That was a pretty good conference. But here are five leftfield suggestions for how to make conferences even more fun – and get the speakers to perform. (Most of these ideas – oh, OK, all of them – are David’s; but hey, what’s blogging if not glorified plagiarism?)
- Every discussion panel should have on it someone bringing ‘news from elsewhere’: an intelligent non-expert who can give a reality check from a different sphere. Think about non-party representatives on BBC Question Time and you get the idea.
- Panel discussion structured around “I’m going to take three questions and then go back to the panel” should be banned, in favour of more interesting formats (like this).
- Conference participants should be provided with laptops that allow them to live chat in a dedicated chatroom about the quality of speeches and speakers. For additional amusement, these comments should be projected onto the wall behind the speaker (so that everyone can see them except him/her).
- To avoid the classic conference phenomenon of speakers telling the long-suffering audience stuff that they already know (like the speaker who told us that climate change was a long term problem that would require transformation of energy systems – er, thanks), there should be a briefing paper containing all the obvious stuff. When any speaker says anything in it, they have to do a forfeit (perhaps picked out of a hat).
- To stop speakers from overrunning, there should be a countdown clock on the wall. When speakers run out of their allotted time, easy listening music should be played to drown them out.
