Notes from the Online Community Unconference 2009

[#1]

I've been remiss in reporting back on the Online Community Unconference, so here goes:

This Unconference is without a doubt my favorite conference of the year. There is such a participatory atmosphere there that really gets people engaged and talking on a practical level about the problems we face as online community practitioners. Nowhere else can I so completely step outside of my own experience and still feel that almost everything is relevant to what I do. So with that, here's some thoughts on how it all went:

The Good:

• As I mentioned in my last blog before I went, I did spend more time connecting with others and participating in the sessions of others rather than presenting my own. This helped me personally get more from the conference, but I wonder if that was somewhat oddly selfish of me in retrospect. See more below.
• In a session titled "What Metrics Should be Used to Measure Community Health", Lithium's Community Health Index was called out as the only measurement based on data - everything else was described as a 'black art'.
• Scott Moore was a diva that day, with acclaimed sessions on "Social Psychology 101 for Community Managers", "What is Community Leadership" and an interesting shared session with Gail Ann Williams titled "Are we a Community Too? Ways Community Practitioners Stay Connected. What's next?"

The Less Good:

• While I focused on participating more in other people's groups this time around, I felt like there were gaps in the sessions that I could have addressed, especially with all the good work we are doing here on the Lithosphere. If I am able to go back next year, I will go back to presenting at least one session.
• There was a lot of the same information presented as last year, with a number of returnees expressing frustration that we failed to move the needle on some important topics. I think it was more a frustration on the limits of one-time events than on the conference itself - without some persistence it is tough to keep momentum going.
• No pictures on Flickr.com with Creative Commons licensing for the west coast! UPDATE: Bill Johnston at ForumOne heard and corrected this - Thanks Bill!

The Fun:

• Help people out and you get a bottle of wine. It's that simple.
• Saw quite a few familiar faces, and met some new hires of current Lithium customers!
• Ding dongs, Ho-hos and Twinkies! (Maybe the health-conscious would classify this in the "Less Good" category, but I thought it was fun and helped keep everything from getting too stuffy )

Links:

Pictures: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=ocu2009

Wiki: http://www.socialtext.net/ocu2009 (authorization required today, was told it will be available to the public in read-only form on Friday, 6/19)

Photo by redplasticmonkey

[#2]

Good news! I just received an email from the kind folks at ForumOne letting me know that the link to the wiki above will be open for read-only access to the public on Friday (6/19). So even if you did not attend you will be able to see the notes of the sessions via the link above.

[#3]

Example of excellent listening skills - Bill Johnston at ForumOne updated the licensing on the Flickr images:

all the pics should be CC licensed for use - thanks for the catch and I will get these updated asap

Lesson for me: don't assume it was on purpose.   I'll be sure to check first next time before I complain.