5 December 2012 will be the start of an adventure in the art of sharing knowledge and building connections via conferences. An event, called TFT12, is planned for that date, integrating many of the social technologies available today. TFT12 is to be a 24 hour event presenting 24 different speakers on various subjects in the realm of service management. Yours truly will be one of those speakers.
What makes TFT12 different? First of all, the speakers were chosen by the general public, called upon to vote for whom they would like to see and hear. Unlike conferences organized by a conference committee, which reviews the presentations and the credentials of the candidates in an effort to present a coherent program, the TFT12 speakers were selected by a pure popularity contest, knowing little more than the name and the picture of the speaker and the title of the presentation (unless you took the trouble to follow up the additional information provided). In fact, the selection process was more an exercise in mobilizing one’s on-line network of contacts. It will be interesting to see if this selection method, largely open to the public, results in more useful presentations.
The event itself is a virtual event, meaning that the speakers and the attendees need only have access to the Internet to participate. It will start with speakers in Australia, will pass to the EMEA region and finally end with the Americas, some 24 hours later. The underlying technology will be based on Google products, including Google+ and YouTube. In fact, the presentations will be seen and heard live, via YouTube. Since we all know that presentations are more often viewed after the fact than live, the presentations will continue to be available using that medium. In addition, the slides will be available separately, the audio will be available separately and, of course, the presenters will also make their sessions available via there own networks and technologies.
To my knowledge, nothing of this scale using this technology has been attempted before. It may end up in the Guiness Book of Records. Google is actively supporting the event, which ties together in a very public way many of G+’s services, including Circles, Hangouts (on air), live video streaming and archived video. Other media, such as Twitter and email, will be leveraged during the event.
The plan is for the TFT event to continue in the future on a bi-annual basis, albeit with only 12 presentations at a time. The next event is already being organized.
My own presentation, Beyond Firefighting: Advanced Techniques in Incident Management, will examine the activities during the full life-cycle of a service, that may be used to improve how incidents impacting that service may be better managed. It is currently scheduled for Wednesday, 5 December 2012 at 8:00 UTC+1. For those in western and central Europe, that means you can participate live at 8:00 am, just before your working day starts.
For the full program and registration, go here: http://tft12.eventbrite.co.uk/. The event itself will be available via the Service Desk Institute channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ServiceDeskInstitute/feed?filter=2
I look forward to your presence there.
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