BloggerCon: Notes from the host

BloggerCon II Weblog - Celebrating the art and science of weblogs, April 17 at Harvard Law School.

Notes from the host

Posted by Dave Winer, 10/6/03 at 6:04:20 PM.

Some random notes I posted to Scripting News about the conference on the day after.

Perfect number of people

We were concerned Day 2 would be overfull, or empty. It was neither, most of the rooms were filled to capacity, and all sessions had enough people to have a good discussion. How does stuff like that happen? I wish I knew! We were also concerned that the wrong kind of people would show for Day 2, but again, we worried without any need to. The people who came were inteligent interested bloggers who took notes, were happy to be there, they contributed, they listened. I don't think there were any hecklers or trolls. Somehow they got the message to stay home? Praise Murphy!

No audience, no speakers

Another thing I learned is that experienced conference-goers have a hard time adjusting to sessions without a distinction between "audience" and "speakers." In Day 2 sessions there were no speakers, no panel, no moderator, just a discussion leader, and "participants." The leader was to act as a router, to move the subject around, to have a sense of what was to be accomplished at the session, but to keep it non-hierarchic, and keep it non-boring. One of the first sessions on Day 2 was totally Comdex-style, I tried to help steer it back on course, but certain people had the idea that they were speakers, and they were going to speak no matter what, for the amount of time they thought they deserved, and rather than risk a public scene, I left and went to a different session. Between sessions I spoke with the moderators of the next discussions to be sure they understood that this isn't Comdex or MacWorld or Seybold, it's a blogger's convention, and there is no audience in blogger-land. Jeff Jarvis did a heroic job of turning the corner, his session probably was headed in that direction beforehand, but he turned it around, and apparently the people who thought they were panelists, accepted their roles as participants. Joi Ito didn't need to hear it, he was the only one in front of the room, and if I had one complaint it was that he allowed me to speak too much, but being who I am, I can't really complain about that too much.

Not enough time for lunch

Another mistake -- the Day 2 lunch break was way too short. I went for food about a block away and had to rush to get back, and I was late. Most of the 1:30PM sessions were sparsely attended at first, and then the rooms filled up again. One hour for lunch isn't enough if you have to go off-site.

Should have cancelled BOFs

Vernica Downey wrote about her experience at the One Big BOF, which clearly was nothing like the description. We probably should have cancelled the session when only one person responded to our call for BOFs. We didn't, and it turned into vendor demos. We specifically disallowed vendor demos everywhere but the Infrastructure session on Day 2. We turned down sponsorships to keep it a non-commercial show. What was really disappointing is that one of the people who broke the rule (not sure if he was first) had communicated with me before the show to ask if it would be okay to mention the product, and I said of course. I never said it was okay to pitch the product at length, and had I been asked I would have said firmly, no. Next time I'm going to be sure to have at least one university rep in each room to make sure the basic rules are followed.