Sound n' Sight

What is Event Camp Twin Cities? An interview with Samuel J. Smith

There's a lot of buzz going on right now about Event Camp Twin Cities, ECTC, a new event that promises innovation, experimentation & collaboration for events industry professionals.

The brainchild of events professionals, Samuel J. Smith and Ray Hansen,  ECTC will take place Sept. 8 & 9 in Minneapolis. It follows on the heels of the first Event Camp which was conceived by a group that met on the Twitter community, #eventprofs and was held last February in New York City.

I was fortunate enough to attend the first Event Camp and found it to be a very positive and enriching experience.  It was there that I first met Sam, 'in real life.' I was already a big fan of Sam's blog Interactive Meeting Technology and our conversations at Event Camp were among the highlights of my trip as his enthusiasm for improving events and helping events professionals was contagious. He made such an impression on me that when I heard he and Ray were planning this second Event Camp, I was quick to sign up for it.

I recently asked Sam to answer a few questions for Sound n' Sight about his upcoming event.

 

Jenise: What is ECTC and how did you get the idea for it? Who all is involved?

Sam: Event Camp is an innovation lab for events. I got the idea last February when I attended the first ever Event Camp in New York City. In that event, I was so inspired by the people around me that I knew that I wanted to do this.  So, I talked Ray Hansen into joining me and off we went.

 

Jenise: Is ECTC an unconference? How will it be like or different from the first Event Camp?

Sam: We have designed Event Camp to be highly participatory, but it is not an unconference. We designed the conference around the words social, innovation, collaboration and experimentation. Our mission has been to try and create a face-to-face event that has similar attributes to social media.  Our goal has been to get to 50% talking heads and 50% participatory activities.

Jenise: You talk about innovation on your website. How will ECTC be innovative?

Sam: Have you ever been to a conference without chairs? Or a conference where the virtual audiences gets to have a voice in the room?  What about a conference where you can try Pecha Kucha, StorySlam, Business Games and go on a digital scavenger hunt in the same event? We are doing those things. For most people, this will be their first time trying or seeing those formats.

Jenise: Please give a few examples of the kinds of sessions that will be presented?

Sam: Here are some of the topics that we hope to discuss - With all of this social media, what will events look like in 2015? Can hybrid events be interactive and social? Most people agree that their post event strategy is weak - how do you build a strong post event strategy? How do business games and decision making impact learning? What can we learn from TV, radio and movies that could help us reconstruct general sessions?

Jenise: ECTC draws a decidedly geeky crowd - #eventprofs tending to be gadget, computer fanatics. I noticed you have a session on this. What kinds of gadgets will you be talking about?

Sam: Jenise, I used to work in the auto industry for Ford. We use to take our cars and competitors cars out to the test tracks. What happened is that you could really notice the tiny differences between a great product and an ok product when you cold drive both within seconds of each other.

You noticed the Mustang's throaty engine and the BMW's great handling. Midori (Connelly) wants to bring that type of experience to the different mobile event technology tools that we have available to us. Event Camp is creating space for her to do that. It's going to be white lab coat type of stuff. I don't know her specific plans but I heard that she might do a drop test.

Jenise: What is the most way-out thing you have planned?

Sam: Most way out? (smiles) Most people think that throwing out the chairs is way out. I think the definition of way out depends on your point of view. I think all of the things that we are doing are reasonable. Some people think that we have jumped on the express bus to loony town.

Jenise: What is your perspective on failure w/ regard to trying all these new things at ECTC?

Sam: Did you know that it took Thomas Edison 10,000 tries to get the light bulb right? or Henry Ford three tries before his auto company took off? If something goes wrong it won't be a failure - it will be our first learning experience. I hope that this event will be one of many experiments that take place in the events industry over the next several decades.

Jenise: What is the main idea/lesson/skill you want attendees to take away from ECTC?

Sam: I want attendees to find one idea that attendees can take back to their events and try.  If would be happy if attendees would leave saying - "We should try _________ and I know that we can do it 10 times better than those crazy guys at Event Camp. "  This event is really about learning from each other, taking risks in a low risk environment and having fun doing it.

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