@spgreenhalgh I’m interested in hearing more about what you do, not for an academic conference but for Micro Camp 2023. 🏕️
@jean Ooh, thanks for the reminder to look to Micro Camp as a source of inspiration! I've always wanted to attend but never made it (😭😭😭)—can I get a pretty good feel for logistics/format from the website? And, of course, I will be very happy to share what we end up doing!!
@jean One thing that sticks with me is the difficulty of carving out time for a conf. when the dishes are still there and my students are still around (b/c I haven't traveled). I'm trying to consider how to let people participate flexibly but still make it a shared experince.
@spgreenhalgh I haven't attended a lot, possibly because they've been a disappointment. If I'm not at the conference, it is hard to remember the schedule and be available to watch live talks at the right time. The micro.blog method of pre-recording the talks, with the speaker available in a chat room during the screening, worked very well.
If I had a wish list: * A really good index of talks, with... * ... a link to web page per talk. * Each talk page has the video to watch, after it has been screened. * And each page has a chat room, or list of answered questions, and the ability to ask more questions throughout the conference. * Some Q&A followups could be recorded video conferencing, also added to the page. This would give the benefits of live conferencing, but with slack for timezones, etc.
Matt Ferrell's youtube channel "Undecided" takes a really good approach to technical videos, I think. He wastes no time; he just blasts the technical details out there, because he knows you can pause and rewind. I've found this to be really refreshing, and it's basically what I want from a conference, as long as there's a way to followup and interact with the speakers as well.
@spgreenhalgh I have virtually attended two years of An Event Apart and found it to be my gold standard for online events.
@gregmoore @spgreenhalgh This is the best format. Other formats are often hard to follow or to keep engaged. I would also encourage short recorded presentation. An in-person 45 minute slot can be condensed into a snappy 20-ish minute video. Also, instead of doing six hours for two days, consider three hours over four days. Watching video can be cognitively taxing and many will multitask. So shorter length almost always works better. Oh, and breaks are important and so is sticking to the schedule and communicating it clearly.
@agilelisa This looks very interesting. Thanks! I've always wanted to try more unconference-y approaches.
@spgreenhalgh I’m available for chatting about these issues. We’ve talked a lot about making space for togetherness and flexibility.
Also I created my own ridiculous unwieldy time zone spreadsheet for planning the schedule. I think I had to prove to myself there was no way to optimize for everywhere. 😅Happy to share that. Feel free to drop me a line at jean@micro.blog.
@spgreenhalgh Fan Studies Network-North America has done a great job the past few years of cultivating a social space that goes beyond talks, using Discord for persistent conversation about sessions and off-topic chat. This year they also used Gather, which nicely replicates the experience of wandering around the conference space and bumping into people you're happy to see.
@KimberlyHirsh Thank you! Discord is on my list. I really want to do Gather, but I'm not sure this is the right crowd for it.
@spgreenhalgh one of my clients is Teamup Calendar — it’s often used for virtual conference planning and management (handles time zone, easy to share, embeddable, stand-alone event pages, customizable access). I can set up free use at Premium level if you want to try it. (Plus they’re just amazing people who run a global remote small team and believe in open web and data privacy etc)
@spgreenhalgh They did Discord + Zoom for two years before trying Gather, so even if this were the right crowd, it might make more sense to hold off while you're getting established.
@spgreenhalgh They did Discord + Zoom for two years before trying Gather, so even if this were the right crowd, it might make more sense to hold off while you're getting established.
@KimberlyHirsh I'm leaning heavily toward Discord and Zoom right now. I still think I'm going to have to do some hand-holding with Discord, but it seems to be a popular, successful choice.
@KimberlyHirsh Ahhh, the detail here is so helpful! Really appreciate your capturing this in the moment and sharing it now.
@spgreenhalgh If people can manage Slack, they can manage Discord. I will say that the Discord documentation has some gaps, so you may want to think about potential use cases/hiccups and gather a collection of blog posts from around the web that help with those.
@spgreenhalgh If people can manage Slack, they can manage Discord. I will say that the Discord documentation has some gaps, so you may want to think about potential use cases/hiccups and gather a collection of blog posts from around the web that help with those.
@KimberlyHirsh let's just say that I got added to the steering committee for this organization simply on the merits of my knowing how to use WordPress; I don't think attendees will be technophobes, but I genuinely don't know their experience with Slack-like tech, so I'm cautious
@Annie can't believe I missed this! thanks for the generous offer—I'll add this to my list and be in touch if wd like to try it
