I have been thinking about conferences and the way they are structured. It seems to me that most conferences are of the “sit down and listen” variety, or SDL for short. The problem with SDL is that the material is inflexible and created in such a way that participants have little to no input. Why is this important? In my opinion the SDL presentations are not geared for long-term use. They come across as more of the exercise of one person creating a program to present, and not as cooperative learning opportunities.
As you can see from this diagram, conference programs today are prepared in a very linear fashion. Not only that, but often times the only time you as an attendant are asked for feedback is at the end….Who does the help?
Conferences in the Future
A potential future for conference programs would involve a restructuring of how content is created. First, the presenter would still be the initial point of creation of the program, but as soon as possible the presenter should attempt to interact with those who will be potential attendants. As you can see in the diagram below, through some social networking tool like Facebook or Myspace, a dialog is created in which the presenter and the attendant are able to shape the character and outline of the presentation. This structure is created with the idea that the interactive information creation process would lead to a program that is useful to the attendants. Not only that, the presenter can feel confidant that the information presented is in some small way, what the people came to hear.
In my opinion, the best learners are motivated learners. It is my belief that a migration to a model similar to the one below would help to create an environment of motivated learners.
