Avoiding Overreach

One of the major problems many (if not most) conferences suffer from is massive overreach. They think they can be an unconference, a networking platform, and TED all at once. Of course, they can't. In my experience, when it comes to conferences, the best events know exactly what they're going for, and try to do it well.

The Feast is focused largely on inspiration and thinking in a new - specifically cross-sector - sort of way. There method for doing this is short, sweet speeches from great people in many different fields. My favorite so far was professional poker player Annie Duke, who spoke about decision making and what people can learn from poker.

While the Feast, in the long-run, is about people making new connections and working together tochange the world, they don't worry too much about the precise mechanics of how that happens with this. They have a well-paced conference with lots of interesting people who can be inspired - or, should they chose, be inspired together.

I think in many ways, it actually is better for their not being any explicit attempt - beyond the generous in-between session time - to facilitate networking. Better online directories of who came (which is what we work on with Assetmap) might add to it, but more or less the point is to set your brain on fire.

Conference planners often feel a pull to appeal to a huge number of constituencies at once, and overreach because of it. By picking their battles, I think the Feast is a stronger, tighter event.

(Photo: Robbie1)