Help! I have Never Been to An Unconference Before

Unconferences are fundamentally egalitarian and primarily democratic.

Instead of the one-to-many model of a traditional keynote, where one person speaks and everyone else listens, the unconference is about discovery via discussion. It is a many-to-many model. It assumes the most profound insights often come from people with varied levels of experience, from varied disciplines. So come prepared to talk as well as listen.

Participation is the Key

If you have an idea, notion, or topic that you think is worthy of group discussion add it to the Sessions page.

If you have strong opinions on a proposed topic, or if you want to simply list some discussion points on a particular subject, feel free to create an additional page dedicated solely to the topic. Be sure to link back to sessions page so others can find your contribution.

How Sessions Are Chosen

There will be a number of sessions during the day -- likely in 50 minute blocks.

The organizing team will seed a few sessions with pre-assigned topics.

The rest of the session blocks will be a blank slate. In the morning before things get going, the empty slots will be assigned a topic by the whole group. If a lot of people want to talk about a topic from the list of proposed sessions they can. Anyone can volunteer to moderate. If a lot of people want to talk about a topic that is proposed on the spot, they can do that too.

For examples and insight read all about BookCampUK -- held in London this past January. BookCamp London Wiki  (see here, here, here, here, here and here for some reports).