Virtual Space - the Final Frontier

What is Virtual Space? One way of understanding it is to look at the blog entries attributed to me on this site. Part 1 and part 2 of Improvising a Conference might be "prepared presentations" - I chose to create them and publish them for anyone who might find them useful. Part 3 and indeed this post were created in direct response to comments requesting more information - these are the sessions created on-the-spot for those who have a specific need and voice it. Both types of sessions are necessary and powerful.

[To Alain, perhaps THE upper echelon. ;-) LOL etc.]

Perhaps I should try to explain V-Space in the context of what you are thinking of for New York...

First off, a link to a couple of pages on Virtual Space which might be helpful.

Apart from the scheduled nature of Virtual Space, perhaps the biggest difference from Open Space is the concept of prepared sessions. Weeks or months in advance, presenters with a particular 'expertise' (read: interest, passion, experience) can prepare sessions to offer at a V-Space conference. They might arrive with hand-outs, PowerPoint presentations, props, whatever. The conference organizers may choose to solicit descriptions of these sessions and post them ahead of time - I have done so; I have never seen it done for the Colorado conference I modeled mine on. One thing that is always promoted ahead of time (in the examples I have experienced) is any pre-conference or post-conference intensive workshops, with full descriptions, biographies, etc. and priced separately.

There is another critical philosophical and perceptual difference between a traditional sessioned conference and a V-Space one. The concept of only 'expert' presenters is no longer a restriction. V-Space sessions are not limited to the people who have spoken before, or the people who were selected by a committee, or the people who have published books, or the people who have the confidence to submit their topic, or the people who can commit to a presentation 6 months in advance. As you will remember from the quote in Improvising a Conference - Part 3 (if you haven't read it, go and read it now), sessions can be created by anyone who suddenly realizes that they have information or experience or a perspective that someone else wants. Many people have unique and extremely valuable contributions to make, but would never consider themselves 'experts' or go up against 'experts'. Even some of the 'experts' never volunteer their expertise or create workshops spontaneously. Instead, they remain quiet and possibly unknown in the background until someone specifically asks for the knowledge that they have. V-Space conferences create a forum where those requests are made.

Of course, on the flip side, the powerful effect of V-Space is that anyone can make those requests and have a session created. Each and every attendee is responsible for their own learning - an exponential extension of the Law of 2 Feet - and can get precisely what they need if they only ask for it. Oddly enough, this can sometimes create a dilemma for the prepared presenters. At a recent V-Space conference, I was contacted by a participant a week before the event. At least a month before, she had announced that she would be presenting a prepared session. As she learned more about V-Space, she suddenly had a worrying question:

"Do people usually tailor their presentations to what other people are looking for; i.e. do they change on the spot? Or looking at it another way, do you do a presentation you had in mind anyway and hope the participants will come?"

This is a valid concern when attendees have huge amounts of choice: what if you prepare something and no-one is interested? Since your presentation was not subject to any selection process, what if it's a dud? Well, I can tell you from personal experience: Been there, done that. In my case, I held off offering my session until I had the courage to be a presenter at a conference where I had only intended to be an observer. At the last minute, I added it to the grid, ignorant of the fact that I was in the same time slot as a hugely popular session. No-one came, and I learned my lesson. Here's what I told that presenter with the worrying question:

"Most people don't really know what will trigger their interest until they are there. Paradoxically, while creating a session on the fly seems hard to those who have not seen it in action in Virtual Space, my experience is that it can be harder to create a presentation ahead of time. The reason is along the lines of your question - what if that is not what people want to discuss that day?

This is particularly difficult for a small conference. When you have 250 participants, there is lots more diversity.

The other tough part can be when you go up against another really popular session. The nice thing about this format is that you have the flexibility to move your time spot in the early stages.

I guess the bottom line comes back to that respect principle. I had one presenter who prepared a session at one of my V-Space conferences 2 years ago and only one person showed up to hear him. He went ahead with it anyway, because that one person was having their needs met and that's what V-Space is all about.

If your topic is something you have some passion about, stick with it, and hopefully others will pick up on that and want to hear and discuss it more.

To answer your question in another way, yes, I do recommend that you spend some time *also* thinking about how you might meet some of the needs that have already been expressed by other participants. My routine in Colorado is to present one prepared session and create one on the fly, in response to requests."

Now, to the more important question of New York. I am not about to presume to know what is best for the AIN conference format, but I'll share as much of what I can, and let the reader process what is relevant.

The Virtual Space format is already, by design, an amalgamation of Open Space and traditional prepared sessions. Managing a V-Space conference is quite different from either of its parent formats. My experience would be to plan on at least one break-out location for every 30 attendees, with a minimum of 3 and a maximum of about 8. The concept requires enough flexibility that nothing specific is scheduled in advance - presenters must be able (if they choose) to juggle time slots and locations to meet the needs of the participants. For example, break-out rooms will often vary in size. It is sometimes hard to predict which sessions will be popular in the moment. A common V-Space practice is to get a show of hands for potential interest in a session and assign it to an appropriate space. Another example is when there are many complaints about two sessions happening simultaneously. In V-Space it is possible and not unheard of to swap time slots, based on sufficient audience requests.

To wrap up (at least for now), what seems to be on the table for New York is getting closer and closer to some of the key principles of V-Space, while still (perhaps?) clinging to some of the disadvantages of traditional formats. It may soon be time (either in October or in 2006?) to consider embracing the official format in its proven and time-tested form, with the all the guidelines and tricks that have evolved in the last decade or more of its use.

Respectfully blogged,

Andrew Welch

Posted by Andrew Welch on May 5, 2005 05:03 PM in Annual conference
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