Conference Organizers, Check This Out

I thought I would split time between SIIA Content Forum and Web 2.0 Expo but yesterday I was at Expo most of the day.  It's not fair to compare apples and oranges as these two conferences are not meant to be competitive, but Web 2.0 Expo is a remarkable event.  Don't quote me on the numbers but it I heard they were expecting 3000 people and close to 4000 showed up.  All the sessions I tried to attend were standing room only.  Content Forum and Expo each had a mash-up session going on simultaneously; I left Content Forum for Expo and had to stand in the doorway to hear Rod Smith of IBM. [Note to mashup experts:  Google Maps mashups are old news.]  Anyone who runs a conference should sign up for an O'Reilly event and see how they make it so compelling.
Sunday night at Expo they had a session called Ignite.  16 presenters each had 5 minutes to speak to 20 slides that automatically flipped very 15 seconds.  The subject matter was very broad:  Timothy Ferriss  talked about The 4-Hour Workweek, which I thought was the best 5 minute slot.  Jane McGonigal spoke about happiness metrics and was terrific.  Jordan Schwartz talked about beekeeping.  5 minutes is enough of an introduction to see if your interested; if you're not interested it's over in 5 minutes.  It was a great format and should be copied, in some form by other conferences.

Comments

[Ian]

Hi Steve,

Great to see you at Web Expo in San Francisco. Hope you got a chance to check out our wonderful ballpark.

For your readers that might be interested in trying out the Ignite format for themselves, may I suggest [http://delicious.salted.com/] which takes your last 20 links in del.icio.us and turns them into slides. A fun thing to do with your team over drinks on Friday afternoon.