Different Structure?

[cdmwebs]

I'm interested in something besides the traditional stand and talk to crowd stuff and I know others are as well. @joelturnbull, @kclasita, @rubyist and @ElizabethN went to Brooklyn Beta this year and had great things to say about it. I think most of us wanted something similar but didn't know how to put it together.

Copied this from @ryw in another thread:

I'd rather be hanging out in the hall having a conversation/forming a
relationship, because it's more active. Or writing some code in a workshop,
building something. I wonder if others feel the same, or maybe I'm an
oddball :)

For my brain to be fulfilled, I'd love the event to be something where we
can learn from Gaslight, Lisnr, Ample, Modulus, Girl Develop It, Neo,
Differential, etc. And connect more deeply with each other. Maybe add a
little bit of an unconference approach — since I think a lot of the
attendees have a high level of expertise.

Want to try something like that this year?

[thoreinstein]

👍

[queso]

👍

[joelturnbull]

So Brooklyn Beta for the most part was still listening to talks. It's just that the talks were all inspirational success stories. But like @ryw said, there was definitely an obvious, comfortable area where people knew they could hang out and meet, and there was beer there. And people did that.

When I read @ryw's comment there, I felt myself perking up when I read that list of companies. I think stories are interesting. I'm want to hear stories from those people.

[queso]

Yeah, we would love to share some of our open source stories, we have been getting a lot of great community involvement on that front and it is interesting to see how people jump into that. We now have people translating our meteor packages into other languages (like spanish and german).

I think telling stories from an experience point of view instead of a technical point of view would be much more engage, which I think is what @joelturnbull is alluding to...

[agilous]

I'd like to steal Greenville Grok which consists of breaking attendees into randomly selected groups of eight. Groups are rotated every hour. Each hour consists of 10/20's which are 10 minute discussions about anything any group member cares to discuss. After 10 minutes the group votes to extend for another 10 minutes or move to another discussion. No talk goes past 20 minutes.

Aside from 10/20's there are:

• opening and closing keynotes
• two hours each with three curated 20's (preselected 20 minute talks)
• a half-day participatory "field trip" event during which all attendees are split into two groups; one group continues 10/20's while the other is on the field trip, then the two groups switch.

I attended this year's Grok and was really impressed by the amount of energy and buzz this format generates.

[thoreinstein]

Pulling @rcayabyab into this discussion. I believe he has some ideas based on our convo at the last drink up.

[rcayabyab]

Thanks for pulling me in @janders223.

I love the concept that Brooklyn Beta uses. As most know, it can be great or horrible when companies share their story and speak. It's either an inspirational success story or a sales pitch for either their product or their company. Just need to make sure what they share is something inspirational.

I'm definitely intrigued by the Grok setup. Would that be too much a jump though from a normal conference?

Just my two cents.

[joerocklin]

As a very strong 'I' on the Myers-Briggs scale: the thought of being mixed into a random group of people raises my anxiety level. It's one thing to join a larger group where I know someone already and grow my circle of interaction, but another to be tossed into a random group. If a group has a good mix of personality types the interaction can be very positive, but group of all members from a limited personality type can lead to conflict or silence (there are exceptions to every rule of course).

[agilous]

I'm the same way @joerocklin but each group is assigned a moderator who helped move things along if they slowed and set the tone, which was very casual. I felt very much at ease, despite being the only 50-something developer tossed in with mostly 20-something designers.

Still, it does take a bit of courage and trust to open up and put something out there. Maybe my age and the associated desire to stop wasting what time I have left works in my favor, making me a bit more bold despite my struggles with anxiety but that's relevant only to me I guess.

[joerocklin]

@agilous I think having a moderator definitely would help. I don't mind being silent in a group, but a silent group staring at each other isn't good.