Planning an unconference — key takeaways and lessons
Jul 29, 2018
So it’s been a week since I’ve been back from the Pillar unconference in Vilnius, Lithuania.
I’ve previously written about my experience at Consensus, CoinDesk’s ostentatious celebration of blockchain hitting the mainstream.
Where Consensus was all about lambos (Aston martins), penthouse parties and suited boots, the Pillar unconference was an opportunity to learn, share and collaborate with the best minds in cryptocurrency.
With attendees like Vinay Gupta, Nicholas Merten, Luke Rudkowski, Jeff Berwick and so many more heavyweights joining the unconference for a week-long sharing session, it was chock full of tasty blockchain bits and brainstorms.
What is an unconference?
This was my first experience at an unconference, and I was unsure of exactly what to expect. And boy did I learn a lot helping to plan one.
Planning an unconference
“A loosely structured conference emphasising the informal exchange of information and ideas”
How does one actually “plan” for an unconference? What does “loose structure” mean exactly? And how do you leave room for organic serendipity, while keeping a group of more than 300 people aligned and informed of all activities happening across each day?
During the Pillar unconference, we had 2 main halls and 5 break out rooms. Each day was humming with activities — not just within conference hours, but with evening sessions that comprised of walking tours of Vilnius, beer tastings, hot air balloon rides and so much more.
And not to mention a kick-ass closing party at the Trakai Castle — this shot was right before everyone arrived for evening shenanigans.
So how did we pull this off without losing our minds? Well, the short answer is barely.
Now, I’ve personally never been a huge fan of organising events. I think it takes a particular on-the-spot problem-solving capability and a cool head under pressure. I am none of those things. Give me a few days to put together a quarterly strategy and present it — I’m cool as a cucumber. Tell me to fix a printer and I absolutely fall apart.
Regardless, here are my key takeaways from being part of the unconference organisation committee.
1. Put together a wiki
This is something we totally blanked on. And in retrospect, should have been the FIRST thing we did. One of the biggest challenges we encountered during the planning of the unconference is that even within a small team of coordinators, the absolute truth kept changing.
Tony G was coming — then he wasn’t. We were going to lock in a cybersecurity escape room — oh wait we didn’t have the budget.
All while we navigated the murky grey of what this event would actually become, we were selling these unique propositions into new leads. Which meant a whole deal of confusion. #truestory.
What I would have done differently:
An internal wiki would have made our lives easier in terms of maintaining clarity on the absolute truth of where we were at with each initiative. Further, a public facing wiki section would have helped with educating each of our speakers on:
a) What an unconference is
b) What would be expected of them as speakers
c) How we would be running voting and scheduling during the week-long event.
We managed to circumvent these with template-ed emails, but since the reality of the event was shifting in almost as volatile a manner as bitcoin last December — an events wiki that was both internal and public facing would have been a cleaner solution.
2. Engage potential speakers/ attendees early
One thing I’ve learned loud and clear from having organised a blockchain event is that blockchain people are HELLA LAST MINUTE. We were still in the process of locking in panellists for our Saturday panel on Wednesday (while the event was running).
It’s a snowball effect often, with people hearing others are coming and jumping on the bandwagon late in the game.
Securing a few large names early in the planning stage will help you convince others to participate and commit to being there.
In saying that — expect everyone to be last minute fickle fuckers.
What I would do differently in the future:
I believe we really did the best we could with speaker outreach, albeit in a heavily manual way.
I’m not too sure how one could automate this outreach as it involved a huge education piece around what an unconference is, how it was going to run and what speakers could expect out of it. (See my earlier point re: wikis)
Given that most speakers/ attendees were unfamiliar with the unconference format we were often jumping on video conference calls to help them understand how to get the most out of participating in the event.
If anyone has ideas on how to automate this process, I’m all ears. You could even shoot through your suggestions to marketing@pillarproject.io
3. Have someone available during the event for speaker relations
We had a small team running the event, and this meant that speakers were often left to their own devices.
This I saw as an unfortunate let down as we had pulled incredible global talent to Vilnius, and weren’t taking the time to deepen our relationships with each of them.
What I would do differently in the future:
Each customer touch point of a business needs to be thought about, and at an event — even more so. There are several audiences at an event: delegates, speakers, potential business partners, and so much more.
I would ensure a seamless integration of CRM and mail clients to ensure visibility over which communications has touched whom. This would have allowed for notes to be added to speakers, relevant teams to be notified of persons of interest at the event with a single click and other slick operational efficiencies.
Never underestimate the beauty of seamlessly integrated business tools and workflows.
4. Embrace the organised chaos
Dot voting on topics and speakers.
One of the biggest sticking point during the unconference was the printing of topics and names of speakers onto pieces of paper and putting them on the voting board. Yes, when it comes to events these things matter.
What this created an unnecessary workflow that:
a) took up the time of organisers that could have been spent facilitating the event
b) meant that each speaker did not feel responsible for their topic and scheduling allocation.
c) created a whole slew of communications that frankly could have been dealt with by simply having speakers present during the daily scheduling.
What I would do differently in the future:
Here’s a nightmare beginning: One of the speakers didn’t show up for his allocated time slot in a break out room.
The organisation committee was in a frenzy trying to locate him and mediate the situation.
With a not-so-nightmare ending: All while in the room a panel had self-formed and was taking on the topic of security tokens. Everyone loved it. That my friends is true unconference stylin’.
People will only rise up to your expectations if they know they’re there. If I were to do this again, I would simply have let each speaker know to write their topic and names on post its and place them on the voting board.
This could potentially have meant more individual ownership over the format of the event, with speakers being there during the scheduling of the next day so they would ensure they were available during their allocated speaking slots.
5. Have official channels for the event and start them early
An event is an opportunity for attendees, speakers and organisers to meet like-minded people with skin in the game within an industry.
Setting up official event channels will mean that you can start to build a community around your event prior to it starting.
This can help you generate hype, let attendees connect ahead of time, and much more.
But these channels are most handy when it comes to crunch time. I think we were well prepared with design templates for digital assets. The dream is to have a digital layer running on top of your event, amplifying the reach of your content and brand.
This is a task that shouldn’t be underestimated. While we have Pillar unconference live — a 25-minute keynote followed by a panel discussion, daily, I think more manpower and better planning would have meant deeper amplification.
But y’know we live and learn.
Planning and being part of the Pillar unconference was a privilege.
We all know it — hindsight is 20–20.
It’s great to walk away from such an enriching event with lessons, new business relationships and a much deeper understanding of blockchain tech and it’s applications.
Because…what’s an unconference without a couple of drones?
The Pillar unconference opened my eyes to the way in which different event formats can really influence the quality of interactions and connections you gain from participating.
I have left a convert — I didn’t think people would self-manage like this. Now I’m searching for more unstructured conference formats and unique events that I can attend and learn from.
Know of any coming up? Please let me know and I’ll add them to my events calendar.
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