Amanda Ingle Profound findings can come from the unknown. Unsummit4 was full of information, innovation and intelligence from many different subject matter experts. With the day packed full of amazing sessions, it was hard to boil it down to what I wanted to do. Being a social media nerd, I found most of my time spent learning about new ‘best practices.’…  UnSummit4 Brief

Interactive Snack (Vanessa Bright):  Unsummit – a free “unconference” that in my opinion is better than some of “regular” conferences – attendees and presenters are driven by passion for our beloved interactive marketing. Regular conferences, I must admit, typically have wider variety of unhealthy food However, food for thoughts that unsummit provides is absolutely irresistible…  Unsummit – 4

blog.brainstormoverload (Todd Zerger) By all accounts UnSummit 5 (sic) was a success. Personally, I met some great people and enjoyed many great conversations including “Ensuring Relevance With Good Design” hosted by Circadian, “Minnesota Start-up Culture” hosted by Jeff Pesek, and “Escaping Wage Slavery” hosted by Don Ball. My favorite presentation however was by an old friend. Rohn Jay Miller hit a home run with “The 25 Minute MBA: How To Anchor Projects in Real Business Success” which he has made available on SlideShare… UnSummit Update 

Nick Rodriguez Today I had the honor of attending UnSummit4. It was the first time that I have ever been to any kind of conference or unconference for that matter. I really had no idea what to expect or what was going to happen. What I discovered was a community here in the Twin Cities that was extremely helpful in every level of business and social media. It was nothing short of amazing!…  Today

Minnov8 Podcast Innovation is Accelerating

Presentations:

Patrick Rhone’s Practical Opacity
Rohn Jay Miller’s The 25 Minute MBA
Arik Hanson’s Feeding the Blog Beast
Don Ball’s Escaping Wage Slavery 
Kate Masonna Hindes’ The Art of Being Fun-sized

Flickr photos tagged Unsummit

Twitter on Unsummit

We couldn’t have done it with YOU. Our attendees, session facilitators, volunteers and sponsors are truly the best. Thank you all for another fantastic event and making the job of organizing so worthwhile.

We’ll be gathering videos and other session material and posting it here in the coming days.

I have been attending unconferences since the first Minnebar back in the day and I love the refreshing format. An unconference is where people talk with each other as opposed to at each other.  New paradigm topics such as the ones that appear on the schedule of the unsummit website should not take place in rigid, old paradigm formats. We are moving from a one-way event to a two-way experience.

This event, excuse me… experience, is free thanks to generous sponsors and also held on a weekend day. Even though it is free I think the attendees that give up part of their summer Saturday are more passionate and more highly participatory than the average conference goer.

Next year perhaps we can take a few more ideas into the format. I plucked the following participatory formats from a white paper titled  “Possibilities For Transformational Conferences” by Tree Bressen with Debby Sugarman and Sunrise Facilitation:

• Attendees Interview Each Other
• Presenters Learn From Participants
• Fishbowl – small group of people speak together while others listen and witness
• Interview The Panelists
• Panelist Circles – panelists go out into the audience and form circles people to talk more
• Storytelling
• Speed Geeking – basically this is musical chars with panelists

Did you know that most unconference features match the characteristics of the traditional science fiction convention held since the 1930’s? We are living science fiction every day. The future is now and I for one love it.

Glee-like Video from Mykl Roventine on Vimeo.

UnSummit coordinators Meg Canada and Mykl Roventine are not above making fools of themselves to get cool giveaways for their attendees. Case and point, this video. Made in trade for super sweet Clockwork notebooks for UnSummit4.

Videos we shared:

• Models and Bottles
• Grain Belt 50’s Parody Promo
• The Big Talk
• The True History of Chex Mix – Folk Song

We’ve just posted the session schedule for UnSummit4. Now you can start planning your Saturday.

Photo by Stephen Poff

Our attendees deserve the best. As a result, fellow UnSummit coordinator Meg Canada and myself are willing to do (almost) anything to get our hands on the coolest conference shwag in town — Clockwork/Geek Girls Notebooks.

We danced for them last year. This year, you can vote on what we have to do. Today is the last day, so get your votes in now and then stay tuned for the results.

Our fate is in your hands.

Photo by Clockwork Active Media Systems

Now you can sign up for UnSummit4 tickets.

We’re also still looking for session idea and facilitators. Chime in here.

Photo: loop_oh