More mulling over PCForum

Still haven't reached any firm conclusions ...
Maybe never will

Spent some time reading others posts and came across
Scripting News: 3/12/2006 by Dave Winer

"The questioners line up in front of the mikes, and are called on, one from each mike. The questioner identifies him or herself. The tone at Esther's is very spacy, it's hard to understand what they're talking about, seems unfortunate because Omidyar has so much practical experience (founder of eBay)."

And then to his ideas about an unconference.

And :

"This observation may turn out to be the Fundamental Law of Conventional Conferences."

The sum of the expertise of the people in the audience is greater than the sum of expertise of the people on stage.

(I'd note that I've seen participants cycle from the floor to the dias and back again over the years)

I think PCForum has moved in this direction over the last couple of years.
I attended a session on non-profits (last year?).

But I do think that the nature has changed over time.
As I only attend one conference, in general, I can't really judge if there are more events that are becoming more like PCForum.

The level of intensity seems to be lower, more casual.

Every year there have been panels and speakers better than others.
Maybe the business has evolved to a more mature phase...

The last few years, the conference has gone "WiFi" and this, along with changed work/attention habits undoubtably changes the tone.
Audiance can blog/surf while keeping an ear to the speakers and panelists.

This can actually add to the event, as evidenced by the Nacchio incident (Wireless Bloggers Created Second Conference at PC Forum)

Sooo
While I ponder, here are some other bloggers:

Conferenza

Tech~Surf~Blog

Ross Mayfield's Weblog: pcforum

Johannes Ernst's Blog

Ted::Talks(): Tech::PC Forum 2006 -Day I

Telematique, water and fire.: Government and our choice