The basic out-line of the day was:

In stead of traditional agenda-setting:

In stead of traditional workshop sessions and minute-taking:

In stead of traditional plenary sessions where workshops results are presented:

In stead of deciding on the next steps and agenda by group consensus:

In stead of ending the meeting and evaluate during drinks:

I've suggested using Open Space for an upcoming brainstorming meeting between our company and a close partner for future joint initiatives, and I think it might be useful for the first Blogwalk meeting as well. If we could devise a way to do an Open Space meeting on-line (with multiple chatrooms perhaps, and a combination of other media?) it might be something for Actionable Sense as well.

For more information on Open Space see the Open Space wiki (via Chris Corrigan) and OpenSpaceTech-Wiki.

Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (1) (posted by Ton Zijlstra at January 25, 2004 04:32 PM)

Orkut and the failure of social networking platforms

Martin Roell reflects on the shortcomings of Orkut, and utters reservations I wholeheartedly agree with. The same goes for Ryze, LinkedIn and others.

In an attempt to do something with the suggestions Martin gives to Orkut, I have added a flag to the people in my blogroll to indicate whether I've met them face to face. Let me know if you think this is something usefull, or if you have ideas how to improve on that. Feedback in the comments, Skype or via the e-mail address mentioned on the left.

[Update] Also see this post by Lee Bryant.

Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (1) (posted by Ton Zijlstra at January 25, 2004 12:43 PM)

Jay Allen's Spam Filter Added

After having been hit with a considerable amount of commentspam starting on New Years Eve, I've finally took the 15 minutes it costs to install Jay Allen's comment and trackback spam filter. Tested it, and it works fine. A big thanks to Jay Allen for this effort! Latest developments in the fight against spam in the Clearinghouse.

(Also: Comment Spam Manifesto)

Permalink | TrackBack (0) (posted by Ton Zijlstra at January 18, 2004 12:50 PM)

Waypath Added

I added Waypath to the posts on the front page of this blog. After trying using the Waypath Plugin for MT (download) I wasn't happy with how the Waypath box under each post made the blog look more chaotic. So I decided to link to their search tool instead. Whenever a you follow the link Waypath under a post it will pop up a screen with related posts.

Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) (posted by Ton Zijlstra at January 17, 2004 08:04 PM)

Blogging the Market

David Weinberger gives us this link (via John Robb) to "Blogging the Market" (also in pdf) by George Dafermos. Looks interesting, will need to make time to read it.

Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) (posted by Ton Zijlstra at January 11, 2004 10:08 PM)

How to organise valuable congresses/conventions

After having visited the KM in Europe conference and also Blogtalk in the past year I’ve spend time thinking on what to me would be a valuable congress. Value in this context can mean value to:

The organizer in the form of revenue and profit
The presenters in the form of visibility and acknowledgement
The exhibitors in the form of leads
The individual in the form of meetings, conversations and new insights.

The answer is in striking a balance between these stakeholders, and finding a way to satisfy them all. At the last KM in Europe conference, organised by the Ark Group, for instance this balance was not found, because satisfying one stakeholder meant dissatisfying another. Thus a gain for one was achieved at the cost of another. Not the win-win that a correct balance might bring.

The vendors complained that there were too little pauses in the presentation schedule thus preventing visitors to walk the convention floor and visit their booths.
The presenters complained that the vendors had no relation to their presentations, that in fact two different events were taking place in the same space.
The visitors complained about the absence of spaces to meet other people, and the overloaded program that meant that people kept missing eachother because their attendance at presentations got in the way, and also complained about the vendors for the same reason as the presenters.
And in the end the Ark Group probably complained about all three groups, the lack of visitors, the disgruntled vendors, and the fact that even such an impressive list of presenters did not mean enhanced revenue.

What made my visit to Amsterdam worthwile nevertheless, was the networking and the fringe events of the communities I count myself to be part of. The rest of the conference, the presentations, and to a much lesser extent the vendors provided a fitting back drop for it.

Now how could we enhance such a conference, to make it valuable to all parties involved.
Let’s look at this from the individual’s perspective first:
Basically to visitors a congress is a physical space to meet people to have interesting conversations with.

Which people? Well ideally one would want to see a mix of people you know or are familiar with, and people you are not familiar with. Only known faces would bring too little thought provocation, only strangers would make it difficult to get into deep conversations quickly. By having both the communities you’re already part of and new ones represented you’re sure to have enough to start conversations with, and can be sure of new insights and opposing views as well. Maybe we can call this balance Optimal Unfamiliarity.

This would presuppose that enough members of different communities will be willing to attend, and attend as part of and together with other members of these communities. A way of increasing that likelihood would be for the organiser to invite communities to pursue their own agenda during the congress, in the form of having their own semi-restricted meetings, fringe events, and social gatherings.

The balance of Optimal Unfamiliarity I mentioned for visitors can be extended to the presentations as well. Here I would like to see a mix of the known and the unknown too. Some known presenters (known to both the individual and the field) to reinforce existing bonds and convictions, and further internalise core values. Added to that some unknown (that is to say unknown to the individual, not to the field as a whole) presenters to provoke new avenues of thought, to challenge those same core values, and to open new vistas, and present emergent thinking. Presentations should be held by representatives of the variety of communities the event organisers wish to attract, and should be thought leaders in their respective communities.

The role of these presentations is to be a starting point for conversations, a kernel around which conversations between individuals (vendors, presentors, visitors) can then grow. That is why here again a mix of the familiar and unfamiliar is necessary. This also means you don’t need full programs of presentations, a few good ones are enough to trigger conversation, too many would inhibit the time for conversations. Also different forms than the traditional “I talk, you listen and gawk at my slides” should be encouraged.

In KM where speakers can represent the very frontline of current innovative thinking, the vendors are struggling. Especially software vendors are more or less doomed to be only able to show products that are lagging behind the newest thinking, simply because there’s been no time to build the appropiate tools, but also because KM has been consistently moving away from being technology and tool oriented to being society and fundamental changes oriented. So either you only have the most innovative ones from the tool industry, or look for other types of exhibitors. Research groups, small consultancy firms (I liked seeing a few of them on the exhibition floor in Amsterdam), poster presentations and the visiting communities themselves. This might also help keeping the presentation-schedule limited, and helps making the two parts (exhibition / presentations) seem more connected.

Now where does that leave the organiser as a value adder?

More value can be added by being a really good facilitator, which means at least:

If all those conditions are satisfied chances are that for visitors, presenters and exhibitors the conference is a real source of value. That intangible value of course also extends to the organisers, as they get a better picture of who to invite next time around, and building up their network to be able to do that. But in the end the organisers will expect some monetary value from their work as well.

Who would have to pay what? Basically both exhibitors and presenters should be paying their own way, imo. They will be willing to do that if the organiser can make sure that the quality of the conversations they will have will be worth that effort. If you pay a presenter he will care less to which audience he’s talking, and will be off to the next meeting immediately after his appearance on stage. If a presenter knows better what type of audience to expect, and can get a feeling of who will be attending, than the presentation might be the investment, on which the conversations yielded are the return, and he might stay on, thus adding his voice to the rest and add extra quality to the event. By making sure which communities will be represented at the event, including the community the presenter himself is a member of, that effect will be easier to attain, and presenters will probably also stay on for social events. For exhibitors the reasoning is much the same.

Visitors will be willing to pay for facilities that help them have their wished for conversations but less so for exhibitors and presentations. I’m willing to pay someone to be a great connector and facilitator, but not for hearing mavens and salesmen. Paying to hear people speak is a barrier to conversation, paying for facilities to attract conversations is another matter. Presentations and exhibitions are the backdrop and starting point for conversations, but those conversations are the real reason to come to the event. Having conversations is fun. Make sure the visitors can have that fun by providing the right environment, and they will be willing to fork over money. The amount of money should be a consideration as well. The time where most people get their expenses paid by their employers is going away. Increasingly knowledge workers become independent and will be paying their own way. Pricetags counting on corporate expense accounts will then no longer be feasible: it will drive away visitors, and thus take out the one intangible value that makes a congress succeed: great conversations.

Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (5) (posted by Ton Zijlstra at January 7, 2004 06:30 PM)

Actionable (adj.)

Marshall comments on my postings on Actionable Sense:

Check a dictionary. The word "actionable" refers to something that you can be sued for doing. I recently heard someone in a corporation asking employees for "actionable suggestions". They were trying to ask for suggestions that included things that could be acted upon to bring real improvement, but unfortunately, according to the dictionary, an "actionable suggestion" is actually a suggestion that you can be sued for making.

Indeed, the dictionary defines actionable as an adjective meaning "giving sufficient cause for action in a lawsuit". I used the term in the meaning of "can be acted upon", specifically knowledge that can be acted upon. So I make two mistakes here, first in the meaning of the word, and second using it as an adverb in the phrase "making actionable sense". For both mistakes I plead not being a native speaker :) It merely sounded right to my ears when I used it first.

And it still does. Because digging a little deeper into the dictionaries, I consistently come across the reference to the Latin "actionabilis". Dusting of my old Latin dictionary and looking up actio, I find that "actio causae" means lawsuit and the phrase "actionem habere" means being able to sue, but only as its fourth and fifth meaning in specific contexts.

To me, but I'm no etymologist, it reads as if the general word "actio" in its legal sense "actio causae" has been taken up into the English language leaving out the special context. Much like saying intercourse when in fact sexual intercourse is meant and forgetting that intercourse originally means nothing more than having dealings with others.

So in this case I'm not inclined to change back my vocabulary, even while admitting my sin against the current definition of the word. Wouldn't it be a fine thing when the corporate world upon hearing the word actionable would not be looking for their sollicitors phonenumber, but would feel their entrepeneurial spirit was called upon, would feel a call for action? Why not take this as a first step in shaping a new vocabulary, and one away from a corporate world stifled by the fear of litigation that looms like the sword of Damocles over their heads.

And if we keep using it, eventually it'll end up in the dictionary. Does anyone know how many occurences are needed for a word to become a new addition to the dictionary?

Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) (posted by Ton Zijlstra at January 6, 2004 08:17 PM)