I have yet to attend one of these, but I really would love to see one in action. (Still need to find that $million I misplaced so I can fly around to all the events I’d like to attend) Anyway…I followed this link via Stephen Downs of Ewan McIntosh’s 10 Top Tips for Unplanning the Perfect Unconference. It’s a great posting with great tips about hosting an unconference, but what I also like about it is that the tips are ones we can/should all follow for any event we are hosting.
The very first one is so simple and easy to accomplish. It’s one of those, “Why didn’t I think of that?” I recently just had a management retreat here at work and the feedback about playing music over the lunch hour was incredible. “It created such a fun and lively environment.” “It felt like a real break in the day and like I truly was away from the office.” Honestly, can you imagine how hard was it for me to put a cd on during lunch.
I love #6 too. It’s like a (what we call here) a “parking lot” of ideas. Why not let people play with their Blackberries during these conference and add thoughts, ideas, questions to the topic at hand.
The whole thing is just a great little read.