WebWord

I’ve been having this fantasty of setting up a “This Works!” conference. Here is how it would work.

1. At the conference, everyone is forced to present something. I believe that every person has something to share that is unique and wonderful. Everyone is capable of talking about something: tools, tips, techniques, etc.

2. At the conference, everyone is forced to network. You get face time with at least 50% of all the people at the conference. That is, you exchange business cards, explain your business, talk about your greatest needs, and so on. Maybe there is a requirement to exchange resumes with every person you meet. Maybe there is a resume table where you pick up and drop off resumes.

3. The groups are small, the presentations are concise, and only 1-2 main points are made. No lectures, no big crowds, no keynotes, and limited formality. The idea is to maximize human interaction. There are no wizards or gurus.

4. Most importantly, the purpose of the conference is to help people find out what works. One person might talk about how they organize their email folders and manage insane amounts of email. Another person might talk about the best business book they ever read and summarize the main points. Another person might talk about how their company made the decision to switch from Microsoft Exchange to Lotus Notes.

5. Before the conference, a blog or wiki would be set up. People could post their questions. Presentation materials could be added. They could float ideas before the conference. Perhaps voting could take place for certain presentations. There would be structure, but there would also be more chaos at the conference than other conferences.

6. A very strong central theme would be established to guide people to decrease conference chaos. For the “This Works!” conference, I’d want people to talk about usability, human factors, information architecture, customer experience, user-centered design, HCI, ergonomics, and all that jazz.

I guess the summary is that the “This Works!” conference is all about people talking to each other and sharing great ideas. It would be a festival of sharing. Obviously some types of people would not want to be involved, such as shy people. You’d need some guts for the conference because of the conversations and presentations.

I believe that most good ideas are small ideas and most improvement is enabled through tweaks and enhancements. Continuous improvement! I also believe that the greatest value of a conference is talking with other people and learning what they do to solve problems. This happens at training classes and conferences all the time. That is, the classes and main conference presentations are less important than the side conversations. The concept here is to organize a conference around the small, side conversations.

I’m sure there are holes in the “This Works!” conference idea. Still, I thought that I would pass it by you. Let me know what you think here, or contact me directly at john@webword.com when you have a chance.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 7th, 2005 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Usability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.