Reflecting on my mini-conference event

I want to reflect here on my mini-conference event - all in all a very positive experience for me that went very smoothly.

The first thing in getting ready for the mini-conference was to work through the FO2010 course to build my knowledge and confidence and get to the stage where I could facilitate by myself. My first experience of facilitating was with a shared responsibility - Coach Carole guided me through my first session way back in August and acted as a mentor for me as we co-facilitated a session. At that stage that is what I needed - the security of having someone there who was already experienced, not only at facilitating online, but also with the technical know-how.

In stark contrast to today, I wanted to have the responsibility and feel I had gained enough experience to be able to facilitate and manage the session on my own. That said, it would not have been possible without the support of my guest speaker for the session, Kate Timms-Dean, nor without the active participation of those who came along.

Of course I felt nervous just prior to the session, but my methodical planning meant I was prepared and ready. I had planned a run sheet for the event and it worked a treat!

The session itself went really well, Elluminate worked fine, with only one minor audio hitch - Kate's headset was causing a fuzzy noise, but she changed it without any problem and the sound quality improved instantly. My contingency plan of moving to Skype was not needed. The timing was all good and the recording worked well (available here).

My planning and promotion of the event could have started a bit earlier by a week or so, but due to other long standing work commitments, it was not possible. I used some of the tools we learned during the course to promote the event - my blog, the wiki and Twitter, the google group as well as promoting to my face to face networks.

Unfortunately I was restricted to when I could schedule the event due to other work commitments which meant the time zone was not ideal, particularly for those based in Northern Europe. The timing of the event could well have been a factor in why there was a small, but select turn out - was this something that affected your decision to attend or not? I had received replies from several students advising the time was not good for them and apologies for not being available to attend.

The content of the presentation was great, and although Kate talked about a specific Maori approach, the cultural framework she presented could be applied to many cultures. I chose this subject as hoping it was relevant to many - we are all from different cultures and backgrounds and it was great to have the variety of cultures in the classroom. Although perhaps the low turnout indicates it was not as popular a topic as I'd thought - keen to hear any comments.

The session was attended by only 4 other students, but each participated actively using audio and the chat box and provided instant feedback at the end of the session, although I will email each of them to ask for any further comments.

I have certainly learned from this event and when I do my next one, I will start planning earlier, promoting more and trying to accommodate time zones, although the fact the recording and slides are available after the event does help.

Feel free to make any comments below - I am always keen to learn and improve.

Thanks