Special Features in Úll 2016: Call for Proposals

Special Features run all day on day 2 of the conference.

An Úll Special Feature is a slippery thing to pin down. In a nutshell, rather than give you a stage and a timeslot, we give you a room and invite you to set it up with your presentation.

Here are the key things that define an Úll Feature:

Repeatable. By repeatable we don’t mean a talk that you can give 8 times in a day, but repeatable in that the feature can be presented or experienced multiple times in a day without you necessarily being in the room. We encourage you to make yourself available to interact with your audience perhaps by hosting office hours or a Q&A session, but we don’t want you to necessarily perform over and over again.

Rooted in a physical space. One room, one feature. The audience comes to your room to experience your feature.

What happens in the room is up to you.

Is this like an art installation?

A little bit, but only by way of analogy. It’s like an art installation, or a science fair, or a trade show, or amusement park, but not exactly like any of those things. We want the same effects that traditional presentations aim for: a personal story, a unique perspective for shared learning, big ideas for inspiration, specific knowledge transfer, a human connection, a spark to empower the audience. The aims are the same. What’s different is the medium.

We don’t want to dictate. Kind of like those out-there art exhibits where you go into a room and watch a video of cows walking backwards on a loop for 30 minutes. Or like museums that have a 30 minute video showing the history of the local tyre-manufacturing industry. Or like aquariums that have interactive installations teaching you not to eat endangered fish. Or like zoos that teach you about the okapi, the closest known relative to the giraffe.

It might be video based. It might be you narrating your slides as though you were on stage. It could be audio-only, or audio combined with moving images, or animate schematics of an app. You could bring in music, or chiptunes, or something you recorded on GarageBand. You could use robots, or Arduino or a Raspberry Pi or an iPad or a Mac to control lights or motors or whatever you want. It could be a book on a table that your audience touches and reads.

Remember Steve Jobs line about trying to be at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts? That’s around about where we want to be.

Really, we don’t want to set any limits. You have a space, and access to what we believe is the richest set of tools for creating story-telling media in the history of the planet. Fast, touch-screen devices. Much cheaper and easier access to high-quality audio and video recording equipment. Robots that are programmable by mere mortals.

We believe that you’ll be able to create unforgettable experiences using any tools you deem necessary.

Your special feature will run on a loop throughout the conference. You’re not given a time slot in which to give your talk: You’re given a space within which to create an experience for the attendees. You get to make the rules, and we’ll work with you to make things happen.

Why?

The benefits of this format, in our opinion, are: you get to edit your material in advance, and you’re left with something easily distributable. During the conference, you’re free from stress, because all of the work to prepare your presentation is done in advance the audience gets to choose their own adventure, moving from feature to feature and event to event, all bookended with stage talks and a single shared group experience.

Package and Support

We’ll work with you to determine the AV/tech needs to bring your feature to life and ensure you have help getting everything set up.

So send us your ideas. We’ve opened a “Call for Special Features”. We want to hear about your talks and your ideas. We’re hiding the identifying information to make the call open and unbiased. Those who are successful will get our full speaker package:

• Complimentary full access to the conference
• €750 towards a return flight to Úll
• Transfers to Killarney
• 4 nights at the 5 Star Europe hotel, with all meals covered

How?

Apply through the google form we’ve set up here. The closing date for submissions is 30 June 2016.