I’ve attended a couple of professional get-togethers lately (like BOFs Birds-Of-a-Feather at LinuxWorld) and running these meetings is tough. Typically, you’ve got a lot of smart people with a lot of interesting things to say, and a lot of smart people who might drag the discussion off-focus. Halley describes a classic problem here, but notes the next day that things are improving.
I’m hoping to make a few visits this year to what Dave Winer calls UnConferences, and hope the benevolent dictators in charge of these events take note. Imagine – a conference where people actually confer!