Personal Lessons Learned from Event Camp Twin Cities (#ECTC11)

Last week, I attended the Event Camp Twin Cities conference in Minneapolis, MN. I was honored to be invited to speak at the conference by Samuel J. Smith, one of the co-founders of the conference. What excited me about this conference is its overall mission to push the limits of what we can do with event technology. And I took this to heart, using this as an opportunity to debut a “new presentation.”

While there has been quite a bit written regarding the pros and cons of this model and how to truly merge two audiences – physical and virtual - for a hybrid experience (see summary below), my intent is to share my personal lessons from ECTC 2011 (in no particular order).

1. Improv Lessons Required in the Future:  No matter how much preparation you have, something can happen, putting you in an uncomfortable position. You have to be flexible enough to accept the situation and move in a new direction. And improv helps with just that – to deftly deal with uncomfortable situations.
2. So Much Content, So Little Time:  Event Camp was like drinking from a hose. There was so much content packed into the two and half days from the event. In the case when the sessions will be recorded (like this event), I will develop a gameplan to attend specific sessions in person and others after the event concludes.
3. Games are Fun But…: One unique aspect of this conference was the game integration throughout the conference. The game was great for tapping into everyone’s desire not to be at the bottom, that personally, I got too focused on the game versus being attentive to some of the sessions. For me, I need to be more cognizant of this to ensure a better balance.
4. Personal Connections Do Matter: So this will be odd to hear from an advocate of “virtual extensions” but I attended ECTC 2011 for the human element. And this furthers my perspective the when virtual is done well, it will entice online audiences to want to attend in person the following year, which leads me to …
5. Build in More Time for Networking: I think the best value of the conference was in the after hours networking events. Due to my flight schedule, I came in late the night before the first day and flew out a few short hours after the event concluded. The more qualitative conversations happened after the event, but I was either too tired or rushed to spend the time on these conversations. In the future, I would try to fly in sooner and leave (if possible) the next day.

Conclusion: Each Experience is Personal

No matter what we think of how an event went, how the technology performed, the event is essentially a personal experience. For me, I attended ECTC 11 with a clear understanding that this was one huge test lab. If things break, awesome. And if they work flawlessly, even better. That, in the end, is why I plan to attend ECTC again.

What do you think? What were your lessons learned? I’m including my presentation slides and the team challenge case study below. Help us by liking it today!

Presentation Slides:

Keeping in the spirit of the conference, Donna Sanford and I decided to creatively present the top questions about virtual in the form of a Connect 4 game. In this instance, we called it Connect 5: The Virtual Edition! My intention was to split the audience – physical in MN, pods, and online attendees – into three different teams with different virtual scenarios. Based on these scenarios, we would connect the dots, make decisions accordingly, and respond to any questions along the way. While there were no winners, the result would be to highlight different types of virtual solutions to these scenarios.

eStories Cat Lovers Case Study: Please Like Us!

Articles about ECTC 2011:

• Response to Blog on On Sponsorship- Initial reflections from ECTC11 and the ensuing
  comments.
• Great Summary of Blogs and other content from ECTC 11
• ECTC11: Experiences of a Remote Attendee
• On-site, Pod, Online: Blending Three Different Experiences into One
• Event Camp Twin Cities: Active Network Q&A
• Commentary: Curing the Hiccups at a Hybrid Meeting
• Dissecting Innovation at Event Camp
• Event Camp Twin Cities 2011: THREE Hybrid Event Innovations Coming to an Event Near You
• On What Went Wrong at the End – More Reflections from ECTC11
• Hybrid event architecture ideas sparked by Event Camp Twin Cities 2011
• Virtually attending EventCamp Twin Cities (#ECTC11)
• Event Camp Twin Cities Decor