Events and facilitation

An unconference is a facilitated, participant-driven conference centered around a theme or purpose. The term ‘unconference’ has been applied, or self-applied, to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid one or more aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees and sponsored presentations. For example, in 2006, CNNMoney applied the term to diverse events including BarCamp, Bloggercon, and Mashup Camp. The term is primarily used in the geek community. (from Wikipedia).

A webinar is a neologism to describe a specific type of web conference. It is typically one-way, from the speaker to the audience with limited audience interaction, such as in a webcast. A webinar can be collaborative and include polling and question & answer sessions to allow full participation between the audience and the presenter. In some cases, the presenter may speak over a standard telephone line, pointing out information being presented on screen and the audience can respond over their own telephones, preferably a speaker phone. There are web conferencing technologies on the market that have incorporated the use of VoIP audio technology, to allow for a truly web-based communication. Webinars may (depending upon the provider) provide hidden or anonymous participant functionality, enabling participants to be unaware of other participants in the same meeting. (from Wikipedia).

Communities:Designing Collaboration wiki (lessons).

Consultants: David Wilcox’s Giving Facilitators the FLIP post; David Wilcox’s Social media, social web, social networking ... time for the social reporter post; David Wilcox’s Capturing Stuff, Conversations and Stories post; David Wilcox’s Collaboration needs real pay-offs. Where does tech best fit? post; David Wilcox’s Reflections on event social reporting post.

Organisations: Aspiration Tech’s Event Planning for Non-profits resource guide; Idealware’s A Few Good Event Registration Tools article; bassac’s Collaboration Benefits program.

Tools: Upcoming; Meetup; Eventful; EventBrite; Craigslist; Gumtree; Third Sector Forums.

Publications:Black Tie Optional: A Complete Special Events Resource for Non-profit Organizations by Harry A. Freedman and Karen Feldman.