An Unconferencer on Conferences

I used to think I was comfortable speaking at both conferences and unconferences. Then I took some time away from both, and went to BarCamp Portland and WebVisions pretty much back to back. Which gave me some good thinking about conferences and unconferences and where they fit.

At least for where I am right now, I feel like an unconferencer. I want to hear feedback from the audience, I want to know who's engaged, what they're thinking about, but I want to be able to have the narrative thread created by a large amount of people. I don't want to be the only one responsible for creating the experience. Standing in front of a room of laptops as an extension of the people behind them is jarring for me; I know, as someone that can handily carry on 8+ conversations on twitter/Jabber/IM/IRC, that there is a wealth of conversation that is happening that I am not involved in. I wonder who's really listening, who the real audience is, and who's just a body in the room trying to get to inbox zero. (I am guilty of this as well. I'm a person with too much email, and I manage it as best I can.)

But in order to grow as a speaker, I should be having those conversations that are hard for me to lead, the ones where I feel like I'm talking to a blank wall instead of performing. I should be able to spin a coherent narrative that informs and entertains beginners and experts alike. Yet, I crave the conversation aspect. It's a weird place to be. It's why unconferences were born - because the person on stage doesn't have to be the expert, because audience participation matters more than just asking a question.

However, trying to explain the idea of an unconference isn't as easy as it once was. "So it's unstructured, and undirected? It's just for networking?" That doesn't suffice as an explanation, but it's true. They are unstructured. They are undirected. And they have the capacity to fail in ways that a conference is never really allowed to. A conference is structured - you'll have some good talks, and some talks that don't resonate as well for individuals, and some talks that are just plain bad, but there's no guesswork about what's expected. It's going to be big, it's an honor to speak, and there will be a lot of other conference trappings. Very few of that is present at unconferences, but you do get to know people. Trying to explain the value of an unconference is harder too, when conferences have become the norm again. You can get to know people at conferences, but for some of the bigger industry events, I see friends and colleagues for about 30 seconds. At an unconference, I can have conversations for 2 or 3 hours that also invite new voices that I wouldn't have been aware of.

I'm troubled by the apparent dichotomy between the two, that's it's an 'either or' game, and I sure didn't intend this to be a judgement on the conference system. I'm just noting some strain, at least in Drupal, around the conference ideal, and it's making me wonder if that strain is absolutely necessary. I'm sure happy to play in either, both have value, but only if the goals are clear. Is the goal to throw the biggest, best party-masquerading-as-a-conference that celebrates the growth of community, that touches on aspects of the community? Is the goal to have real technical conversations that grow our communities? Could we, in fact, have both?

I have no idea. I just know that I need to do better in both environments, so I'll be giving a talk on sales and open source at Open Source Bridge here in Portland at the end of the month. And it's scheduled and all of that, so I have to be a real presenter. But I'll keep thinking about an ecosysytem where both could work, and I'm not going to stop helping to put stuff on where it makes sense.