Happy New Year everyone!
I like conferences because I can meet people from around the world in person, be totally dedicated to the event for a few days without any disruption from day-to-day events, spend a good time socializing etc. Presentations are often inspiring and help start discussions. Isolation is good because people can stay focused on the topic, and are forced to a certain extent to socialize since they cannot go home.
The challenge is that conferences can only happen once in a while, once a year for the biggest events, and that not much happen in between, leaving the impression that everything needs to be reinvented from year to year.
It has been more than a month since the last ESOMAR Panel Research Conference, and although I thought the conference was very interesting and promising, I am disappointed that many points addressed during the debates are not debated any more. It is like a good meeting without follow-up or even minutes distributed.
Here are my suggestions to make conferences more efficient in the world of the participatory web. Conference organizers should build a website that lives before the event, after the event and creates the transition between events, the general context and long term goals:
• After the conference: all paying participants could have an editable profile including name, company, country, photo, link to articles, blogs… Bloggers should be allowed to give a summary of the presentations and following discussions and, if not, the organization should find bloggers (see what they did at WOMMA). That way, the conference would really help start discussions which could continue everywhere. Those discussions should attempt to answer the unanswered questions, and organize future research.
• Wikis are also interesting platforms for collaboration. For example, the revision of the famous 25 Esomar questions could be the result of a collaborative effort. Once the new questions are finalized, sample providers can give their public answers on the Wiki for any potential to know where to find the information easily.
• Before the conference is when the program committee selects the topics selected, asks for outline submissions, chooses the speakers, keynote speakers… Maybe more participation would do everyone a favor. For example, topics could be the result of a collaborative effort by willing future participants (one can imagine some type of a wiki or threads where one can add their ideas for future research. In fact, the after-conference would be the ideal time to see which answers have been answered, and which ones still need further exploration. Because of competitive issues, I realize that there should be rules applied to who can vote during this process.
• Virtual conferences could happen on a quarterly basis. Tools could include video conference, or avatar-based virtual worlds such as Second Life.
• Needless to say that the first market research organization (ESOMAR, CASRO…) that manages to organize a continued dialog and interaction between its members could gain a sustainable advantage over the others. There can be several shops, but there can only be one market place…
Olivier,
I agree with you 200%.
As you probably know I’ve approached some of the organisers with the same idea re. podcasting around the event to elongate shelf life and make them much more of an experience than one-off event.
But your idea goes further and suggests a quite radical but enticing approach where there’s much more user involvement in the design. This sounds a bit like the extreme version of conferences, the ‘unconference’, where participants decide, often on the day, what to present! I like it and support you in wanting to see them move in that direction. But how do we as a community convince the organisers to jump or at least take baby steps?
One aspect I’m not sure about is setting up wikis or a central place to post comments, discuss ideas etc. Fine in principle, but portals in general seem antithetical (thanks, Tas, for teaching me that word) to the trend for a distributed web 2.0 culture where conversations happen all over the place and we use tools like RSS readers, Technorati, delicious, TechMeme etc. to keep track of things.
As an aside, I’ve setup a market research meme tracker (beta version) for community use over at http://www.megite.com/researchtalk. It’s for those like me who are getting increasingly overloaded with feeds to read and yet want to hear what’s happening in the MR blogosphere. It includes your blog as well as many of those on your blogroll. And as I come across new ones, I’ll add them in. It’s a beta so all feedback welcome. BTW, that’s how I was alerted to this post
Hi Surinder,
As a matter of fact, I should have mentioned how the ResearchTalk podcasts helped raise awareness and were a perfect teaser for the Esomar Conference. I felt more prepared this year because I listened. My concern is that organizations seem to be more careful about gaining attention and generate buzz BEFORE an event than AFTER the event (the same way most marketers care more about advertising and new customer acquisition than retention and satisfaction). To be honest, the only way to change this would be to volunteer and take the initiatives, but I don’t have the time right now. I don’t want to give the impression that I am criticizing here. Most organizations are already doing a fantastic job, and I am grateful for researchers who find the time tand get involved in organizations in addition to their regular job…
As for wikis: I agree with you that we don’t need a central place in generql to start conversations (our conversation today is a good example). What I had in mind was concrete workgroups. Wikis are a great tool for collaboration, not conversations. For example, to update ESOMAR’s 25 questions for sample providers… That being said, you are right that this wiki doesn’t need to be centralized and created by an organization. Any reader interested?
Thanks Surinder for stopping by. And congrats again for your excellent show.
Olivier,
Actually, you have every right to make the points you do - you’re clearly keen to make things better.
I’ve a couple of vehicles for continuing the conversation after the event: a monthly show highlighting innovation, and another focused on brand/media issues. You and anyone else interested are welcome to get involved any time you have a burning issue.