The Open Space Experience

Join us at Los Techies Fiesta Open Space Conference October 25-27

An Open Space conference is really a different experience than the traditional, presentation driven conference.  While both formats are about learning new things, they go about it in entirely different ways.  While I enjoy both, to me an Open Space conference is more organic and focuses on a free flow of ideas vs a structured lecture.  The way I often describe it is if you’ve ever gone to a conference and the most stimulating moment was a conversation in the hallway or break room, that’s an Open Space conference all day long.

If you’ve ever gone to a conference and the most stimulating moment was a conversation in the hallway or break room, that’s an Open Space conference all day long.

The environment is very fluid and active.  This is due to the Law of Two Feet and  the schedule is determined by the attendees.  Unlike a presentation focused event, where you tend to sit still and listen to someone for an hour or more, you are actively encouraged to move around and keep engaged.  If a session isn’t going the way you want, just go to another, or start your own.

The self-organizing aspect of the format is really important.  Even though I am one of the organizers of the event, I have almost no say in  what the topics and sessions are about, other than proposing topic I’m interested in learning mor about.  And the fact that speakers don’t submit their sessions months in advance, the topics are usually very current and relevant.  For me, the first conference had a lot of conversations about noSql databases and distributed architecture with messaging.  While our second conference had a lot more JavaScript conversations.

What would you like to talk about this year?