What’s the biggest unconference mistake you can make?
Sometimes, good intentions pave the road to hell.
A conversation I dread
CONFERENCE ORGANIZER: “Hey, Adrian, we’re incorporating participant-led sessions into our conference this year!”
ADRIAN: “That’s great! What are you going to do?”
CONFERENCE ORGANIZER: “Well, some program committee members are skeptical that this format will work, so we’re going to add an unconference track that people can attend if interested.”
ADRIAN: Nooooooo! Don’t do that!
I’ve had more than one conversation like this. Here’s why adding an unconference track to a conventional conference program is a big mistake. (Probably, the biggest unconference mistake you can make.)
Why you shouldn’t add an unconference track to a traditional conference
Consider these three points:
To date, relatively few people have experienced a unconference session (one shaped on the spot by the needs, experience, and expertise of the people present);
Lecture-style formats comprise the vast majority of people’s formal learning experiences. So, if you haven’t previously experienced an unconference session you’re probably skeptical that it’ll be useful to you; and
We are creatures of habit, and most of us are cautious about trying something new.
When you combine these observations, the unfortunate outcome is that very few people will attend an unconference track. Most attendees will stick to the conventional and “safe” concurrent sessions on pre-announced topics.
I was a skeptic myself when I started using participant-led formats back in 1992. A number of years passed before I stopped worrying whether this new-fangled way of running events would work for the next group I tried it with. It turns out that when a participant-led session or sessions are the only conference activities going on, people dive in and nearly everyone likes what occurs. But when you give people a choice between what’s familiar and what’s not, all but the bravest take the safer path.
I’ve made the unconference track mistake. I’ve stood in a room set for three hundred attendees and had thirty show up, while four other concurrent sessions siphoned off 1,400 people. Yes, those thirty participants had an amazing time. But the overall perception of the vast majority who didn’t attend (and the conference organizers) was that participant-led formats were “not really wanted” and could be safely ignored.
Don’t make this mistake!
So how do we avoid making this mistake? Make participant-led sessions plenaries or simultaneous breakouts. You certainly don’t have to make unconference sessions 100% of your conference, but there should be no other type of conference activity going on at the same time.
There will probably always be conference organizers who are skeptical that participant-led sessions can work. A compromise may appear to be the way to keep such people happy, but it will invariably create a self-fulfilling prophecy; the “experimental” track will be poorly attended and the skeptics will say, “I told you so”.
We all get tripped up from time to time by the unintended consequences of our good intentions. When planning to add participant-led sessions to your next event, resist the alluring compromise of an unconference track. Instead, dedicate a morning, afternoon, day, or days to well-designed participant-led sessions. Then you’ll see just how well these still-novel but increasingly popular formats can work.
Curtiss Reed and I enjoyed presenting our thirty-minute MeetingsNet webinar Participant-Led Meetings: A Case Study on February 4, 2014, and I’m happy to announce that the webinar is now available free on demand (until February 4, 2015). Just go to the registration link and complete the short sign-up to receive a link to the webinar. We received many good participant-led event questions and were not able to answer them all in the time available. So I’ve listed them here, together with my answers. I hope you find them useful!
Angie Patel
Do you find most participants are organically prepared to participate in the peer sessions? Or do some come with data, slides, etc.?
At Conferences That Work, people are willing and able to participate in peer sessions by the time they begin. (Typically, this is the morning of the second day.) The combination of the ground rules, roundtable experience, and peer session sign-up transform the vast majority of attendees into participants.
How to prepare attendees for the possibility that they may have given a relevant presentation previously or have resource materials that might be relevant to the conference? We send out pre-conference information—a couple of weeks before the meeting—that includes language similar to the following:
“Have you worked on something that may be of interest to other attendees? Do you have experience or expertise in a given area or topic? Then, we encourage you to bring any useful supporting or presentation materials or links to the conference. All sessions are informal, so you don’t need to bring or prepare anything polished for distribution.”
Tara Taylor & Alethea Session
How do I find out if and where there might be opportunities to observe/attend participant-led events?How do you find these events?
For Conferences That Work format events, check out my events calendar, which lists events I’ve heard about that use the Conferences That Work format, or elements of it. (Unfortunately, many are unlisted because I don’t know about them. If you’re running one, please let me know and I’ll list it for free!) You can also fill out my training opportunities form, which allows me to inform you of events that you may be able to staff.
If you have a meeting that has to be more structured (due to regulations, like continuing medical education) can you do a hybrid? If so, what elements can you successfully integrate?Is a “hybrid” approach worth discussing? Example: Day 1 pre-planned agenda, Day 2 – participant-led content?
You can hold a hybrid event incorporating participant-led and traditional sessions, provided you have enough time to do both well.
I don’t know how to include traditional elements into a 1½ day Conferences That Work without unduly rushing the participant-led components. But if I have two or more days, it’s easy to integrate a keynote/plenary/trade show.
The edACCESS annual conference I’ve been running for 22 years lasts 3½ days and uses the Conferences That Work format. It includes a trade show, one or two preplanned plenaries, and sometimes a keynote. Peer sessions fill the rest of the time.
Incorporating such traditional elements can also help with marketing. People see the program and say, “Well, I don’t really understand this participant-led stuff. But so-and-so is going to be speaking, and there’s a session on such-and-such, so I’ll sign up.” Invariably, they end up evaluating the peer sessions higher than the traditional ones, but that’s OK; the latter helped them make the decision to attend.
One more point: on the order in which these two kinds of sessions are presented. It’s best to blend both formats, participant-led & traditional, into a single conference rather than separating them into a traditional day and a participant-led day. That way, people get exposed to both approaches and come to appreciate the latter. Otherwise, some people will avoid it because they aren’t familiar with its benefits.
Doreen Ashton Wagner
I’m curious: what if the sign-up-to-sessions process means that one or a few participants don’t find anything that appeals to them? That’s where I’ve been disappointed with Open Space formats in the past…I didn’t share the concerns of others!
Yes, Open Space, which has a minimalist structure, can suffer from its opening format. That’s because people are asked with little or no preparation to suggest topics they want to be discussed. Without easing attendees into a participant mindset—as happens during the first half-day of Conferences That Work—attendees may only hear topics from the more extrovert attendees, leading to the others ultimately feeling unrepresented. By the time the peer session sign-up occurs during Conferences That Work, nearly everyone is comfortable sharing the topics in which they are interested. If you’ve shared your own topics — i.e. you participate 🙂 — other attendees will see your interests. Subsequently, it’s rare that absolutely no one else is interested in every topic that any one person suggests.
Lee Pucker
How do you get companies to pay for people to attend without publishing a defined agenda that they can use to prove the ROI for the company?
I hope Curtiss gave you a useful answer from a client’s viewpoint during the webinar. There’s no question that until participant-led events become more mainstream it’s hard to start participant-led events from scratch when there’s no one yet available to testify to a specific event’s benefits. The capability to form more and better connections that these formats allow is probably the most concrete outcome for someone who needs to justify on an ROI basis. “I’m likely to make three times as many better quality connections at this event than at a traditional conference. That’s three times as many better-qualified sales leads…” etc.
Amy Forgette
With the roomset being so radically different (room for 200 to accommodate 70 in a circle) …how do we get VENUES to take our programs?
I’ve found that the issue is less about getting venues to take our programs (venues are almost always eager for business) and more about finding venues that fit the space needs of participant-led events. You may need to look beyond standard hotel business meeting rooms and event spaces that focus mainly on special events. Interestingly, educational institutions often turn out to provide great venues for many of the events that I run. I’m a big fan of non-traditional venues. Also, there are an increasing number of commercial venues that are aware that these event formats are becoming more popular and have adapted or reconfigured their space to fit.
Chris Kirchner
Any best practices on pre-conference marketing without a published agenda?
I hope I was able to answer this question during the webinar. Here are some helpful articles:
What makes a “well-run” event? Is it facilitators?
I think there are two important components:
1) An established participant-led format that has a good track record. Any of the formats covered in the webinar poll meet this definition, except sometimes events advertised as “unconferences” or “bar camps.” Why? Because such terminology is sometimes slapped onto “alternative” events without having a clear meeting design in place. People occasionally use such labels to describe events that turn out to be relatively unstructured, prone to hijacking by a vocal few, and unnecessarily chaotic.
2) What’s more important is the caliber and experience of the event facilitators. That’s not to say that someone with good facilitation skills can’t do a decent job running one of these formats the first time they try. But if there’s some perceived risk to holding the event, it’s worth working with people who have a track record of running successful participant-led events.
John Boyle
What is the ideal size for a participant-led event? Is it scalable? For instance, can you have events within events or concurrent events to serve a larger group?
My book covers events that have up to 100 attendees. For an answer that covers events larger than this, please download my free book supplement and check out Chapter 5.
Doreen Ashton Wagner
With crowdsourcing tools and online collaboration, couldn’t this exchange [of topics for the conference] be done, at least in part, ahead of the event?
