went to a conference organised for the creative industries knowledge transfer network (phew). Admirable aims, to try and map the future for digital content, but hugely unrealistic goals to achieve in an afternoon. This is the future of everything we do – and about 50 people we were tasked with finding issues and answers for content, distribution and business models from a range of perspectives. I’m always happy to try, but the event was staged in a classic command and control manner. We were put into groups, and change was frowned on (I did, and I was), then given ridiculous amounts of time to come up with 3 ideas on this, and 6 ideas on that, whilst the event team barked at us about how little time we had left.
In my experience, this amount of heat is inversely proportional to the amount of light. The un-conference model, where delegates chose what they want to talk about, and with who, is much more productive, and leaves people feeling included, valued, and most importantly, willing to take steps to action when the event has finished. The external wrapper of this event may have been communities and collaboration, but the inside and the outcome felt like old school sweatshopping, a feeling of doing other people’s work for them.