Unconference sessions: what works and what doesn’t

I have run six unconferences over the past two years, two for the DVB Project and four for the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Based on feedback from participants, the reports filed on the unconference sessions and my own observations, in this article (also published on LinkedIn) I’ve tried to identify which approaches to hosting a session seem to work best.

(An unconference sees the traditional one-to-many presentation-based approach of conferences replaced by or complemented with a series of smaller focused discussions, run in parallel throughout one or more days, based on an agenda that is created on site by the participants themselves, who pitch and host the sessions. This article explains it well; and I’ve previously published a rather long post about my experiences running the first DVB World unconference.)

If you’re planning to attend an unconference, what follows may help you to shape sessions you’re involved with.

General principles for hosting sessions

Some people are better than others at hosting or facilitating a discussion, but anybody can take these simple steps to improve their session.

  1. Be outcome-oriented – think in advance about what might represent a useful and valuable outcome from the session (for you, the participants, and the wider community) and try to design it in a way that can reach that outcome.
  2. Think about how you can structure the conversation – perhaps there is a matrix onto which you can map ideas (urgency vs. importance; ease of implementation vs. scale of impact; SWOT analysis; etc); or you could draft a series of questions and have the group address each in turn; the Liberating Structures menu might provide some ideas on how to design your session.
  3. Try to hear from everybody – take the time to systematically invite each session participant to contribute at least once, and avoid allowing one or two voices to dominate the conversation.
  4. Take notes openly – you will usually be asked to appoint one participant to file a short report on the session using whatever online tool is provided, but it’s also a good idea to try to capture key points on a flipchart or whiteboard, ideally in a structured way; it both helps keep the conversation focused and can help with the session report.

What works well

Here are a few types of session that have worked well at unconferences I’ve hosted.

  • Gathering examples – ask the participants “How does your organisation address X challenge?” or “What is your approach to X task that many of us need to do?”
  • Crowdsourcing ideas – perhaps you believe the community may benefit from new work on a given topic and want to start defining the scope; ask participants to help you list relevant use cases, attributes, etc.
  • Show and ask – if you have a live demonstration of a service or product, show the participants how it works and invite them to ask questions or share their own experiences with similar tools. (Note that this should NOT be a sales pitch and should NOT be accompanied by a slide presentation… see below.)
  • Gauge interest – you want to see how interested participants are in a given topic or challenge; prepare several questions that you can use to structure the conversation.

There are other session types that can potentially work well, but only if handled in the right way. For example, a tutorial on a given tool or method might be appreciated, but not if it is just a one-way presentation; and a panel discussion with pre-invited participants could work well, but should also provide plenty of opportunities for other participants to contribute.

What to avoid

At an unconference, the Law of Two Feet encourages participants to (respectfully!) leave sessions where they are neither learning nor contributing. So, as a session host, don’t be surprised if people come and go from your session.

Of course, it may simply be that the topic is not what they expected or they want to visit another session happening at the same time. But there are other reasons people may leave a session…

  • Drop the PowerPoint – simply sharing a deck of slides from the front of the room is a missed opportunity; you may wish to show a couple of slides to introduce a topic, or even start with your concluding slide, but unconference sessions should be based around conversation, not presentation.
  • Don’t sell – the unconferences I’ve been involved with are about bringing a community together to move forward on a set of common challenges; unconference sessions should not be a sales pitch for your company’s product or service.
  • Don’t be too broad – if your question is too broad and/or you don’t have a clear idea of the kind of outcome you’d like to see from the session, there’s a risk that the discussion will be unfocused, jumping off in many different directions and without any convergence at the end.

Finally, the moment when you pitch your session during the opening circle is your best opportunity to attract the right people to it. When pitching, try to describe your session clearly – what you hope to achieve and how it will be structured – so that participants know whether or not it is relevant to them. The moderator can help you to do this. Your pitch will need to be brief; and it’s always nice to have a clear and clever title for your session!


For more on unconferences, in addition to the Ten Simple Rules article I linked to above, this Unconference Survival Guide from Jono Bacon has good advice. And you might also want to read this post from Jason Power about his experiences with running one for Dolby.

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