Hack Your Own Conference

Jo Walsh and Rufus Pollock

[open knowledge foundation]

Half serious, half whimsical rules for hacking your own low (or zero) budget conference

What Was WSFII.London

1. Specialist Pre-Con Sprints

2. A Conference

The Rules

Rule #1: Get a space

(Rule #1.1: And don't pay for it)

Rule #2: Announce Early, Announce Often

Rule #3: Work In Public

What Happens When You Do ....

> 4 speakers X 15 minutes + T Q/A = 60 + T minutes = CC panel slot overflow!
>
> It does not compute! ;-)
>
> Keeping it down to 10 minutes per presentation (presuming all 4
> invited speakers present) allows plenty of time for what should be an
> interesting discussion.

Squeezing all that into one hour doesn't make sense. I was told that the
session would be an hour and a half. What are all the other things you are
going to talk about that make time so scarce? Or is it that you've invited too
many people? Maybe you'll get a no show or two. I can speak for five minutes,
if necessary, but it doesn;t feel like I'm being given a lot of respect by the
organizers.

K. 

But It All Ends Happily ...

Jo,

Thanks for a fuller response than my remark deserved and you probably have the
time for. If it were not for a lifelong convictions that anarchists ought be
better at organization than the control freaks, I would have gone quietly and
do so now.

Keith

Rule #4: Speakers are both central and incidental

• without speakers there is no conference
• and the structure provided by this is important
• but the primary purpose of the event is to bring people together not to tell them stuff
• so ...

Rule #5: Ensure there's space in the Program and space in the Place

Remember: the intent is to enable as much random and relaxed f2f interaction as possible

Rule #6: The most interesting talks will come from the most unexpected place

ronja.twibright.com

• portability
• scalability of design
• scalability of development
• constant feedback
• reliability of components
• open licensing

Rule #7: Enable 'User' Participation

The Community Currency and the Local Community

Rule #9: Obligatory ubiquitous WiFi

Rule #9.1: It will always overload

A brief digression on its philosophical implications:

- people who are here, want to be somewhere else

- people who are somewhere else, want to be here

Rule #10: Your A/V will Always Screw Up at Crucial Times

Rule #11: You'll always have one speaker who is walking proof of Einsteinian time dilation

so ....

Rule #11.1: Get A Gong

Aftermath

First: Recover Sleep

Replicate/Repeat.

If it was fun, do it again

But be careful how you do it.

It's easy to become a victim of your own success. As the size grows the ethos and atmosphere tends to change

Other examples of lean, mean and semi-organized:

• Dorkbot
• Bar Camp
• Open Knowledge Forums
• WSFII India
• whereweare (upcoming)

Summary

• Bring people together who wouldn't be talking/meeting otherwise
• 'User' Participation (work, and screw up, in public)
• Remember the real purpose is to enable the random interactions that happen f2f

http://www.openknowledgefoundation.org/
http://www.okfn.org/

http://www.wsfii.org/

http://www.whereweare.net