The quest for an open source, free, complete event management software

The quest for a complete, free, accessible and open source software for events continues. Recently at BarCampLondon 4 I had an interesting chat with fellow campers on how to proceed. You can have a look below.

[BarcampLondon4] Julius Solaris – The Quest for a complete open source event management solution from Melinda Seckington on Vimeo.

As always you are more than welcome to leave your comment.

Do you feel like a CD?

If you are a traditional event manager (or studying to become one) and think that recession is the major threat for your career, I think you are not on the right track.

There are several trends in event management that are making the role as we know it obsolete. I am convinced that we are trying to sell CDs during the hype of the MP3 era.

Of course this could be arguable. Events will always take plae and there will always be someone in charge of management. But the skills required are completely new.

Here are few of the trends who represent a threat for the traditional event manager:

- User generated Events

BarCamps, unconferences and Meetups have given the power to the user. Scientific committees or sponsor panels can no longer control content. In the future if you’ll ask to pay 400$ for a one day conference, you’ll be probably laughed at and find yourself in a budget drama.

- Technology

Technological changes are making several professions redundant. Webinars, online conferences, Second Life meetings and events to name a few require new management skills. Just have a look at the video below and draw your conclusions. Read More

About being disruptive

Boring endless presentations. This is what modern conferences are all about.

This trend needs to be stopped as soon as possible. As more people put their hands on Powerpoint/Keynote/Impress and so forth, more bullet pointLESS productions arise.

If you attend regular conferences and maybe you paid to participate I think that this is the ultimate masochistic practice you can experience on yourself.

On the other hand, if you attend unconferences you have a chance to set yourself free from boredom and control.

Just raise your hand and try to be as disruptive as possible. If the host tries to keep the concentration on his bullet pointLESS presentation just tell him that it’s now time for discussion and that you already got the point.

It looks like we got to a point where barCamps and unconferences are now the most wanted stages for I-need-to-feed-my-ego type of speakers who have been rejected from regular conferences and now try to pitch their services in our beloved open settings.

Well if you attended a Camp recently or will in the future, I suggest you step up and stop the dictator of the session. You can also say that Julius from the EMBlog told you to.

You really need to get in another mindset when at unconferences or Camps. Speak up. Listen. Participate. Share. If you feel others are not doing that, just let the organizers know or tell the host because you don’t realize that you’ve been thrown ten years back in the past.

Thanks @audio for putting together MediaCampBucks, it was great.

Update: Well it looks like me and Seth Godin agreed this morning about bullet points… have a look at his latest post.

The best event you attended

This is a collective effort of the Linkedin community to figure out what makes an event outstanding. We have a 1000+ Event Planning & Management Group there which I invite you to join.

If you’d like to answer to the next question and be featured on a post like this check out this link.

Here is the question:

What was the most outstanding event you attended? What did you enjoyed? What worked particularly well? What did the management do that you perceived as remarkable?

What’s in it for you, reader? The chance to get insights for your next event. I suggest you go through all the answers as they entail great feedback and inspiration.

The best answer (the first you’ll see below) was selected, as always, according to my own preference. You can use comments to vote yours.

A few considerations:

- Incredible to notice how plenty of people indicated events of more than 10 years ago. What is going on with current events? I guess it is becoming harder and harder to impress and exceed expectations. Looks like we all need to deal with this.

- A lot of people talked about their marriage of children birth. I didn’t leave that out as I think there is a lesson there. Those are the events where you are the protagonist. It would be difficult to get more involved than this. The lesson is: the more you involve and release control, the better the satisfaction.

And now the answers:

Read More

Spam @ Barcamps

I am hearing things that should have not happened are indeed happening.

I heard of people going to BarCamps and complaining about 15 minute spamming sessions. I’ve heard of unattentive organizers preferring the pitch of a product, a software or a blog over discussion and creation.

This is what unconferences should not be. By pitching you are controlling, control belongs to traditional conferences.

A pitch could be a way to start a conversation about some interesting topics, not the focus of a session.

We recently runned ecoCamp, a user generated conference/BarCamp where lack of control was the success.

If you attend a BarCamp speak out loud when you feel someone is trying to control, because that is not the place to do so.

I will be at BarCamp London 4 on the 30th of May, come there and I’ll be happy to meet you.