Comments on: Sweettt.com – Episode 7 – Conversations as The Future of Conferences

By: E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez » The Future of Conference Events - Looking after the Health of Attendees

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:44:50 +0000

[...] am sure that by now most of you folks out there would be up to date with a good number of the discussions that have been going on around the subject of how to improve the overall experience of attendees to [...]

By: Matt Simpson

Matt Simpson — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:49:24 +0000

Sitting here, right now, on a knowledge management and collaboration community call, I just heard about a presentation style for conferences, called , which "... is a presentation format in which content can be easily, efficiently and informally shown, usually at a public event designed for that purpose. Under the format, a presenter shows 20 images for 20 seconds apiece, for a total time of 6 minutes, 40 seconds..."

By: Future Conferences - Part 1 « Future Business

Future Conferences - Part 1 « Future Business — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:15:38 +0000

[...] Suarez and Matt Simpson recently discussed this problem on their Sweettt podcast. Sean Bohan also discussed the topic on his blog earlier this month. I have heard the same [...]

By: Matt Simpson

Matt Simpson — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 03:48:00 +0000

Hi Kevin. Sorry about the earlier spam block. It was a defect. I uninstalled and reinstalled a couple of things, scolded Sweettt severely, and made her go an run laps for what she did. I hope everything is back in fine order now.

I’m with you on the virtual conferences. Head tracking… spacialized voice… 3d driving off the headtracking (reverse wii)… triple monitor club… and we’re virtually there, kicking back and sipping coffee, fully immersed at the everyman’s desktop.

By: Kevin Aires

Kevin Aires — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 23:43:55 +0000

I think the whole conference thing is over-rated in general. I like going to conferences. I work from home and frankly if I'm honest it's nice to get out of the home office and meet people and it makes me feel good. However, it terms of the "value" gained, it's probably quite poor in terms of ROI. I think once 2009 happens and lots of conferences and travel are cut because firms are going to the wall and trying to save money we'll see Virtual conferences of various descriptions come into their own. See my post on .

By: Kevin Aires

Kevin Aires — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 23:39:41 +0000

Test before I write a longer post as the last time the system told me it was spam and said it wouldn’t post it!

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 23:46:45 +0000

ok – we hit the 100th download… I’m thinking it’s time to post the next episode… that should be soon

By: Matt Simpson

Matt Simpson — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 01:13:16 +0000

Julio, I could not agree with you more!

By: Julio Cesar

Julio Cesar — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:57:51 +0000

As it was pointed in the podcast and Luis re-stated in a comment above, slides are just a mean to communicate something.

My view on this is that depending on the topic the mean to present it could be a different one rather than a presentation. Sometimes, slides are viewed as documents when they are not documents: go ahead an write a white paper or a book!

In a presentation you have to interact with your audience, otherwise they will start to do something else (even if a internet connection is not available, day dreaming, anyone? ).

Good show!

By: Matt Simpson

Matt Simpson — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:41:14 +0000

Hi Wolf, I know what you mean. Consider this… you take a 2 hour flight (or longer)… You stay overnight… You wake up early… Get your self to the conference center… Get a seat up front… and out walks Scott Berkun… (Oh boy, isn’t this going to be great)… And shortly after he starts his presentation, you realize that he’s delivering the same presentation you just researched & discovered online. Hang on a minute… You’ve come all this way to hear the same thing you just heard on YouTube?

Now what? You’re in that chair for another 50 minutes until he’s ready to take questions. The slot on the schedule will be finished after the end of the hour. So, what do you do? Every minute is valuable. Do you just listen to the whole thing all over again? Do you tune out & think about all kinds of other things? Do you start sending tweets on twitter? Do you search for the back channel chat & hand out there to see what other people think? Do you start writing your next blog post?

Well, whatever you to, let’s say you make it through the hour and somehow find something productive to do during that time.

Next on the docket is Clay Shirky, on his new book “Here Comes Everybody.” Hmmmmm……

The point is, for presentations that are mostly one way, we don’t need to be in the room. So, what’s the value of being in the room? Larry Prusak chides us, suggesting we do the same thing dogs do when they meet each other. Personally, I think the value is in the potential interaction. And this is one thing that really gets me going… underachieved potential.

As for the microphone hog… Nothing replaces facilitation. The wireless microphone is a modern-day talking stick.