6 comments

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  Smoke Wallin

  1 year ago

  Excellent piece! As the Chair of a number of conferences, I appreciate your many good thoughts here. I particularly concur with point #3 regarding PowerPoint abuse. This is a systemic problem with most speakers today. I do think paying for key speakers has its place in certain kinds of conferences and events, especially at the keynote or general session; however as a frequent speaker, I know having a platform upon which to present is valuable. The way we approach it at the Wine Industry Technology Symposium™ (WITS) and at Wine 2.0™is we generally do not pay, but will comp attendance fees and pick up out of town travel expenses and hotel rooms for key speakers. More important than pay in my opinion is your point #1. Being the authority or expert gathering in any industry draws the best talent to both speak and attend. Well done Max and do come back to one of our conferences soon!
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  maxkalehoff

  1 year ago

  Thanks, Smoke! And I hope look forward to seeing more about Wine 2.0!
  Max
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  tomob

  1 year ago

  Hi Max:
  
  Interesting post - I am relatively new to the Web 2.0/social media conference circuit - and I am already tired of some of the stories. There are lots of smart people out there - and conference producers need to think long and hard about moving to Conference 2.0.
  
  Conference 1.0 is having people (either smart in the field OR those representing gigantic global corporations) stand up at a podium and hammer us into our seats with powerpoint.
  
  Conference 2.0 requires audience participation and involvement, and cracks open the podium to get some new ideas and speakers up there - it doesn't all have to be industry luminaries and pay to play does it? I think the WOMMA-U conference did something interesting with the WOM in Action program down in Miami.
  
  http://preview.tinyurl.com/545ved
  
  Regards - TO'B
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  maxkalehoff

  1 year ago

  TO'B,
  Thanks for your comment. There is a school of thought called the
  "unconference". I like the idea, but too many of those have had too little
  structure. I think a great way to cultivate more meaningful conferences is
  to remove the commercial aspect. Why do you need to pay thousands of dollars
  to bring people together in a substandard venue? More on that later.
  Max
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  Amber Naslund

  1 year ago

  Freaking beautiful. Seriously, I've gotten myself so amped up about many a conference, only to be brain damaged by said sandpaper poultry and mind numbing, scripted and canned powerpoint presentations. I go to a conference to be smarter, to meet other smart people (hopefully smarter than me), and nothing deflates me more quickly than realizing I've been duped. (Ok, maybe not deliberately buuuuutt...)
  
  I'm especially YAY about #6 and #7. There are so many smart people out there and so few speaking slots. What say we relive a bit of a discussion forum and let the ideas emerge? I mean, hey. It works for Twitter.
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  maxkalehoff

  1 year ago

  Amber, Thanks for your note. Rubber chicken should have been at the top of
  my list.
  Max
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