thinking about online conferences
i came across this the other day:
HYTRADBOI 2025 - a fun online conference about databases, programming languages, and everything in between
and i did a bit of poking about into the format:
- prerecorded talks
- 10 minutes long
- MUST have captions
- "lightning talk buffet" of 3 minute talks (again, with captions)
- participants gather in a text chat - Zulip with talk organised into channels, but also by topics within each channel. so that chat on similar talks can be together but also separate
- the chat stays open indefinitely.
- i dont think the individual talks have a set start time, people pick and choose what to watch once the conference is launched then dip into the related chats.
- people can read the transcripts of the talks as well as / instead of watching the recordings
its so simple yet totally different from any online event i've ever seen! please go and read What is the point of an online conference? from the organiser to find out more about his thought process
i feel like i want this to happen as a local gov thing but i'm not sure if i know enough people to pull off an event 🤔 only one way to find out...
will do some more digging into how Jamie Brandon makes it work
p.s. i came across this from his post on Serious Fun, also worth a read