Dave Winer has an excellent post/essay on how to create a better conference - something close to my heart these days as we work to put together our event in Toronto in May. Winer talks about how an "unconference" needs to engage its "participants" (not attendees) by getting them involved in the process - whether it's asking lots of questions or even bringin them on stage to sit on a panel (now, how cool would that be!) His thinking is based on the idea that you leverage the expertise in the audience rather than just broadcast to them. In other words, it's a anti-Powerpoint, anti-three, slightly-overweight white guys sitting behind a table, anti-sales pitch masqueraded as a presentation conference. Maybe, it's just me but the conferences that I've attended recently seem far from inspiring. The audience usually sits there with a glazed look on their faces (too much coffee, not enough coffee?) until the presentation is over and a few lively folks ask a handful of questions. The value of these kind of traditional conference is clearly not the panels or even the keynotes but the maybe the opportunity to meet other people and/or an excuse to get out of the office/go on a trip for a few days. As Winer suggests, there has to be a better way to run a conference said it's a conversation.