Written by Michael Ridley

“The recent surge of the un is probably due to the influence of Web 2.0. People aren’t interested in being just passive. And why not. Many, far too many, conferences are like getting a bad undergraduate degree; endless lectures with big audiences and little interaction.”

Unconferences. Cool or Crap? Trendy or Transformative? Conferences of the “un” variety are now commonplace. Sometimes they are “camps” (ChangeCamp, DemoCamp), perhaps even tweetups, but most often they are simply “unconferences.”

So when did conferences get a bad name? Why the need to un them?

The philosophy that underlies the unconferences is straightforward: the participants are the conference. Forget Program Committees. Forget schedules. Forget preplanning. Choose an issue. Invite interested folks. Let them figure out the agenda when they get there. The participants are the content. Those who show up rule.

The recent surge of the un is probably due to the influence of Web 2.0. People aren’t interested in being just passive. And why not. Many, far too many, conferences are like getting a bad undergraduate degree; endless lectures with big audiences and little interaction. No more. The sage on the stage is again challenged. The backchannel wasn’t just the e-hecklers, it was also the desire to engage, participate, and contribute. With the unconferences the backchannel goes foreground. The discussion comes out of the audience onto the stage. In fact it’s all stage, all the time.

From a learning style perspective, the unconference is a natural expression of adult learning preferences: experiential, involved, engaged, and active. Learn by doing. Learn by participating.

Having said that, I don’t think all this is the end of traditional conferences. Frankly, sometimes I just want to be a spectator. Give me a good lecture. I don’t need to ask questions. I like the separation and the anonymity. Let me fade into the crowd – I’m good with that. Sometimes I want Facebook; sometimes I want Avatar.

However, the popularity of unconferences is telling us something important about the nature of the “audience.” Traditional conferences can easily be seen as power plays. They are a means to construct an agenda of speakers, topics, flow, and presentation that is an ideological onslaught for the audience. As an attendee your role is simply to soak it up. Participating in an unconference is a bit more challenging; you can’t simply show up, you have to, well, show up. You have to engage, speak up, and contribute or the whole thing is a bust.

My colleague Kyle Mackie (in Teaching Support Services) talks a lot about this and organizes various unconferences.  His motivation is simple: “how to make conferences suck less.” I’ve learned a lot from Kyle; mostly I’ve learned that new, different, and diverse are all good. Try something, just for the fun of it. If it ain’t broke, push it off the table. Kyle wants to crowdsource the content and the agenda of a conference. Before the event tell the organizers what you want to learn and what you have to contribute. Let the technology match everyone up and then, as Kyle says, “the sessions choose you.”

As with so many things, everything old is new again. Some of the antecedents of the unconference can be seen in the work of Harrison Owen, particularly his idea of “Open Space” – a set of techniques for large scale collaborative meetings. The central challenge is to achieve authentic dialogue (i.e. real communication) with a large number of people in order to learn and chart a direction (or make a decision). Owen’s work was popular in the 1990s and seems to have faded a bit; it deserves to be revived.

I think, perhaps, the Library just hosted a sort of unconference with the recent Human Library event. In the Human Library the books are actually people (“Atheist” “Canadian Solider” “HIV Positive” etc.) and the readers check out the books for a 30 minute talk. Simple focus, unscripted, highly participatory, and intimate. Very powerful. Very un.

Undoing the conference is brilliant. Changing it up is good. I’m looking forward to first anti-unconference. Whatever it is.

Michael Ridley is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Librarian at the University of Guelph. Contact him at mridley@uoguelph.ca or www.uoguelph.ca/cio.