We held another great NCTech4Good hybrid unconference last week. I especially appreciated the other organizers who displayed teamwork above and beyond the call of duty.
Here are a few fun pictures by other folks. You can find more at twitter.com/search?q=nct4g and learn more about it in my previous blog post.
Facilitating the 2014 NCTech4Good Unconference
It’s been a little while since I posted about this, but I have been continuing to facilitate NCTech4Good’s hybrid unconference annually since 2011. Tomorrow is our 2015 event!
A lot of people still don’t know what “unconference” means, so I get excited about spreading the gospel. I never fail to have people who looked at me skeptically in the morning come up to me afterward to say how much they loved it and that they will suggest their own organization or community try unconferencing.
Please read my blog post I <3 Unconferences that explains the history and how they work. NCT4G is a simplified hybrid of traditional and “open space” (ie: unconference) event so I will explain our unique methodology here.
Before the conference:
At the conference:
As you can tell, I am very skeptical of the whole idea of messing with unconference process, and I wasn’t completely sure it would work at first. But it has a resounding success for several years in a row and everyone came away satisfied. This year we’ll be doing the same and I expect it to go even better. If you are in central North Carolina, I hope to see you there!
They’re trying something new this year at the N.C. Tech for Good Conference. Last year, I helped facilitate the North Carolina nonprofit community’s first experiment with an unconference! It went pretty well, but many NCT4G attendees were not convinced to spend a second day on this strange new format – or maybe they just understandably didn’t want to work on a Saturday.
This year, I have worked with the conference organizers to develop a hybrid format. I have seen hybrids work well, and I’ve seen them fail badly. I think we have come up with a structure that is truly the best of both worlds. This new approach gives us some reassurance in advance that there will be some great sessions to attend, but also allows the attendees to shape the event into whatever they want and need. Many participants don’t think of themselves as leaders but just as everyone has something to learn, everyone has something to share as well. This event allows all of us to do both.
So check out the schedule. Do you see something you’d like to learn? Do have an idea about what is missing? Add it on the wiki. Once we get the conference started, both the pre-selected speakers and the people thinking up emerging proposals will all have the opportunity to “pitch” or explain their session the participants and get added to “the grid.” What happens next is up to us! (For more about this process, see my blog posts from previous unconferences.)
Come on out May 4th – register by Friday the 27th to get the $75 early bird rate – and help us make this the event that you want and need!
You might have gotten an e-mail or a tweet recently about something called the “NCTech4Good Unconference.” You are probably wondering whether it is worth one’s time on a pretty Saturday to sit inside with a bunch of nerds, especially if (like me) this is how you already spent most of your week.
Well, let me tell you why I’ll be there.
As a geek, I’ll get to learn about some of the newest tools and interesting ideas percolating up. I’ll also get an opportunity to hear how my skills can be used to serve the community and make connections that might lead to my Next Big Project.
As a nonprofit professional, I’ll get to hear about some of the emerging technologies that I need to use in my work, and even form personal relationships with the experts in my field. I’ll also get a chance to tell my story to people who can commiserate and/or learn how to better serve organizations like mine.
As an activist, I’ll get a chance to evangelize. I can tell people why I think a certain technology or strategy is the very best, and help them see how it can be useful in their own work. I might even recuit new allies and advocates for my cause!
On some subjects I am a newbie, and I will learn from experts. On others, I am the pro and will show off my knowledge. One of the guiding rules of unconferences is this:
Whoever comes are the right group of people.
I hope some of you readers and friends are the right people, and that you’ll make this the wonderful event that YOU envision! Learn more at http://nctech4good.org/wiki
As I mentioned in my last blog post, HASTAC is hosting and facilitating the first-ever NCTech4Good Unconference on April 16th. I’ve found that there is a lot of (understandable) confusion about what an “unconference” (or “Barcamp”) is, especially among those who have not experienced them – but sometimes even with those who have.
The history of this idea is less important than how it’s done, but it’s quite interesting and worth mentioning here. This idea was first conceived in the 1980’s as Open Space Technology – a way for participants to organize and conduct their own conferences. The first BarCamp (essentially an unconference for geeks) was held in 2005 in response to the elite FOOCamp that was hosted by tech media mogul Tim O’Reilly. I believe BarCamps were also inspired by the BloggerCons of the early 2000’s which aimed to bring a blog-like dialog into real-life meetings. So that’s enough history, see this Wikipedia entry for lots more fascinating background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology .
There are a few specific things that I think are key to a successful unconference:
Registration for the NCTech4Good Conference and Unconference has been held open until Friday April 8, please go sign up now at http://nctech4good.org .
If you haven’t heard enough about unconferences, I strongly recommend the blog of facilitator Kaliya Hamlin. Start here: http://www.unconference.net/unconferencing-how-to-prepare-to-attend-an-unconference/ .
I also recently discovered a wonderful article about teachers using unconferences: http://plpnetwork.com/2011/03/07/unconference-revolutionary-professional-learning/ .
(Also posted at hastac.org and nctech4good.org.)
I have a long history working to help North Carolina nonprofits better use communication technology to advance their missions. But even when I started doing this work in 1996, there was one person who was already the “old guard” of nonprofit tech in North Carolina. Her name is Judy Hallman. In 1989, Judy helped to create local, public tech resources through PIN, Inc. PIN spawned NC Communities and RTPnet, the latter of which provided e-mail and web hosting as well as support to nonprofits way back when their only options were AOL and Compuserve. (anyone remember HandsNet?) Two weeks ago, Judy was recognized with a lifetime achievement award from the Nonprofit Technology Network at their conference in Washington, DC.
Not content to rest on her pioneer laurels, Judy has continued to create and organize for the past two decades. The newest of her endeavors is NCTech4Good, a network that ties together the growing nonprofit tech community in North Carolina, and also hosts the annual NCTech4Good Conference. After last year’s conference, a number of people (including myself) suggested the addition of an unconference after the formal one-day conference. After careful consideration, Judy and other organizers agreed.
All of the above is my longish way of telling you how excited I am that HASTAC is hosting and helping to lead the first-ever NCTech4Good Unconference! We will be using the wonderful facilities here in Duke’s Franklin Humanities Institute (where we also hosted THATCampRTP last fall) and I will be serving as the facilitator, working to make order out of the chaos!
As you may know, I am huge fan of unconferences. In addition to the above-mentioned THATCampRTP, I also used this structure to lead a gathering of our Digital Media and Learning Competition’s 2010 Learning Lab winners, and also employed it at HASTAC’s innovative Peer-to-Peer Pedagogies Workshop last year. In a future post, I hope to write more about what unconferences are (and aren’t), and how they can form what the brilliant Ann Balsamo calls the “scaffolding” that can support the small or quiet voices that sometimes get drowned out by the crowd.
For now, please check out the web site nctech4good.org (if you live in or near North Carolina) where you can register for the conference, reception, and/or unconference. I hope to see you here!
![[NCt4g]](/sites/default/files/u2284/NCt4g%20banner.png)
(Also posted at hastac.org and nctech4good.org.)