Like TED, but you can be in your pyjamas the whole time

December 6, 2017 6:36 AM

I'm looking for examples of successful virtual conferences! Events where there is little-to-no opportunity for an in-person presence, and the presenters are likely presenting from different remote locations.

The examples don't need to be commercial, a virtual annual meeting of an NGO or an online community show-and-tell would count. Something with a schedule, speakers, presentations, and ideally with audience Q&As.

posted by Jairus to Education (10 answers total)

We have a lot of them in the library world since many librarians are from states where they need CE (Continuing Ed) credits for their jobs. Here are a few examples.

- Wild Wisconsin Winter Web Conference (nb, I am speaking at it) put on by Wisconsin Library Association
- There's a Library 2.016/7 series put on by San Jose State that is very well-attended.
- The State of Nebraska does some really good weekly mini-conferences that are CE for librarians in the State of Nebraska but are free for anyone to attend and the presentations (and Q&A) are archived

I'm not sure if you're looking for models or looking for things to attend, but I could probably list a dozen more, they're fairly normal in the library world, especially in large states.
posted by jessamyn at 6:44 AM on December 6, 2017

Response by poster: Looking for models! So any more examples you have would be amazing.
posted by Jairus at 6:48 AM on December 6, 2017

Is the World Seabird Twitter Conference the sort of thing you are after?
posted by sarahdal at 7:22 AM on December 6, 2017

Disruptive Innovation Festival
posted by pinochiette at 7:26 AM on December 6, 2017

There are absolute loads of these taking place in Second Life. So it's less "everybody Skype together" and more "everybody's avatar gather at the same time in the same virtual space." Some of them are SL specific, but there have been medical conferences and companies use SL for global conferencing.

I vastly prefer it as an experience over streaming training and presenting.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:40 AM on December 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

Write On Con, an online conference for children's book writers
posted by tuesdayschild at 8:55 AM on December 6, 2017

Ive seen several accessibility-related conferences set up like this, for instance the Accessibility Summit
posted by the agents of KAOS at 9:07 AM on December 6, 2017

Here are some more virtual library & related conferences. I've tried to pick ones by various groups.

- TechKnowledge 2017 - put on by the Library Journal folks.
- National Information Standards Organization virtual conference
- Innovative Libraries Online Conference (in Iowa)
- ACRL Virtual conference is more of a hybrid model, there is some online-only information but it mostly mirrors an IRL conference
- Multi-State Virtual Staff Development Day! (four completely non-adjacent US states got together for this)
posted by jessamyn at 11:44 AM on December 6, 2017

I have seen several associations list these, generally that offer recertification credits. I haven't attended the examples, so this is just to illustrate: 1, 2
posted by typecloud at 2:32 PM on December 6, 2017

Here’s another big library ones: SLJ Teen Live! This particular one really tries to mirror physical conferences - there are “booths” (aka tiny chat rooms), a keynote speaker, and then breakout sessions.
posted by itsamermaid at 2:55 PM on December 6, 2017 [1 favorite]