This speaker interview was conducted by a rockstar Event Camp Twin Cities Attendee Jenise Fryatt.
Adrian Segar certainly has the geek credentials for being an unconference faciliator. He started out as an elementary particle physicist and moved on to facilitating peer to peer style conferences 20 years ago. In fact, he wrote a book on the subject called Conferences That Work. This year he will lend his unconference expertise to Event Camp Twin Cities, (ECTC10), Sept. 8 & 9 and Event Camp East Coast Nov. 12 & 13.
I was fortunate enough to meet Adrian at the first Event Camp, a conference for events industry professionals held last February in New York City. Like me, Adrian attended that inaugural event as a participant and also like me, Adrian was blown away by the passion for innovative techniques and meeting technologies that the Event Campers shared. I recently asked Adrian a few questions about his involvment this year.
Jenise: How did you become involved with ECTC?
Adrian: Exploring Twitter at the end of 2009, just after the publication of my book on conference design, I stumbled upon the #eventprofs community. There I heard about something called EventCamp, to be held in New York City in February. On a hunch I decided to attend, and it was there that I met Sam Smith (and a host of other great eventprofs) for the first time face to face. What is now called the original EventCamp was a blast, and when I heard that Sam and Ray Hansen were putting together a regional EventCamp in Minneapolis, I immediately asked Sam if I could help with the event in some way. I gave him some suggestions and ended up being responsible for a couple of sessions.
Jenise: Please tell a little about the sessions that you will be facilitating there?
Adrian: One of the sessions I’m running is called Pecha Kucha, Japanese for chitchat, where we’ll have many short presentations by attendees. I became interested in Pecha Kucha through a reference in Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen. It’s like a haiku for presentations-every presenter chooses twenty slides, each shown for exactly twenty seconds while he or she presents. The format encourages focus, conciseness, and passion, and I thought it would be a great way for EventCamp Twin Cities attendees to learn about a variety of event topics-such as event design, social media in events, and tradeshow innovation-in a short amount of time. A number of #eventprofs, including Lara McCulloch-Carter who started the group, have already signed up to present.
I’m also facilitating the closing session, which will be similar to the personal introspective I use at Conferences That Work. It’s a two-part process. First, there’s a structured exercise for participants to privately explore what’s happened for them at the conference, how their experience might impact their life in the future, and what changes they may want to make as a result. And second, we’ll give everyone an opportunity to share any or all of their answers to others. So the session is designed to combine private reflection and group sharing to take stock of participants’ conference experiences, develop strategies for the future, and further build community by discovering and sharing the commonalities of our time together.
Jenise: How will ECTC be like/different from the kinds of events you usually facilitate and write about in your book Conferences that Work?
Adrian: One of things I like about the proposed program at ECTC is that the organizers are taking risks, scheduling sessions that are not the traditional talk + questions we’ve all experienced at so many events. In that sense, ECTC is very much in the spirit of Conferences That Work.
Where we part company is that, unlike the pre-determined sessions of ECTC, the Conferences That Work design crowdsources most of the sessions at the event, so people arrive not knowing what is going to happen. That probably sounds scary to many of your readers, but the wonderful thing about this design, which has been tested and refined over the last twenty years, is that the event simply turns into what participants want it to be.
Jenise: What do you think is the most valuable thing event professionals will take away from ECTC?
Adrian: It’s going to be different for every attendee, so I’m wary of making a single prediction! Here are what I think will be the most important outcomes from ECTC.
First, those attendees who are unfamiliar with eventprofs will be amazed by the energy emanating from our community, and will become active members!
Second, there’s going to be plenty of good old-fashioned learning about a wealth of new technologies and approaches, many of which have been spurred by the intersection of social media and our industry.
And finally, I expect that many event professionals will have their eyes opened to the value of novel event session designs, and will begin to incorporate them into their future events.
Jenise Fryatt’s blog Sound n’ Sight covers events industry thoughts and features with an audio visual and social media bent. Jenise is also co-owner/marketing director of Icon Presentations Audio Visual for Events located in Southern California. She describes herself as an “events industry cheerleader” who is also a yoga and improv devotee trying to stay in the present.
