Confessions of a conference goer.
Okay, so the big one first. I don’t like conferences. I have been to countless conferences. A smorgasboard of summits, an array of assemblies, a hella load of hackathons and a corpus of conventions. And from those hundreds of events, I can probably count on one hand the number I thought were really memorable, thought changing and… dare I say it… fun. This may be because I went to the wrong ones, but I doubt it. So why do I keep going? Well, I’ve noticed I’m not really attending anymore. I go because conferences are a convenient place to meet smart people you don’t get to see very often.
When I heard the international open data conference was happening in Madrid this year, I knew it was a chance for vizzuality to make a great side event by focussing on the individual experience. Flying home from another conference, three gins down, an idea popped into my head. Datamovida.
Here are my confessions and how we flipped them into a better event.
I have a talk limit of three.
Any more than that and I tune out. (Okay, sometimes it’s only one before that happens). I always thought it was me. Shame on me for not having the mental fortitude to last out more than three talks! But it didn’t take long to realise I’m not alone. Look around next time you’re in a talk. There are the conference emailers, the sleepers, the shufflers, the side door leavers, the tweeters and the slack chatting snarkers. None of them are listening.
How did we solve this at datamovida and what did we do to make it more likely that we wouldn’t end up with one of those attendee types? We selected short and punchy talks on interesting topics, and invited people we knew would be entertaining and clear spoken to give them. We limited ourselves to just three talks, and we made the break between each talk longer than the talks themselves so everyone could digest and discuss what they had just heard. Which leads me on to my next point.
I like meeting people just not the first small talk bit.
I love talking to interesting people. BUT. I don’t like walking up to people I don’t know and starting a conversation. I mean, in my mind, you have to be a crazy person to enjoy that first connection. To seek it out. Finding a good way to approach a random person and avoid the small talk pain is taxing.
But it turns out that making new connections is a million times easier when you’re walking alongside someone, so we took that idea and put it into datamovida. I think the act of moving together helps free the brain a little. I like that. Talking was more fluid, connections were deeper, and the opportunity to talk with people happened more naturally than forcing your way around a room of vol au vent eaters.
I forget most talks.
After a conference I feel the memories slide out of my ears. By the time I’ve taken a train, a plane and an automobile home, the content of conference sessions have been left behind. My hypothesis for this is that conference sessions all take place at the same location. Same grey room, same projected screen, same startmiddleend talk format, same hard seating. In fact I’d go further than that to suggest the session “canvas” has been homogenised across so many conference centres, everything that happens in the them has melted into one blurry memory.
We avoided that kind of beige experience by choosing memorable and unique venues to hold our talks. We used CARTO’s beautiful office on Grand Via, a cosy map and book shop, a famous Madrid bar, and a modern digital laboratory. Each venue meant the audience had a different visual and spatial perspective. We gathered in circles, sat in cinema seats, and looked up to a balcony. Each session was framed differently. And because each setting for our talks was unique, I for one can recall much easier what was said.
I find conferences stuffy.
At first I thought it was the beer. I thought this was the reason why the edges of a conference were more enjoyable than the main event. But in reality once outside of a main conference, you are in the open air, relaxed, with other equally relaxed people. Maybe some beer helps, but that’s not the main thing.
Having the chance to meet and be with people you haven’t seen for ages and learn new things from conversations with new people is where I find the real value. For me, I’d like the whole conference to have that vibe.
Our solution? Be generous with the food and drink. Be generous with the time to talk. Did I mention we wanted to be outside sometimes. Datamovida was all about making human connections and what bonds us better than sharing food together? Excellent drinks and great tapas fuelled the walking and talking and let’s face it, putting food in your belly is always good for the soul. I’m sure of that.
Don’t give me too many choices!
A conference should be like a good menu with fewer, but better quality menu items. I have a theory that when a conference has too many streams and talks, it ruins the opportunity for serendipitous discovery and connection. People stay in their regular pathway and silos. Conferences should be about discovering new ideas and when there’s too much choice, it’s easy to be lazy and stick with what you know. When organisers cram in loads of talks it usually means mediocre sessions make the cut simply because there’s space to fill.
By reducing the options down to just one stream and three talks, we made sure people only saw the the entertaining sessions that introduced new ideas.
I have a limited attention span for the same delivery style.
I get frustrated that talking at powerpoint presentation seems to be the only way people convey information at a conference. Surely we can be more creative? At datamovida we wanted to show the importance of data visualisation. And what better way to do it than to create a data visualisation. With our bodies. With 200 people. Facilitated by the brilliant Yuri Engelhardt. It was a great way to achieve a number of our conference objectives. Learn about data visualisation, connect with interesting people and have fun while we are doing it. I think we did that.
You are not your audience
Now #datamovida was not the perfect event, it was our first go and we discovered a huge amount, but hopefully by reading this post it might provoke you to find a different way of looking at the conference experience. Putting the people first. That’s definitely something we do a lot of at vizzuality.
