What happens at an unconference ?

At conferences often the best bits are catching up with other people informally and chatting about up-to-the-minute topics with engaged people. At any conference session, often the audience collectively knows more than the speaker on the stage. Unconferences aim to harness that energy and expertise.

Western Australian Library unconferences have used a methodology called Open Space Technology. This follows four main principles.

1. Whoever comes is the right people: this alerts the participants that attendees of a session class as "right" simply because they care to attend
2. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have: this tells the attendees to pay attention to events of the moment, instead of worrying about what could possibly happen
3. Whenever it starts is the right time: clarifies the lack of any given schedule or structure and emphasises creativity and innovation
4. When it's over, it's over: encourages the participants not to waste time, but to move on to something else when the fruitful discussion ends
5. Law of two feet: If at any time during our time together you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing, use your two feet. Go to some other place where you may learn and contribute.

Wiki from previous WA Library Unconferences

Here is the previous WA Library Unconference wiki . It has sessions, timetables, jobs plus notes and slidesets from the sessions.

What happened in 2008

Here is a video of our 2008 Inspect a Gadget unconference session

What happened in 2007.

Here is a photo-mosaic of the 2007 WA Library Unconference