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fringe events: IT in the Community November 25-26, Sunderland

Wed, 10/08/2008 - 11:00 — Graham Jordan

Hi,

I've just posted more detailed info about Sunderland's IT in the Community conference in late November. It strucjk me that this will bring together a good handful of like-minded individuals that may wish to participate in a fringe programme of barcamp-type gatherings etc.

Big question for me , though.

I've never organised unstructured programmes etc like this before. How do you kick something like that away? Do you think people would be interested? What would need to be provided?

Thanks
Graham

Comments

Wed, 10/08/2008 - 18:47 — Dave Briggs

Few thoughts

Hi Graham

Interesting question! You are at an advantage that you will have the people you need in the same place anyway, it's just a case of getting them to stick around and come to your sessions.

I'd say the most important thing is to communicate. Get a mailing list working asap, and get everyone involved subscribed to it. If you and any other likely attendees blog, make sure posts get written. Maybe invite some other people who might help out by running interesting sessions and get a buzz going around the event.

Use your online communication channels to encourage discussion about possible sessions, maybe you can set a very loose framework of a small number of themes for people to work in so they have some parameters. Get people excited about the idea of running sessions/presenting.

On the day make sure you have plenty of flipcharts, pens, stickies, bluetack and coffee. Find a big wall that the agenda can be stuck onto. Encourage people to attend the sessions they want to and if they want to talk about other stuff, start a new session!

Try and use online channels for others to be involved, like twitter. Get someone to wander round with a camera or camcorder to report on what's happening.

Blog about it afterwards, make sure everyone knows what fun it was to do!

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