New faces/Rising stars/Gimme5 slots at conferences are becoming more and more popular give a platform to gain experience and be heard by a wide audience. But is there draw backs to this format. Is this what a conference attendees are looking for?
Absolutely should be a part of conferences - moreso than it is now. New speakers need to be fostered, but they won't be the ones selling conference tickets to begin with until they get a little more experience.
It's the same as being a musician. You start out playing small local gigs, first on stage while the audience isn't really listening. As you get better and you get more experience, you get bigger gigs, and you move up the running order - until eventually you're the one headlining and selling the tickets.
One trend that's very common in performing arts (eg. Standup comedy) and music - is that the headline acts are frequently invited to choose their support acts. Personally, I'd love to see this tried at conferences.
Conference line-ups should always mix old with new - the sad thing is the number of recent conferences in web and UX that haven't bothered with the new.
I agree with John that a specific slot for newcomers is a good initiative, but allowing headline acts to choose support just encourages favouritism. This was really evident (and a real issue) on the comedy circuit 20 years ago.
It also shouldn't just be a case of providing a slot for a new speaker - but of providing additional support such as mentoring. Conference organisers should seek talent and help develop it IMHO.
One comment I heard was that it would be better to have such a thing as pre-event the night before the main event a little like NA Conf does. But I wonder if this defies the point of tying in the large audience to see people they may not have other wise chosen to and moving to a smaller stage?
It's a good thing for attendees if the decision is made carefully and biased towards thought-provoking innovations and demos. Not just another talk telling people to be good standards citizens etc.
Mentoring is a good idea. If it was organising, I'd book a couple of Google Hangouts where the speakers can rehearse in front of mentors (eg other speakers), eg 4 in a 1hr session, with time for feedback after each. And then do it again a week later.
Yeah. I doubt you'll find any high profile speaker with the time or the inclination to sit on a google hangout for an hour to watch someone rehearse even once, let alone multiple times ;)
Personally I'm a huge fan of the lightning talk format as a way for new speakers to gain experience. Having a five minute slot has a bunch of advantages:
- it forces people to get straight to the point
- it's easier to prepare a talk that will fit the time slot (a common speaker mistake) and properly polish it, since practising a five minute talk doesn't take long
- if it all goes horribly wrong the speaker (and audience) only have to survive for a few minutes
Anonymous talk submissions can dramatically improve the diversity of the speaker line-up if handled well (see this year's JSConf) - combining those with the Lightning Talk format might be worth trying.
John you are only saying that as you know I will ask you
