Stubbleblog

Sarah and I just signed up to organize Web2Open, the unconference that runs inside of Web 2.0 Expo (April 22-25). It’s free, so you should come even if you weren’t planning on going to the rest of the conference.

We’re just starting our planning but I wanted to announce it in case anyone has any feelings.

Some of the things we’re thinking about:

• Highlighting individual and independent contributions to Web 2.0. At least with the data portability and open social movements there’s a battle being waged with press releases. It’d be nice if the unconference could cut through that so you could figure out what’s real, what works, and what tools are out there.
• Coordinating some of the sessions with sessions from the main conference track. The idea is that you could go to the conference session to learn about something and then come to the unconference to discuss/hammer out the details.
• Have some pre-planned sessions. Past Web2Open’s seem to have done this successfully. I’m a lot more interested in discussions than I am in individual presenters. The strength of unconference sessions is that they have a personal feel and every attendee can also be a speaker. I’m lobbying for “I spoke at Web2Open” stickers in order to encourage people to speak.
• Dropping the MashRoom. People just used it to check their email last year and no code actually got written. Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time someone showed me a mashup. However, I would be a little sad if we didn’t produce at least some code. Noodling on this.
• Get strong cross-pollination between people pushing the boundaries of Web 2.0 and the people who are just learning. If you’re an alpha geek, you’re lazy if you just talk to other alpha geeks. Branch out. Most of the attendees at the conference, let’s call them beta geeks, are there to find cutting edge ideas they can apply in more traditional settings.

More announcements to come!