social elements, but we musn't under pitch it.

4. Content is cold. Perhaps thats a blog spot. Yes, it's frozen, and then microwaved in thirty seconds. We need to stop asking for content, and begin collaborating. The way we do this? Talk to each other!

Good stuff here. Helps affirm what I'm thinking – that we need to begin collaborating. Now for a platform to do it.

Yes – these are all the attendees of the event. I'll connect on skype and maybe we can talk soon?

Have you talked to David Gurteeen? I first went on one of his social media events in 2006, and they are very well run and very interactive. The first thing you could do is change the furniture. Take a look at this Flickr set, and you'll see what I mean. http://www.flickr.com/photos/gurteen/sets/72157594550701193/

Go ahead and add me: scottlegould

Gordon I think that works for a number of 50 – to 100 max people.

But what do you think about large scale events? Can that method still work in your opinion?

A couple of points from your blog post;

1. I wholeheartedly agree that conferences tend to focus too heavily on the broadcast element, but I think that this is probably because this is what people feel comfortable planning. You can easily box the event into a schedule and you know just what people are going to be listening to at any one time.

However, the internet is promoting a method of communication that I feel organisers should be looking to emulate at conferences. One such method that I've seen do this very successfully in the past is 'Open Space Technology'. These sessions focus around a broad concept but let the attendees decide the topics of debate. Attendees to move between topics and flow between different sized sub-groups which allows experts and beginners to mingle and share experiences while keeping the session on topic. Prefixed with a short 5-10 minute talk from a speaker still gets the 'broadcast' element in there and gets things started. I would suggest considering a session of this variety at the next Like Minds, as I've always found them successful when I've run or attended them in the past.

2. I think that there is still very much a place for speaker talks on specialist subjects, but the key is to keep them short, punchy and on topics that the audience won't already be knowledgeable on / converted to. This poses a problem for conferences based around social media; social media is a medium / communicative transport mechanism yet conferences simply headline with the topic 'social media'. This leads to attendees having their own idea of what should be discussed. Imagine there was a conference who's entire focus was 'email'. Some would turn up expecting technical details, some would turn up expecting to learn how to sell their company over email and others would just turn up expecting to be enlightened somehow. In resolution to this problem, I see 'social media' conferences becoming focused on specific uses of social media in the future; splitting a schedule into strands would go some way to alleviate this (morning – marketing with social media, afternoon – connecting with social media). Ok, bad examples, but I hope that illustrates my point.

Anyhow, I hope my ramblings make some kind of sense, I haven't had my coffee yet this morning.

I agree with your post, two comments;
(1) In the case of large events it gets very very difficult to manage any significant level of two-way or multi-way communication.
(2) At some of the conferences I've been to the range of knowledge in the audience is varied, so not all contributions are equal and conference organisers are still trying to provide value to all.

Of course social media can help participants of discussion around the content, but perhaps the whole format of conferences needs to change? Maybe we need more of a classroom model with 20-30 participants rather than a lecture model with 300 participants? A conference could still have some large plenary sessions, but use a more classroom or cafe style for smaller groups and smaller chunks of content.

And ultimately some speakers are just not good at engaging any sized audience, I'm sure conference organisers try to avoid this, but if it happens listeners are pretty much stuck.

Hi John

Been at Like Minds Immersive so apologies for late response.

I completely agreee with your points.

It is easier and more profitable (for now) to fill a room with people
who listen to broadcasted content that has no challenge to the either
the speaker or attendees

The unconferenxe model is good, and increase retention rate, but like
you say, there needs to be specfix keynotes as well to give direction
and specialist content that the audience does not possess

Your ramblings are right in target – how else do you think we need to
change? What other ways can technology increase our learning?

Hi Louise

What do you think, in order to have 30 ppl whilst still proving the
opportunity to be inspired and connect with others on a 300 scale, can
be done with breakout sessions?

What have been the best breakout sessions you've been too?

I think there's an inherent tension between wanting big groups so that everyone can have the same experience and having smaller groups so everyone can share – but then people have a different experience.

One thing we've done that worked was have a day event for about 100 people that started with a keynote speaker and minimal discussion, and finished with a panel discussion. In between were “knowledge cafes”, we had four and each one was run twice, participants had to choose to go to two that interested them. It worked really well and allowed for different interests and different levels of knowledge. Long after the event people were still comparing notes on which session they'd been to.

But I don't know it it's scalable, and this was within the company so we all knew each other and could share experiences afterwards.

The best individual session I've ever been to was run by the then head of media relations; he had a big stack of slides but pulled out just the ones to help the audience understand how the media relations work had been effective (or not), and he answered questions and encouraged discussion in between.

Now, he's a highly skilled communicator who has to communicate effectively with rather exalted business types, analysts, scruffy journalists and even scruffier protesters (this is a joke). Which I think points out the other basic problem – it's a different skill set than just “stand and deliver”, and maybe not everyone's going to be able to do that successfully.

I like that idea Louise – “knowledge cafes”

I think this *is* scaleable, we just need to tweak, and use Social Comms to help us begin this process of learning way before the event.

Also your example of the man who was a 'facilitator' more than a speaker – I agree. Rather than standing and talking about everything we know, we should rather draw knowledge from those present

Replacement Dell Inspiron 6000 Laptop Battery UK , 11.1V,6 cell (4400mah), 9 cell (6600mah), 12 cell (7200mah),cheap Laptop Battery for sales

Hello, hello. Fantastic to find like-minds like this I’m truly fortunate to know people who connect/direct me in constructive directions. My thanks for Ville Keranen for getting me here. Keep up the conversation! Thank you, thank, thank you.

Here’s a sample of my own happening people-centric adventuring. Event full. If you know me you will spot me if you don’t it won’t matter. Look at the peoples faces http://www.hope.fi/myrsky/photos/album/27/slide

Go on, go introduce yourself or someone to someone new.
Wheeeeeee!
nic

Hey Nic

Thanks for the kind words – look forward to hearing more from you

Scott