Collaborating at conferences, by Jeffrey Veen

Collaborating at conferences

We did a little experiment in collaborative technology at Adaptive Path's annual User Experience Week conference. In addition to the normal printed hand-outs and CDROM full of slides, we set up a wiki and gave everybody access to it during the event.

I was surprised how many people took advantage of it. You can see the array of stuff that ended up there on the home page. It's just really cool to see notes people took during sessions, the blogs of people attending, and even self-organized lunch BOFs and just simple message board-like discussion.

It made me wonder how this sort of connection relates to the problem of paying attention at conferences I complained about earlier here. When technologies like WiFi, portable computing, open software converge, it really can go both ways. I think that makes me optimistic.

This entry was written by Jeffrey Veen and posted 25 August 2005 at 4:44 PM. It was filed under Software, Technology.

Comments

1. On 25 August 2005 at 6:06 PM Moin wrote:

Jeff I seek your advice and many would be grateful to you.

Problem statement:
A group of part-time B-school students in India (i.e. working individuals) are in desperate need of a CMS to manage their lecture notes, project presentations, and notification messages. Right now they are succeeding in spamming each other with over enthusiastic emails (back and forth and "reply to all"), sending BIG attachments (redundantly) and generally making a mockery of communication and KM possibilities.

Problem resolution (possibility): an Open source CMS which allows all students to upload/download their notes and presentation and messages - ensuring everyone is on the same page!

Would you (and your knowledgeable visitors) be in a position to recommend a practicable solution? Please let me know.
Thanks very much in advance.
Moin

2. On 26 August 2005 at 5:13 AM ryan wrote:

Moin - I think what you need is a Course Management System. You could purchase Blackboard or WebCT for major $$$. http://moodle.org/ is an open source alternative which is rapidly catching on at many schools.

3. On 26 August 2005 at 8:30 AM veen wrote:

My experience has been that this sort of thing is less a technological solution and more one of process and community. I've seen amazing technology flounder inside organizations simply because nobody uses it.

I spend most of my day in email and IM. I communicate with people there because they do the same. But I have to remember to go to the wiki or CMS or whatever. And so I seldom do.

The wiki at the conference worked because we all were free of most of our daily distractions, and each speaker mentioned that their notes were there. People went right then, and started participating. It took a social change to work.

4. On 26 August 2005 at 10:05 AM Adam DuVander wrote:

A Wiki is great at a conference. I took notes on the Wiki at O'Reilly's Open Source Conference both times I attended. To me, this is what helps me stay in the talk. Last year, connected SubEthaEdit to the Wiki so we could use the Wiki outside of a text box.

There were a number of others who took notes this way. So, if I had a hard time deciding between two sessions, I could go back later and read someone else's notes.

That said, I think the Wiki was most useful for the always-changing calendar of events. The daily program was good, but it couldn't have an impromtu lunch of like-minded folks, as you mention. People also organized trips to the Zoo, the movies, etc.

If I were putting on a conference, there would definitely be a Wiki.

5. On 29 August 2005 at 9:17 AM Jason Wishard wrote:

The Wiki at User Experience Week 2005 was a great resource for collaborating ideas and for basic networking needs. I would love to see this technology used more in corporate settings for idea sharing and the exchange of information. My only complaint about having wireless at this event, as Jeff said, was the apparent need for people to be online during the event and not really paying attention. I guess everyone leads busy lives and if a 20 minute portion of a conference is not of importance to you and Amazon shopping is, then so be it. Wireless capabilities have their pro and cons, and this example would definitely classify as one of the bad portions of the technology. The real question is, "What will this pose for the future as wireless technology and the devices that ride on that technology become more readably available?" Will we as humans become more disconnected? If ADD is a problem now, what will the future hold for such diagnosis and have we as a society caused this condition of disconnectedness and the inability to stay on task?

6. On 15 September 2005 at 5:14 PM Jay Datema wrote:

Along the same lines:

A research project I was a part of five years ago found wireless in the classroom (analagous to a conference setting) to be distracting:

"More and more colleges are installing wireless networking, so that a student sitting in a lecture hall, a classroom or even outside the building can pop open a laptop computer and connect to the Internet at high speed. Question: Is this a resource students will use to enhance their education by looking up relevant information? Or will it distract them as they browse entertainment sites or trade e-mail?"
http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicles/3.8.01/wireless_eval.html