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Dear AACORNers, I've been a quite silent member so far, but I'm grateful that David Barry invited me to join the AACORN network in its very initial stage - I've been amazed to see it grow so fast with all you resourceful and committed people (it's almost reached a point, where I don't feel worthy of being a member...) and I have followed many of the conversations with great interest. Well, to the point: Having flirted with research activities for quite some years, I've finally started my Ph.d. at Learning Lab Denmark last October. The headline is: "New Conference Formats". In short, the purpose of the research project is to explore conferences as a learning space. Conferences tend to be dull and boring with way to many powerpoints and monologues - and if the point of attending a conference is to acquire new knowledge and gain new insights, then most conferences fail (I know this is a bit harsh, but I'm quite amazed by the general acceptance of wasting time at conferences, be it in a professional or academic setting). I therefore believe there is a need for creating more effective ways of learning in a large audience setting. I should probably add here that I'm talking about those types of conferences, where many people meet a day or more to listen to "experts", share knowledge and network, e.g. professional conferences, academic conferences and association meetings. This rule out sales conferences, "internal" organisational conferences (teambuilding, kick-off, value-implementation etc.) and innovation conferences where there is an explicit purpose of developing new knowledge - for example new ways of creating jobs in rural areas or how to promote the health condition of the general public. These type of conferences tend to be more carefully planned, so I'm talking about improving worst case scenario. The research design implies that I participate in the planning of X number of conferences, from the very first organising committee meeting till the conference is held, and evaluate the participants' experience of the conferences. I've been thinking about a guiding principle for the development of new conference formats, and since I consider a lack of attention to be the principal problem for most conference goers, I've decided to use dramaturgy - or dramapedagogy to be more precise, since the link to learning is important - as a field of reference. The ambition of implementing dramaturgy in a conference setting should not be interpreted as increasing performance on stage and consequently keep the participants in a passive audience mode or to make the participants perform in various role plays. The intention is to explore dramaturgical models (and the various concepts inherent in these models) as a template for designing a conference sequence that takes the question of attention and learning into consideration. I'm writing to you all because I have serious troubles finding research articles, stories, cases etc. within this particular field. (I am of course aware of the Open Space tradition and as mentioned, I've found many examples of good and productive innovation conferences, but apart from that, searching for information and literature has been like yelling in the forest - the only thing that comes back is my own echo.) So, if you know of ANY research articles or other resources that deal with the following topics, I would be grateful: - the learning dimension of conferences - non-traditional conferences (whatever that is - of course I'm thinking of conferences that draw on dramaturgy, but other creative means of structuring a conference program, stimulating conversation, creating networks etc. would be interesting too) - conference culture and history (be it in an academic or professional setting, tracing norms, values and traditions.) I guess that creative ways of doing research communication all together also would be interesting, as many conferences (at least in DK) tend to be an act of communicating research. Any response or feedback is welcomed. I will be happy to compile all your input in a digest format for everyone to use. As I have been too lazy to update my profile on the AACORN web (shame on me!), you can turn to my profile at the LLD website to find out more about me and the project: <http://www.dpu.dk/about/njp> http://www.dpu.dk/about/njp Thanks in advance for your attention ;-) Nicoline ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Nicoline Jacoby Petersen // PhD student Doctoral School of Organisational Learning (DOCSOL) LEARNING LAB DENMARK The Danish University of Education Emdrupvej 101 2400 Copenhagen NV Denmark email: <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask] phone: (+45) 8888 9983 mobile: (+45) 606 505 44 web LLD: <http://www.lld.dk/> www.lld.dk web DPU: <http://www.dpu.dk/> www.dpu.dk //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////