Geek Mama

She’s Geeky: What’s an Unconference?

January 29th, 2011

Ever think about attending an “UN-conference”?  Wondering what the hell that is?  Well, let me tell ya that after attending the first day of She’s Geeky, I am totally sold.

How does it work?  Well, all the conference attendees are invited to grab a pen and piece of paper to write down a topic that they’d like to talk about.  Either you’re an “expert” and want to share or you’re a novice and want to invite experts to your session to learn more.

We went around the room allowing everyone an opportunity to announce their topic and give a brief description.  Then folks post their topics on a board.  The board has a bunch of color coded stickies denoting the various session spaces.  You pick a sticky put it on your topic so folks know where to meet to discuss your topic and then you post your topic under a session time.

And that’s it.  That’s your conference.  Filled with topics that at least one person was interested in discussing.  And interestingly, it’s rare not to have anyone attend your topic.  Unless you’re totally obscure (and even still!), chances are high that there’s another woman here who wants to chat with you.

The people here are wildly interesting and topics just run the gamut from food for developers (I looked at Django/Python code this morning) to honing your interview, leadership and presentation skills.

I’m finding it hard choosing which topics to attend because I want to listen in on everything. Fortunately, each topic has a designated note taker who is typing furiously so that the notes can be posted on the She’s Geeky site later.

Entry Filed under: Personal,Professional,She's Geeky