What is an Unconference?

An Unconference is an event for and driven by the attendees. The audience actively participates in the unconference by proposing topics, holding presentations (if you like to) and by choosing which topics shall be presented. Only the most interesting ones are presented.

How does an Unconference work?

• Each attendee can propose contributions, which can be talks, workshops, discussion ideas or happenings.
• Everyone can claim an interest, which can be everything. Hopefully, someone will contribute something to that topic.
• The porposed contributions are presented to the audience.
• Everyone votes on the contributions.
• According to the ranking of the topics, the speakers slots are arranged. The most famous talks won’t be held in parallel.
• One talk lasts 45 minutes.
• The coffee and lunch breaks are perfect for an intense knowledge exchange and discussions beside the slots.
• If there is a deeper interest in one topic, it can be put on the proposal list for the next day / unconference.
• A short summary of each talk / topic is presented in the closing session and published to the wiki.

The different roles

The role of the attendees is to propose topics and to choose between them.

The role of the organisation team is to create a suitable setting with an open space, coffee, food and WiFi connection.

The role of the moderation team is to collect the proposed topics, to organise the voting and the arrangement of the speakers slots.

Background

An unconference is based on the Open Space Technology, which allows the moderations of events with a huge number of members.

Written by Ekkehard Dörre