Conference Dichotomy Issues
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Talking to the "social group" about the needs to be inclusive is also a good start. Get people on board with how to help newbies, where to direct them and whatnot will help a lot.
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I think part of that is having organizers who are truly involved with the community it's self and really know people. I am not sure how anyone would deal with a huge community and make sure all able to connect but for us here we are small enough that it should be pretty easy ....
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Having smaller breakout sessions where people are more or less forced to work/talk to one another could be helpful in this as well.
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Maybe a special "meet and greet" session where special introductions are made or assigned first night dinner tables with newbies mixed in with old timers.
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A bit of a buddy system where an old timer is a bit of a "conference social mentor" for a newbie would be cool. Like a big brother big sister program.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Maybe a special "meet and greet" session where special introductions are made or assigned first night dinner tables with newbies mixed in with old timers.
I was thinking of some way to make small group talk, get to know each other.. I like the dinner table idea.
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I recently attended a retreat where they did some interesting events around meeting other people. This stuff was pretty extreme to be doing at a conference, but it might give some ideas. One of the great things that we did was get assigned to small "teams" and those teams would do things like have a shared "story time" where people would tell stories about themselves as a way to get to know each other. It worked great.
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I like the idea of a 'getting social' session aimed at newbies.
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That might be painful to a true introvert and scare them off. But the buddy system and dinner table thing is a good idea. Maybe with these done ahead of time with a bit of this is who you will be meeting and a quick bio email before hand to make the initial meetup less stressful.
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I think really good badges could help. Clear names, usernames, avatars, location information, "scan me to contact me" QR codes and company info could go a long way.
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Really well organized social time could help too. You want lots of time with drinks, snacks and low volume background noise where people can meet up, talk and get to know each other. The Scale boat cruise was excellent for that.
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Yes a good badge is a must!
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Too much noise all the time gets to be WAY too much for people.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Really well organized social time could help too. You want lots of time with drinks, snacks and low volume background noise where people can meet up, talk and get to know each other. The Scale boat cruise was excellent for that.
While that's true, I only ended up talking to people I already knew. To make the Scale boat thing better, there should be assigned tables for at least 2 hours to 'help' the mingling.
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@Minion-Queen said:
Too much noise all the time gets to be WAY too much for people.
I agree, I find it exhausting; also combines with having to shout all day to make myself heard. Let alone trying to hear other people heheh
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@Minion-Queen said:
Yes a good badge is a must!
The QR code Scott mentioned could be awesome - something that the attendees can use. I can scan your badge to get your contact information. Possibly better than a business card.
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Much better than a business card.
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You could possibly allow someone to put in a super short BIO, weblink, etc..
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@Dashrender said:
@Minion-Queen said:
Yes a good badge is a must!
The QR code Scott mentioned could be awesome - something that the attendees can use. I can scan your badge to get your contact information. Possibly better than a business card.
Make sure to offer a good app for all of the phone types, you don't want people fumbling around with some BS app.
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@Minion-Queen said:
Too much noise all the time gets to be WAY too much for people.
DJs in the hallways would be a disaster, for example.
