Comments on: UnConference or MutateConference?

By: In the provinces

In the provinces — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 17:59:29 +0000

Sorry to be so cynical, but my experiences with this sort of “unconferencing,” is that it leads either to people rambling on for 15-20 long, painful minutes without saying anything. Or it becomes a format for a self-styled big name to turn a session into endless stroking of his (or, less often, her) ego.

By: Vivien Blasquez

Vivien Blasquez — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:26:04 +0000

Great article, I find it most expedient and least insanifying to do as you did with your program committee, that is, exploit the inevitable interstices of cludgy systems to supplement or subvert them in ways that please me.

By: Laura

Laura — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:54:34 +0000

Btw, didn’t read the post until after my comment. Funny that we ended on the same nite. I think there are all different kinds of unconferences. To set a definition goes against the movement.

By: Laura

Laura — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:48:48 +0000

In my field–k-12 ed–unconferencing is far from dead. One unconference here in philly spawned dozens more across the country. They allow for actual conversation and debate. People do actually confront each other on the merits of there ideas and nit in that I want to show how smart I am way. People try to accomplish things in these sessions. It’s pretty amazing! Giving talks at these is fun but challenging. You’re not prepared. You just slap some talking points or questions together and go. I highly recommend attending one. Better yet, organize one.

By: Carl

Carl — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:22:04 +0000

I couldn’t agree more. Just to throw another oar in the water, we’ve been talking about Deacon’s Incomplete Nature over at my place; one of the central ideas is constraint as non-humean causation, and the way systems self-generate out of the dynamics of becoming this by avoiding or not becoming that. One take-away being that evolutionary systems (like minds and conferences) are always cludgy assemblages of accumulated thises and not-thats, for better or worse.

The Enlightenment dream is that we could engineer optimized systems from scratch, and I’ve never entirely given up on that despite the poor record of previous attempts. But in the meantime I find it most expedient and least insanifying to do as you did with your program committee, that is, exploit the inevitable interstices of cludgy systems to supplement or subvert them in ways that please me.