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A calendar of peer conferences

Conferences that Work

Since 2009 I’ve maintained an informal calendar of peer conferences (aka unconferences) on this site. It’s informal because I only list events I hear about, a minuscule fraction of the unconferences people hold every day. Even so, the calendar lists hundreds of events. Currently, I add a few peer conferences a month.

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Six reasons why unconferences aren’t more popular

Conferences that Work

Events and media consultant Julius Solaris shared at the Unforgettable Experience Design Summit that he was initially very enthusiastic about unconference format events. He thought conferences would eventually adopt unconference models. The solution to this is to design your unconference before choosing the venue.

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We are biased against truly creative event design

Conferences that Work

A “creative” event design is one with a novel venue and/or decor and lighting and/or food and beverage. Consequently, planners restrict the entire focus of creative event design to novel visual and sensory elements. Truly creative event design We are biased against truly creative event design.

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Event design is not just visuals and logistics

Conferences that Work

The following year, David was kind enough to honor me in his flagship publication BizBash as one of the most innovative event professionals. However, one recurring theme in David’s magazine irritates me, because it perpetuates a common misconception in the events industry. Here are three examples: 1 — The world of weddings.

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Designing conferences to solve participants’ problems

Conferences that Work

For each domain, I’ll include examples of meeting processes you can use to satisfy participants’ problem solving wants and needs. Obvious problems (“known knowns”) have known solutions, often called “best practice” For example, how do I: Determine what employee data to store in the human resources system?

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Some models of change are better than others

Conferences that Work

Traditional conference designs also adopt this model. Eventually, a transforming idea or event allows a period of transition away from chaos, via integration and practice , towards a new status quo. To help clarify this model, here are two examples of each of these elements, adapted from Jerry’s book.

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Doing peer conferences right

Conferences that Work

Software testers do peer conferences right! They even call them a peer conference , rather than unconference , a term I don’t like.) As evidence of software tester conference awesomeness, I offer three examples below. a short history of the peer conference. The 2022 SoCraTes peer conference.