thinking out loud about an event about thinking out loud
62 people have responded to my survey to see if there is any interest in my idea of a conference about blogging your work/life in the pursuit of openness, transparency and basically thinking out loud.
One way or another it seems like there is probably enough interest to do something.
It seems like pretty much a shoot out between Bristol and London for location based on responses so far. Bristol would obviously be easier for me to organise (either of the two ‘Sheds seem like they would be good venues.) London is probably better from an audience point of view? I have organised something at the Conway Hall in the past.
Lots of people have volunteered to help organise things which is amazing and probably the biggest hurdle overcome as I doubt I could do this on my own without crumbling along the way!
The preferred format so far is a single strand of short-ish talks — around the 20 minute mark probably. Maybe with longer plenary talks at the start and the end. I’d also quite like to do a panel with fellow #weeknoters about why they do it and what they get from it.
Anyone know anything about getting sponsors? I have no clue. I’d have thought companies like Mailchimp/TinyLetter, Medium, WordPress, Squarespace, Ghost etc might be interested? I doubt it would be that expensive to run. It is a few years old but this from Alex is helpful just as a guide to event costs I think.
Having some sponsors would mean keeping the cost of attending down as well — I’d want to aim at charging just enough it makes people want to show up and not waste the money! Also at a minimum I’d want to cover expenses for everyone speaking.
This is the list of people I initially thought I might be able to arm twist into helping out, speaking or just being involved. I haven’t mentioned this to most of them yet 😉
All in all the suggestions below are still lacking enough diversity so do suggest more names!
- Carrie Barclay https://twitter.com/DigiBungalow
- Giles Turnbull https://gilest.org/
- Russell Davies http://russelldavies.typepad.com/
- Abbey Kos https://twitter.com/abbeysuekos
- Roo Reynolds https://twitter.com/rooreynolds
- Richard Pope http://www.memespring.co.uk/
- Martin Weller http://blog.edtechie.net/
- Martin Belam http://martinbelam.com/
- Mun Keat Looi https://munkeatlooi.com/
- Laura Hilliger http://www.laurahilliger.com/blog/
- Cassie Robinsonhttp://www.cassierobinson.net/
- Paul Miller https://paulmiller.org/
- Team Weeknote https://productforthepeople.xyz/weeknotes/home
Speakers we’d never get but would be cool if there was a keynote type slot and a big pot of cash:
- Ev Williams https://medium.com/@ev
- Matt Thompson https://openmatt.org/
- Danny O’Brien http://www.spesh.com/danny/
- Dan Hon http://danhon.com/newsletter/
- Warren Ellis http://orbitaloperations.com/
- Hossein Derakhshan https://twitter.com/h0d3r
- Anil Dash http://anildash.com/
- Mel Kramer https://melodykramer.github.io/
- Hannah Wolfe https://twitter.com/erisds
- Jason Kottke http://kottke.org/about/
- Anna Pickard https://twitter.com/annapickard
Speakers who have been suggested by survey respondents who seem a good fit:
- Robyn Wilder http://robynwilder.com/
- Sally Jenkinson https://sallyjenkinson.wordpress.com/about/
- George Walkley http://www.georgewalkley.com/
- Matthew Desmier https://twitter.com/mattdesmier
- John Willshire http://smithery.com/hello/
- Suzi Gage https://twitter.com/soozaphone
- Matt Webb http://interconnected.org/home/
Digital by Default 