#140Conf The Good and Improvements For Next Time Around
Nov 03, 2009 • Uncategorized • Efren Toscano
Image by krynsky via Flickr
#140Conf Los Angeles was fantastic, full of familiar faces. Still, no event is perfect, and with that, here are a some things we loved and a some things we thought could use some improvement:
Good: The meeting room on the first floor was the hub of mingling. If you wanted to meet new people or chat with familiar faces, this was where you did it.
Try This: No free food? Sure, the complimentary soda, tea and coffee were appreciated, but while we had press passes, we feel that those who shelled out greenbacks for admission deserved at least a bagel or croissant.
Good: Each panel crammed in a freighter-load of intelligent information given the time each was allotted.
Try This: Power Point presentations are a cornerstone of conferences and keynotes, but at 8 o’clock in the morning, flow charts and bar graphs are a bit much for a crowd that spent the previous night partying. We thought some of the most effective presentations had no PowerPoint at all. If Power Point is a must, stick to pictures.
Good: The meeting room was packed with power plugs and the Kodak Theater had free WiFi.
Try This: The Orchestra/Mezzanine had very few plugs compared to the number of laptops and cell phones glowing in the audience. Thank God for the Squid (Efren’s surge protector). Next time, equip the room with a few surge protectors. Also, the Wifi was terrible. Once again, the number of devices using the Internet overwhelmed the building’s capabilities. For a conference based around Twitter, fewer people were able to Tweet than otherwise could have.
Good: For any big event, organization is important, and can make or break a conference. The organizers of #140conf did a stellar job and delivered a fast paced event.
Try This: The Oscar music seemed a little out of place. Pick a different song.
Still, despite these suggestions, 140 Characters, Los Angeles was full of several nuggets of wisdom, and, from an organizational standpoint, compares well to other events. As future conferences come up, we hope that the #140 Characters crew will take these suggestions for what they are, improvements that will enhance the experience for all attendees.
