anniversary

Ten years of Conferences That Work!

Tuesday, November 12th, 2019 by Adrian Segar

Ten years of Conferences That Work!Ten Years of Conferences That Work! Ten years ago today, I started this website and published my first book: Conferences That Work: Creating Events That People Love. (A decade later it’s still selling.)

I’m proud to have written three books (the latest was published this week) and over six hundred blog posts in the last ten years. After writing each book I was sure it would be the last one I wrote. Actually, I still am. Perhaps I’ll be wrong again about that…

To my amazement, this website has had over forty-nine million page views. That’s quite a jump from twenty-four thousand in the first year. These days, this site gets about six million page views per year, making it, as far as I know, the most popular website in the world on meeting design.

Although I’ve been designing and facilitating participant-driven and participation-rich meetings since 1992, I feel especially good about the last decade. It was in 2009 that I decided to switch my professional focus to creating and championing Conferences That Work. Since then I’ve done my best to convince the meeting industry to change how it thinks about meeting design; to concentrate on meeting process as well as logistics.

I’ve met a lot of wonderful people and had tons of fun and adventures along the way. I’ve done my best to share ideas and experiences of value and continue to learn from every meeting and everyone I meet. Thank you everyone whose life I’ve touched and whose life has touched mine.

And the journey isn’t over yet. I’m excited!

Stay tuned.

Original graphic with obscure reference, modified into almost complete irrelevance, courtesy of the incomparable xkcd

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27 years of peer conferences

Monday, June 3rd, 2019 by Adrian Segar

27 years of peer conferencesGood things come in threes. Though I usually overlook anniversaries, I noticed one this morning. The first peer conference I convened and designed was held June 3 – 5, 1992 at Marlboro College, Vermont. So, as of today, the community of practice that eventually became edACCESS has enjoyed 27 years of peer conferences. [That’s 3 x 3 x 3. I told you good things come in threes.]

Twenty-three people came to the inaugural conference. At the time, I had no idea that what I instinctively put together for a gathering of people who barely knew each other would lead to:

  • a global design and facilitation consulting practice;
  • over 500 posts on this blog, which has now become, to the best of my knowledge, the most-visited website on meeting design and facilitation;
  • three books (almost!) on participant-driven, participation-rich meeting design; and
  • plentiful ongoing opportunities to fulfill my mission to facilitate connection between people.

However, none of this happened overnight. For many years, designing and facilitating meetings was a vocation rather than a profession, usually unpaid. Furthermore, it was an infrequent adjunct to my “real” jobs at the time: information technology consulting, and teaching computer science.

27 years of peer conferences. From little acorns, mighty oaks. I would never have predicted the path I’ve traveled — and continue to look forward to the journey yet to come. Above all, thank you everyone who has made it possible. I can’t adequately express the gratitude you are due.

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