Reflections on The Social Fabric Unconference

I threw a 60-person conference on community building

In June, Tyler and I co-hosted an unconference for community builders.

What is an unconference? Honestly, we weren't really sure, but we hoped that using the prefix "un-" would signal casualness. We wanted attendees to have genuine conversations. We wanted them to leave feeling nourished and full of ideas. We did not want them wearing "professional" masks.

This was my first time hosting an (un)conference. Here are some notes on what I learned, and what I’d do the same or different for future conferences.

Venue

The biggest obstacle to hosting a large event is getting a venue.

In our case, we were first offered the use of a friend's office space for free. That got us thinking about what we could do there. So we went into the planning process with a venue in hand.

If you don’t have a venue, here are my tips:

1. Ask businesses in your town if you can rent their space during closed hours. A friend and I once cold-messaged a yoga studio about hosting an evening salon event there. They agreed and charged a very reasonable fee. I also have a friend who was able to rent an art gallery after hours. Often these businesses are happy to help the local community. And an event that brings new people into the space can serve as free advertising for them.

2. Throw smaller events first, at home, outside, or at a restaurant. Then announce that you are seeking a larger venue for future events. At the end of the unconference, three venue owners came up to me and offered their venues for future events.¹ When people see that you are a capable and responsible event host, they trust you with their space.

Costs

We considered seeking funding, but I dislike fundraising. Besides, once a venue was secured, funding was unnecessary to our underlying goal: to bring together great community builders to learn and collaborate together. We decided to run the scrappiest conference possible.

The biggest cost of a conference, after the venue, is food. So we simply didn't provide food and instead had a 1.5 hour lunch break. The venue was a few minutes walk from Bryant Park, which is absolutely beautiful in the New York summer. We encouraged people to get a Chipotle or Cava bowl and then eat together in the park.

The venue had whiteboards, technology-equipped conference rooms, and a printer. The last expensive item we needed was a microphone. We asked for help on the conference Discord. One of our speakers offered to bring his portable microphone system.

Our other costs were minimal: I paid for some nametags and plastic cups out of pocket.

Speakers

Tyler and I have a large network of community builder friends. We compiled a list of potential speakers, and contacted each individually.

We weren't very organized about this process, which I definitely regret. We planned the logistics by texting back and forth with each speaker. Next time, I would send potential speakers a form with the following fields:

1. Session title

2. Type of session (talk, workshop, group discussion, etc.)

3. Session length (15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 1 hour)

4. Scheduling constraints (some speakers had to leave early, others had to arrive late)

1. A conversation with Ziqi Deng, 2. A presentation by Casey Rosengren

The speakers could talk about anything community-related. Some speakers spoke about building co-living houses, third spaces, and an arts collective. Other talks included Fully Automated Luxury (gay space) Communism as the Communal Living Ideal, and Designing Religion-y Things. Workshops ranged from traditional to experimental: topics included How to Have a Nice Time Doing Politics with Your Friends, and The Role of the Fool in Community Integrity. I did not attend the fool workshop, but I am told it descended into chaos...

Advertising

Tyler created a website and tweeted about the conference to his 9,000 followers. I retweeted him. Some of our speakers also shared the conference to their friends and audiences. We also posted to a few WhatsApp groups and Facebook groups.

Volunteers

We asked ten friends if they would volunteer. Our most extroverted friend served as the first point of contact. He worked the building door, and let people up the elevator (which required a key card).² We asked an actor friend to greet everyone in character to set a playful tone.

Other friends helped at the registration table. Others with tech setup, impromptu videotaping of talks, and keeping time.

Liam greets Claudia at the registration table

The volunteers' playful energy set the tone for the attendees.

Schedule

Our schedule was divided into two tracks: a speaker track and a workshop track. You could choose to attend what interested you or matched your energy at the time.

For future conferences, I'll encourage people to skip some time blocks altogether. I ended up hanging out in the kitchen with some speakers when I needed a break from organizing. Meanwhile, I heard from some attendees that they felt burned out by the end of the day. Conferences can be exhausting; you have to pace yourself.

My biggest regret from the conference was that we finalized the schedule on the morning of.³

We also didn't print schedules for everyone because we kept making changes. You could see the schedule at the registration desk, or listen when we announced the talks. But some people ended up missing sessions they would have liked to attend.

Media

We assumed that most speakers would not want to be filmed, but we were wrong. Speakers wanted a recording to share with their online audience. In hindsight, this is a duh! realization. But in my mind, part of the charm of an unconference was its ephemerality.

At the last minute, we asked a volunteer to set up recording. But the equipment glitched, and by the time we noticed, we had missed recording most of the talks.

For later talks, we asked volunteers to film with their smartphones. You can watch the talks we recorded here.

Next time I will prioritize media. I am very happy that my talk got captured on video, and wish I could have offered that to all our speakers.

What's next?

Next, I'd like to plan a conference on "alternative" parenting. Think: alternative schools and unschooling, family-run businesses, home births, healing family trauma. If you'd like to be notified when we announce the conference, sign up here.

1. There were several people who run third spaces at this conference, due to the topic. You may have to throw many smaller events and continually seek a venue until someone offers one.

2. This job ended up taking much longer than expected because people arrived continuously throughout the day, when we expected everyone to arrive at the start (lesson learned!). Liam was a champ, and worked the door for much longer than we’d asked. He ended up missing most of the talks as a result. Thank you Liam, you are amazing!

3. We meant to finalize the schedule earlier. But some speakers had to cancel for health reasons, and other speakers subbed in last minute. Also, the smoke from the Canadian wildfires blew in a few days before the unconference. Tyler and I felt intense brain fog and barely worked in the days leading up to the conference!