Rewarding conference speakers

For the last few conferences I have attended, I have  found much, much more value hanging about talking to other presenters than in attending the formal sessions. In fact, even when I remember that work is paying for my time to attend, the ROI on this is to me better for my workplace if I learn from this talented bunch of people informally than if I attended the papers.

This worried me at Computers in Libraries 2009 , as I thought it reflected some kind of arrogant know-it-all-ism on my part to skip papers.  I suspect it’s not that I *know* it all, but that I know how to find out at point of need and that I am more likely to use my human networks than to look back at conference notes or handouts to find out.  It does not mean that I am closed to new ideas, as they were flying thick and fast at CIL – both in the sessions (see David Lee King’s Session Summaries ) and outside (see Best Conference Ever … In an Odd Way from Iris Jastram ). As Darlene Fichter wisely told me – yes, sitting in a mob of people in the lobby drinking and chatting – you get to a point where you are at “presenter level”, rather than “delegate level”.

I *know* that I talk about unconferences and how we should be harnessing and accepting the energy and serendipity brought on by the spaces between the sessions.  I wonder, however, whether there might even be room for a more formal addendum to conferences.

John & Ryan answer questions by Cindi Trainor

When I was in John and Ryan’s CMS smackdown session on Wednesday, some of the presentation became way too technical for most of the audience. I was sitting there thinking “yes, *this* techie stuff – about Drupal’s hooks and creating separate classification schemas according to content types – is the level I want to engage at”. It made me wonder whether we need at least a “beginners” and an “advanced” track at least one day each.

At a previous conference, someone mentioned that she keeps seeing the same people do the same thing and that she thought that many of the “usual suspects” could do each others’ papers interchangably. For example, there are a whole mob of us who could quite adequately speak on topics like “bringing innovation to your library”, “new tech tools”, “open source software and libraries”, “creating an online digital identity”, “Wordpress tips and tricks”, “new media and the future of libraries”. I think that there is a need to bring in good technical ideas for these people from areas outside of librarianship – management, marketing, User Interface design, Human/Computer Interaction, publishing theorists, architects, museums or art galleries.

super useful speaker gift by Amanda Etches-Johnson

I wonder whether we could replace the Speaker’s Gifts at some of our conferences with sessions just for the presenters. While I appreciate that I was given a copper-coloured stainless steel water bottle of challenging design, I wonder whether it would be more of a reward if the money spent on this was pooled for something to stimulate the presenters’ brains and challenge them. What if as a speaker’s gift, speakers only could attend a good, high-tech level session or track of people from outside of librarianship? If this seems elitist and unfair (and carrying around a copper coloured water bottle isn’t?) then I think it would be a real incentive for new people to step up to the plate and start presenting.

Presenters need mental stimulation too, just like monkeys with fruit stuck in iceblocks at the zoo. (Ryan and Kathryn – Photo by Cindi Trainor)