An unconference is a participant-driven meeting. The term "unconference" has been applied, or self-applied, to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid hierarchical aspects of a conventional conference, such as sponsored presentations and top-down organization. [1] [2]
According to Tim O'Reilly, a predecessor of an unconference was a gathering organized by Alexander von Humboldt in 1828, which had a reduced emphasis on formal speeches and instead emphasized informal connections. [3]
The term "unconference" first appeared in an announcement for the annual XML developers conference in 1998. [4]
Unconferences often use variations on Open Space Technology, the format/method developed by Harrison Owen in 1985. Owen's 1993 book Open Space Technology: a User's Guide discussed many of the techniques now associated with unconferences, although his book does not use that term.
The term was used by Lenn Pryor when discussing BloggerCon (a series of conferences organized by Dave Winer and first held October 4–5, 2003 at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society.) [5]
Sarah Winge, the organizer (with Tim O'Reilly) of Foo Camp, an early unconference, drew on her experience of open space and conversations with Harrison Owen to develop the format. [6] The first Foo Camp happened October 10–12, 2003, in Sebastopol, California. In 2005 some of the attendees from previous years decided to produce their own "Bar" Camp. These three events, BloggerCon, Foo Camp and BarCamp helped to popularize the term "unconference". [7]
Typically at an unconference, the agenda is created by the attendees at the beginning of the meeting. Anyone who wants to initiate a discussion on a topic can claim a time and a space. Some unconference sessions (for example at FooCamp or BarCamp) are led by the participant who suggested its topic; other unconference sessions are basically open discussions of the session topic.
An "unconference" is particularly useful when participants generally have a high level of expertise or knowledge in the field the conference convenes to discuss.
An unconference can be conducted using a number of facilitation styles. Some of these are:
O'Reilly Media is an American learning company established by Tim O'Reilly that publishes books, produces tech conferences, and provides an online learning platform. Its distinctive brand features a woodcut of an animal on many of its book covers.
A meeting is when two or more people come together to discuss one or more topics, often in a formal or business setting, but meetings also occur in a variety of other environments. Meetings can be used as form of group decision making.
In politics, emergent democracy represents the rise of political structures and behaviors without central planning and by the action of many individual participants, especially when mediated by the Internet. It has been likened to the democratic system of ancient Greece in the sense that people could publicly participate as much or as little as they please, although a form of representation exists which is based on personal trust networks instead of party affiliations. More recently, American writer and researcher Clay Shirky has referred to this as "the power of organizing without organizations."
A conference is a meeting, often lasting a few days, which is organized on a particular subject, or to bring together people who have a common interest. Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always decisions, is the primary purpose of conferences. The term derives from the word confer.
The International Congress on Medieval Studies is an annual academic conference held for scholars specializing in, or with an interest in, medieval studies. It is sponsored by the Medieval Institute at the Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and is held during the first half of May. The Congress is the largest annual gathering in the field, regularly attracting over three thousand registered participants from all over the world. The 50th annual conference took place in 2015.
Timothy O'Reilly is an Irish-American author and publisher, who is the founder of O'Reilly Media. He popularised the terms open source and Web 2.0.
BloggerCon was a user-focused conference for the blogger community that ran between 2003 and 2006. BloggerCon I and II, were organized by Dave Winer and friends at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for the Internet and Society in Cambridge, Massachusetts BloggerCon III took place in San Francisco in June 2006. According to the Online Journalism Review, "BloggerCon has lots of cooks, but the chief chef is technologist Dave Winer, co-founder of RSS and the patient zero of blogging. BloggerCon exists because Winer wants it to happen."
Foo Camp is an annual hacker event hosted by publisher O'Reilly Media. O'Reilly describes it as "the wiki of conferences", where the program is developed by the attendees at the event, using big whiteboard schedule templates that can be rewritten or overwritten by attendees to optimize the schedule; this type of event is sometimes called an unconference.
BarCamp is an international network of user-generated conferences primarily focused on technology and the web. They are open, participatory workshop-events, the content of which is provided by participants. The first BarCamps focused on early stage web applications, and were related to open-source technologies, social software, and open data formats.
Open space technology (OST) is a method for organizing and running a meeting or multi-day conference, where participants have been invited in order to focus on a specific, important task or purpose.
Science Foo Camp (scifoo) is an annual of interdisciplinary scientific unconferences organized by O'Reilly Media, Digital Science, Alphabet Inc., based on an idea from Linda Stone. The event is based on the spirit and format of Foo Camp, an event focused on emerging technology, and is designed to encourage collaboration between scientists who would not typically work together. As such, it is unusual among conferences in three ways:
A fishbowl conversation is a form of dialogue that can be used when discussing topics within large groups. Fishbowl conversations are sometimes also used in participatory events such as unconferences. The advantage of fishbowl is that it allows the entire group to participate in a conversation. Several people can join the discussion.
Kinnernet is a series of invitation-only unconference events formed by entrepreneurs, technologists, startup founders, scientists, media professionals, and creatives.
A TeachMeet is an informal meeting, organised by teacher for teachers to share good practice, practical innovations and personal insights on teaching in a convivial atmosphere. TeachMeet events are open to all, do not charge an entry fee, and take place in a social setting. These events are often organised to coincide with other educational events like the Scottish Learning Festival and the British Educational Technology and Training Show BETT.
A hybrid event is a tradeshow, conference, unconference, seminar, workshop or other meeting that combines a "live" in-person event with a "virtual" online component.
Stream is a series of digital unconferences hosted by WPP. It is run by volunteers and sponsored by some of WPP's agency clients. Stream Europe takes place in Greece in October each year and hosts over three hundred people in the creative, media and technology industries. Attendees discuss and debate ideas and opportunities in the areas of culture, innovation and the internet.
SpaceUp is an open-attendance space exploration unconference, where participants decide the topics, schedule, and structure of the event. SpaceUps have been held on both West and East coasts, and in Houston. Common features of SpaceUps are an unconference/barcamp style schedule, Ignite talks, and a moonpie eating contest.
The Ada Initiative was a non-profit organization that sought to increase women's participation in the free culture movement, open source technology and open culture. The organization was founded in 2011 by Linux kernel developer and open source advocate Valerie Aurora and open source developer and advocate Mary Gardiner. It was named after Ada Lovelace, who is often celebrated as the world's first computer programmer, as is the Ada programming language. In August 2015, the Ada Initiative board announced that the organization would shut down in October 2015. According to the announcement, the Initiative's executive leadership decided to step down, and the organization was unable to find acceptable replacement leaders.
SkeptiCamp was founded by Reed Esau in 2007 and is small grassroots conference where scientific skeptics come together and participate and present. Skepticamps are held in varying formats worldwide and are operated in the style of an unconference.
AdaCamp was a series of unconferences organized by the Ada Initiative. AdaCamp was the only conference that focused on women's participation in open technology and culture, including the development of free and open source software and contributions to projects like Wikipedia. AdaCamps were among the projects and resources the Ada Initiative provided to make workplaces more friendly for women.
The term unconference refers to any loosely structured gathering that is distinguished from a formally organized conference (such as BloggerCon, an early unconference for bloggers).
But that changed in February when O'Grady arrived at Mashup Camp, an exclusive two-day gathering of Silicon Valley geeks billed as an "unconference." Attendance was free but limited to the first 300 people to sign up on the Mashup Camp wiki... Though the event had sponsors like Sun Microsystems , its agenda was created on the fly by attendees. As chaotic as that sounds, it sparked a ton of ideas.
In September 1828 he invited hundreds of scientists from across Germany and Europe to attend a conference in Berlin. Unlike previous such meetings, at which scientists had endlessly presented papers about their own work, Humboldt put together a very different programme...Humboldt encouraged scientists to gather in small groups and across disciplines. He connected the visiting scientists on a more personal level, ensuring that they forged friendships that would foster close networks. He envisaged an interdisciplinary brotherhood of scientists who would exchange and share knowledge.
[quoting Dave Winer, 2004] Len Pryor, in his BloggerCon writeup, called it the "un-conference." Excellent. I agree. At BloggerCon, there is no audience, there are no speakers. There is a discussion leader, a person responsible for the flow of the discussion.
Despite the fact that the unconference idea got its start -- and is still going very strong -- in the tech sphere, at events like BarCamp, FooCamp, and BloggerCon, they are becoming increasingly popular in the scholarly landscape.
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