Innovation Edge – formal and informal conversations

We’ve got 3000 people registered to come to our annual conference called innovation edge next Tuesday. There are lots of interesting speakers but as has been mentioned many times before, the traditional speaker/audience format of big conferences doesn’t make the most of the knowledge and networks of the attendees.

People have been experimenting with open space formats in recent years which is great but not right for such a big event i don’t think. Also, sometimes we simply want to hear what people have to say. I’m looking forward to Tim Berners Lee in particular, even through it’s via a video link up.

So facilitating some real dialogue at an event like this is tricky given the scale of the thing. However we are going to try and experiment which I’ve seen work really well at smaller events. Namely we’ve set up a Twitter account specifically for the conference and will try to participate in some conversations between the attendees live, and I’m the shmuck who agreed to do it. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy to try it but I’m not quite sure how it will work and am a little worried about insufficient connectivity at the venue, but nothing ventured nothing gained I guess.

Anyway the feed will appear on this blog so you can keep an eye on what’s being talked about. We will also be live blogging here. Else, sign up to Twitter, if you haven’t already done so, follow @innovationedge, and join the conversation if you fancy trying it.