radioflash.cc: i2 wrap-up: 3 stars innovation, 4 stars planning, 5 stars execution

Twitter:

<~paige> notice there are a bunch of anime cons no anime pros — 1 day 15 hours ago
@i_2_i I did, majorly! I have plenty of suggestions, but almost no complaints. The very short notice for being a vol. is really the only one — 39 weeks 5 days ago
@innovate @glxp @i_2_i Yet another #i2i wrapup: I took a more general approach than responding to specific speakers. http://snipr.com/jzzxq — 39 weeks 5 days ago
Internet is down on my entire street which means I can't do much work until some unknown point in the future. #cox more like #cocks — 39 weeks 5 days ago
Help, my internet is missing — 39 weeks 5 days ago

Events:

Why Drugs Matter

March 18, 2:00pm

Restorative Justice

March 27, 2:00pm

Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics
Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square Park South, New York City
September 24, 6:00pm

See more upcoming events.

i2 wrap-up: 3 stars innovation, 4 stars planning, 5 stars execution

eronarn — Fri, 06/12/2009 - 15:52

This past Monday and Tuesday I was at the X Prize Foundation's i2i conference at the United Nations. I was one of the volunteers, along with my ebuddy @SAZorak and a handful of other folks that I hadn't previously known. Tons of people were acting as a Conference=>Twitter relay, and video will be available at some point, so I won't waste time talking about who I liked best or what lesson I took away that was most useful. I thought it would be a much better idea to just go over my general impressions and suggestions for the future. So, here's the first part of that focusing on what I liked:

As a whole I loved the event! It was definitely worthwhile, and if I were more credentialed it would have been a wonderful place to make professional connections. (And even though I'm just an undergraduate and wasn't particularly trying to, I still made some!)

Great choice of speakers. Considering how many there were, I'm surprised that none of them seemed inappropriate or boring. It's hard to plan a consistently interesting schedule - good job doing it!

Excellent venue. I'm not sure there's anything more to be said about that!

Good variety of topics. Some very diverse fields were represented but they each tied back into the main points of the conference well.

Good schedule, and good job sticking to it. While it was heavily loaded there were no simultaneous events, so there was no need to make difficult choices about what to attend. That's a positive with an event of this nature, IMO, even if it cuts down on the number of possible speakers.

Inclusion of Twitter was a good idea. Lots of people were using it anyways, so to have the conference formally include it was neat.

Of course, not everything was so rosy... there were some aspects of i2i that I found more mixed:

The breakout sessions were a good idea, but they seemed too short and too unfocused. I think they would've been more productive if they were longer but required a more formal final result.

The sessions were also too static. Since your group was defined by the people sitting near you, you saw too many of the same faces. Cross-pollination is a good thing!

I don't think the volunteers were well-used. Don't get me wrong, it was a great opportunity and I loved being there - but I either should have been given more work to do, or there should have been less volunteers. Preferably the former.

There wasn't enough chance for audience discussion. Instead of a Q&A with the panel where only a fraction of the room gets to speak, why not a five minute discussion break where the panel circulates around the room and take part in the discussion as equals? This synergizes with the above point: a volunteer could follow each panelist around and take notes.

The big screen with Twitter readouts was a good idea, but nobody really looked at it as far as I noticed. There must be a better way to integrate it with the conference - what if it were left up the entire time, rather than only very intermittently?

And finally, there were some parts that I just flat out disliked or found questionable:

Why not apply the prize model to the event? If the tickets had been $50 more, that would've been enough to provide a $10,000 prize to the best breakout session result. Perhaps that $10,000 would not even go to the creators of the idea, but be used as the starting purse to get their idea off the ground. This would definitely help spread awareness of i2i.

There was no way for the internet to contribute to the conference except for hoping someone noticed them on Twitter. I would've preferred to have people able to take part regardless of whether they could physically be there. What about having an "online liason" - someone dedicated to just talking about the conference live on blogs, forums, or Twitter as it happened?

Combine the two points above: imagine if details on what the breakout session would be about weren't released until right when it started, to spur on-the-spot thinking, but that once it started anyone anywhere could win that $10,000 prize! That would get a lot of people following the events of the conference.

The conference didn't have to start or end at the scheduled time. Why not create a website for i2i attendees to get an early start, or to discuss and learn well past the last speaker? Yes, there are other social networking sites, but people are on a variety of them and use them with varying frequencies. An i2i-sponsored way to get together would see at least some use. You could even do the likes of an anonymous pre-conference online breakout session, with those teams getting a chance to meet in person and introduce themselves at some point during the conference.

Many people were tweeting notes on what was being said, but few were actually having discussions. In fact it would have been hard to because so many people were using #i2i to not-discuss. There should have been a set of designated volunteers taking very clear notes over Twitter on one hashtag so that other folks wouldn't feel that they have to, with another hashtag intended only for reactions to what was said, and yet another for the breakout sessions to be conducted on. Twitter helped, but was not used to its full potential here.

To sum up this last list: why did this so closely resemble a normal conference? The content was engaging, but the format was essentially completely standard with a splash of technology to make it snazzier. It was smooth, effective, and polished - but it did not practice what it preached.

Granted, it was only the first year, so I don't want to be too harsh on the folks involved. I've been involved in conventions before and organizing them is nervewracking, certainly even more so given the formality of the audience and the venue. So, as I state in the title, I'll give this conference only 3 stars in the category of being visionary - but where it attempted, it succeeded masterfully.

I hope I'll get to go again next year!

eronarn's blog

You are one annoying ass,

Beard McNeckinton (not verified) — Sun, 07/12/2009 - 14:33

You are one annoying ass, pretentious college punk. I hope you enjoy the shit intern job your family got you, because you wouldn't last a second in the real world. I'm sure I'll see you behind the counter at Geek Squad once reality kicks you in nuts.

Twitter:

Events:

i2 wrap-up: 3 stars innovation, 4 stars planning, 5 stars execution

You are one annoying ass,

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