Gregory Heller

In this short mp3, Kris Krug of Bryght (mostly) talks to Donna Morton, Hope Rippeon, Sarah Pulman and others about organizations blogging as a way to get message out and bring members in.

[via Diablogue � e-Engagement Tools That Fit]:

Thanks to [l:http://www.edbatista.com/2005/06/the_best_tool_f.html|Ed Batista] for pointing this littel diagram out.

Gunner, you sadist, 10 rounds of speed geeking? I was ok through round 6. For those who don;t know what [l:http://wiki.advocacydev.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SpeedGeeking|Speed Geeking] is, the basic idea is that a bunch of conference attendees get 5 minutes to demo their "coolest thing" which might be a product, a tool, or a technology. The rest of the session attendees get into groups of 3 to 6 people and move around the room from station to station getting 5 minute frenzied schpiels about a bunch of cool technologies.

I have touched on this before, but let me lay it out here.

Problem: Tech conferences are geat opportunities to network, but formal sessions get in the way of hallway conversation.

The gut response to this would be to get rid of the sessions and just allow people the venue to have informal discussions. But that doesn't work well either. The sessions do a good job of "priming the pump" so to speak, and introduing folks and topics.

I got hom a little while ago from [lk:newyork.penguinday.org|Penguin Day] (I actually walked home from the post conference watering hole on 33rd and 3rd ([l:http://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=E+33rd+St+%26+3rd+Ave,+New+York,+NY+10016&daddr=Grand+Street+and+FDR+DR,+NY,+NY&hl=en|about 2.5miles and 4 minutes according to google maps] now, since i wasn;t walking along the FDR, it was more than 2.5 miles and even if i were driving the drive, i know that that would take more than 4 minutes google... I am digressing here but it comes back to a convo at he bar where John relayed Mark' grlfriend's displeasure for google maps because it doesn;t have subways and is not designed for walking, only driving)