Your Thoughts About the Idea Camp?
The Idea Camp is finally over (for now)…
I will need some time to process my thoughts and the lessons learned from “experimenting” conference life. I hope to write a post early next week as thoughts come together.
In the meantime, would you take moment and let me know what you thought about the Idea Camp?
Feel free to be honest because the hope is that if there is ever to be another Idea Camp (still a big “IF”), we would like to know which elements were of benefit to you. Remember, this is a conference that average people like you and me get to create together.
Also, if you come across other reviews of the Idea Camp, please post the links here.
Thanks in advance!
New Blog Post – Your Thoughts About #theideacamp at http://charlestlee.com/?p=876 – Love to hear your feedback.
Retweeting @charlestlee: New Blog Post – Your Thoughts About #theideacamp at http://charlestlee.com/?p=876 – Love to hear your feedback.
New Blog Post – Your Thoughts About #theideacamp ? at http://charlestlee.com/?p=876 – Love to hear your feedback.
Charles, like you I am still processing much of what went on at The Idea Camp and will blog about it on Monday, but let me get things started by sharing a couple of quick points:
Good:
1) Feedback for the format of facilitating open discussion was all positive. Expressions such as “The Idea Camp will be a game changer” were used commonly.
2) The diversity of the speakers during the main sessions was amazing! Giving a platform for next generation teens doing compassion ministries all the way through to Erwin McManus, it was a great mix and we took away new things from each of them.
Not-so-Good:
1) I felt as if too many people came with questions, but no ideas. It’s not a bad thing as a purpose was to help educate and facilitate open source idea sharing. However, if no one shares ideas, then nothing new comes up. In some sessions I heard everyone repeating the same questions, but not many willing to offer many answers or suggestions. Felt that took away from the sessions a little bit.
2) I sensed that some people still came with a somewhat closed mind. People came to learn from and meet prominent people or people already within their social networks, but didn’t take the time to seek new people and new ideas. Honestly, I was a little guilty of this myself…it wasn’t intentional, but it occurred.
Hoping this is the start of more of The Idea Camps as it was a great effort and even if continued in the exact form as the first event, would still be a worthwhile and necessary alternative to traditional conferences!
Charles:
My brain is still spinning from all the interaction. It was an amazing experience, really. Some of the best parts:
1) Worship Time: added such a beautiful element to our gathering. Loved praising our amazing God with fellow believers.
2) Diversity of Faciliators: Like Dave Ingland mentions above, getting to hear “under-represented voices” was a great plus. Expanded and challenged my thinking.
3) Networking times liberally sprinkled: So many outstanding conversations happened over coffee, off-site. Loved the chance to interact. (felt a little bad for the introverts who may not have felt comfortable approaching strangers with “hey, wanna go to lunch?”)
4) Loved the spontaneity of prayer: It was just precious to stop the flow and pray for Zach and Connor… and interrupting a song set to remind us what it’s all about. That showed such a lovely sensitivity to God’s Spirit. Loved it.
Challenges:
1) There were SO many concurrent choices for sessions. We probably could have had half the selection… I was just so disappointed that I only got to hear half the amazing workshops I’d wanted to b/c they ended up scheduled at the same time. Don’t know if cutting back on workshops would help.
2) Activity suggestion, it would be neat to have the audience break into pairs or triplets and pray for the presenter’s ministry after they finished presenting in the main sessions. Like a corporate gift of affirmation and blessing upon them. It would be a sweet way to respond to what they share w/ us. For example, it would have been neat to pray for Scott Harrison after his charity: water talk. That God would bless his vision with success, resources he needs, creativity, protection, etc.
Overall, it was an amazing event. I cannot wait to see the conversations continue! Thanks again, Charles.
Dawn Carter (the other Dawn)
Hey Dave!
Thanks again for making the trek down! Love your thoughts. I appreciate them.
I suppose that the quality of the workshops do lean on how the people approach it. I’m sure there are plenty of people that are not used to thinking collaboratively. Do you have any suggestions how how to make this better? Love to hear it.
I totally agree with you about #2 in that unless we intentionally leave our familiar space, it will be difficult to “open” our minds. I do think many actually did meet totally new people and even formed a great future friendship and partnership.
I wish you could have seen how people rallied around our Idea Competition winner…it was a great concrete example on working together!
Please feel free to write more thoughts here as they come up 🙂
Hi Charles,
Thanks for making the Idea Camp possible. When I first heard about the formality of the conference, I thought it was so brilliant. I loved the networking opportunities that the camp provided and the atmosphere was so genuine. As Dawn mentioned above, the worship was amazing. At first I was afraid that with all the creative minds exploring and sharing, we’d forget where our ideas birthed in the first place; but starting and ending our sessions with corporate worship was such a reminder of why we were even there at all.
I do have to agree with Dave in that many people such as I came with a lot of questions, which did take away from some of the sessions. I think maybe to help lessen the question-tossing facilitators should guide the sessions more closely. It’s understandable that we want everyone to share and talk, but I think at the same time people came not only to share ideas, but to get help in developing more constructive steps that tailor to his/her own needs (either for organizations, or causes). I think having the two types of thinkers (ppl who have ideas, and those who are still developing) are great, but maybe having the two mixed in loosely guided discussions there bounds to be conversation limbos. So I think for the sessions, maybe you can group up different types of workshops within the different topics. The following is just an example format:
1) Church Marketing
a) Q&A panel –which is what we had (so this would be more for people who have questions and would like the general answers, such as overall visions, values, process, the general concepts of the 5w’s or intakes from the experts specific encounters –people like me who are still in college with no special ideas but would like to get into church marketing in the future who have a BUNCH of questions and would just like to listen from those already in the field.)
b) Workshops –still falls under the topic of church marketing (more for people who have tangible ideas but still need brushing up and would like to ask for suggestions from those who have the ball rolling. I think this would also help narrow down the networking process where people with similar interest and background have an easier time identifying each other. Totally not saying that meeting those outside of similar interest is wrong, but this would definitely be with practical step in making connections with those already in the process.)
c) Of course not all sessions need such definite format in discussions. So maybe under church marketing there could be another group that revisits the values (maybe this would be more for people who’ve had many experiences in the field and would like to hear how others in similar situations dealt with certain ideas –failed, succeeded, whatever. This would almost be like sharing and caring, seeing how others did things and maybe adopting certain concepts.)
I’m not sure what you think about this but maybe the different types of sessions could also be scheduled into a three-part deal. Like, day one of conference could have 3-4 topics. The morning session, all Q&A of the different topics (Ex: Church Marketing, Poverty, Youth Ministry, Evangelism). Then noon session could be the workshops of those topics and people attending are expected to have tangible ideas whether it be in action or still churning in the cranium. (I think this would force those who’ve acquired some knowledge of the topic to be encouraged with participation in coming up with practical ideas. This might create more useful examples or ideas for people to take away.) And for the night session, the sharing one, it’ll allow everyone to share about either specific examples of mistakes, obstacles and engage in more of an intimate setting. I think it’s good for a camp full of awesome creative people to hear ideas that never took off and discuss why.
I think that’s all for now. I’m not sure how much of that actually makes sense. And it’s four in the morning so please excuse and grammatical mistakes. The format is probably messy so let me know if you need any clarification. Everything seems to make sense…but it could just be the drowsiness.
God bless.
ps. I think this was a great turn out for an ‘experiment’
From the online experience, I’d say it was pretty phenomenal. You used just about every tool available to be eco-friendly and engage as many of us as possible.
The event being free and accessible in itself was innovative, and calling out the best in people to simply serve and share ideas was also a breath of fresh air.
the rapid prototyping of having an idea winner and support gathered was also a great element of it all.
i also resonate with the idea of providing a platform for that not-yet-quite-discovered who also have tremendous insight for us all.
I just wish I was able to be there in person, there were so many people i’ve been tracking with that were physically present.
I think it was an incredibly challenging vision you pulled off, and hope you were just as encouraged as I was. Thanks for carving out a bit of the future!
I think I know that people process at different paces and in different ways, so not all will process out loud right immediately after an event finishes (or process out loud during the event).
What I hope there is more time and space for is to celebrate the amazing breakthroughs in the “conference world” that happened at The Idea Camp! I’d prefer to save the evaluating and improving to later… though, granted, others process differently than me. 🙂
A few initial thoughts: the event’s diversity is a huge value, though not all might see it, since most of us aren’t used to that much dissonance… the event shifted the gravity of the event’s value from the producers to the participants (meaning, who showed up among attendees and how much they participated, could “make or break” a session)… the event showed (to me) a stark contrast to the nicely packaged products and services that we consume in books and events, and I hope that would nudge us towards collectively investing some of our time into exploring and dreaming with each other rather than only investing in producing pre-specified outcomes and results and let go of the pressure to have to do something “sustainable”…
Wholeheartedly, this was a good thing.
And I wasn’t even there in person… but the online accessibility, the open-source, no cost approach – this is indeed revolutionary. My wife and I attended the conference virtually while feeding our baby and giving him a bath. So the accessibility is a HUGE plus.
Hope to be there in person next time.
Hey charles,
Thank you so much for streaming Idea Camp online. I was able to catch most of the main sessions. From what I could tell it was an amazing time. From my perspective (online participator) I think it would have been helpful to create ways for the online community to be involved even more. It was nice to be able to text questions and to vote on surveys. However I think if there where 1600+ people online it would be great to take online interaction a step further. Some Ideas I thought of would be having online facilitators. People who can stimulate direction and purpose in the online conversation. Aslo possibly creating chat rooms with different topics for the online community to choose.
Thank you for this event!
Caleb
The Idea Camp was a tremendous experience for me. While I may have been the oldest woman there and most frequently work and worship in a mainline denominational setting, this was a wonderfully expansive experience of merging cutting edge technology with creativity, social activism and worship. My cuppa tea. I feel like I have so much to take back to my church and my ministry beyond the church as an artist teaching about art and transformation.
Regarding some of the comments about coming with more quesitons than idea, I sense was that it took awhile for the depth of authentic conversation to emerge because so many of us were new to each other. I found that I was choosing workshops that were a variation on a theme and that many of the same folks appeared repeatedly. Perhaps it would be helpful to have a major track theme that continues for four sessions where those interested can developmentally move through the process of getting to know one another, coming with questions, and then emerging/leaving with more ideas than questions. I’d love to see a final workshop session be about “so what” – how are you going to be able to take what you’ve heard back to your setting and impliment what you’ve learned – n Idea Challenge for each person.
Because I’ve not been immersed in the emerging church movement, virtually all the speakers were unknown to me. I’m really looking forward to purposefully surfing the internet to learn more in depth about the amazing ministries I heard about. The generosity of the Idea Camp at every level is really inspiring. Notice “is” is a present tense verb as I’m counting on more Idea Camps…I have plans to bring many folks with me next time.
And I was totally delighted (as a mild introvert) to invite Dawn Carter to dinner. Lucky me!
Hey Charles,
From my perspective, I thought the conference was an innovative and effective envisioning as to how future conferences for the current and coming generation of leaders should be formatted. Personally, it was the online/offline dynamic that made it more than just a weekend event, it became the introduction into a whole new network of practicioners and innovators that helped me to reframe what I do in my current ministry assignment. I’m still trying to gather my thoughts around what I heard and experienced in the very short time I was able to participate.
Thanks for your passion for creating learning communities for leaders.
peace,
ken
I must first say that i loved the idea of the idea camp and continue to be intrigued by a conference like this.
Likes:
-Loved that the conference was free and videos were online. My wife was able to watch the main sessions at home and chat with me about what we were taking in. I agree that the future of conferences could move this way and we would see some great opportunities.
-The conference felt relaxed which didn’t make me feel bad about skipping part of a session to record my thoughts or to just whip open my computer and get down notes and start planning ideas. The free price also helped in keeping my guilt levels down if i missed part of a session.
-Loved the interaction and sharing from lots of different people. Some we have heard of from their books, blogs, and christian celebrity status, and others we have not heard of but will be in future because of networking opportunities.
-The networking opportunities were not forced but felt fluid. That helped a ton. This is the first conference where i felt like i was helped more by those attending than those speaking.
-The length of time felt right for the sessions and the conference as a whole.
Could Improve:
-Some of the breakout sessions were led by people that talked to much and did not get opinions from those gathered. It felt like they were there to promote a book or their own ideas, which made it hard to listen to anything they had to say. I also agree that their were a lot of questions shared but not a lot of ideas.
-More opportunities to share our ideas and get help in making the next right step. Meeting with Charles for a few minutes to share my idea and get his feedback was huge in my development. Some more time like that for those in attendance would be helpful.
-Keeping the classes small is really helpful so that more conversation can happen and more voices get heard.
Overall, i loved my time with everyone and cant wait to see what is coming next and how i can be a part of making it successful. Thanks to all those who put in time organizing the check in table, running sound and video and lights, cleaning up, praying, etc… It was a well done conference.
Jon Hunnell
Portland, OR
Thanks everyone for your thoughtful responses. I really appreciate all of your feedback.
Dawn, thanks for affirming so many aspects of the conference I too love. 🙂 Limiting the workshops is always a challenge to conference prep. Part of it is that people like you and me want to hear everyone. I also like the emphasis on prayer you mentioned. If we do this again, it will definitely be an area to emphasize.
Ellen, thanks for your note! I like your thoughts about being more intentional about format with sensitivity to various kinds of learners and levels of expertise. Please stay connected with us…I think you would be a great person to speak into this if we do another one.
Lon, I appreciate your encouraging words! I’m so glad to hear from someone who primarily experienced it online. I would have liked to have been able to see the conversation in our live page. I just heard that people in there were really interactive.
DJ, you’re comments are really freeing. I loved how we put together something that wasn’t over packaged or produced. I think you hit something very insightful on the head. I look forward to forming something together again in the future. Also, thanks for posting thoughts about the Idea Camp at http://www.djchuang.com
Thanks Wayne for the encouraging note!
Hey Caleb…I love the idea of having more interaction online. I was already thinking of how we could possibly do that. Thanks for affirming the thought. Thankfully, we have some people who could actually pull this off 🙂
Thanks so much for your great insights Lynne. We will definite consider (as mentioned above) more intentionally focus on topics/themes. By the way, we are not “emergent”…I would definitely not consider us to be in any one particular camp of thought. We had people from a variety of backgrounds.
Ken, you’re the man!
Jon, it was good to meet you in person before the Idea Camp. I enjoyed our time together. One of the ways our team has thought about enhancing the conference was through creating the designation of an Idea consultant. This would be a person who would be available to meet with participants if they wanted advice. What do you think?
I appreciated the conference’s emphasis on Ministry-meets-Techology-meets-Social Justice–a unique convergence and timely event. An amazing gathering of some of the best thinkers and innovators in the county.
Loved the informal casual culture of the conference. Very much appreciate the women’s sessions (as both plenary and workshop)–thanks for being sensitive to this. Good dynamics and rich discussion during the break out sessions through the facilitation of collective conversation rather than talking heads. Loved the concept of conference attendance on-location and via the web. Awesome time of worship, and the conference overall held a good pace and rhythm (was not too packed or overly intense), and served as a great informal space for networking and connecting with friends new and old.
Logistical suggestions: Would suggest having maps of the break-out room locations, a list of places to eat, and a list of facilitator bios to go with the schedule of events. Water bottles and pens would be helpful if budget allows.
Thanks for all the work you did behind the scenes. What a great model for 21st century conferences.
all the best,
karen
First of all – thank you for making this happen! I heard of it the day before the camp from a friend and I was challenged and encouraged. I was not able to make the Sat. am sessions, but I could tell that people were worn out by the afternoon when I arrived and gone by the evening. Most people at this camp i’m sure needed to get ready for Sunday and so maybe the camp ends Sat. with a network Q&A lunch ($5 boxed lunches)??
Again – thank you so much and great job!
Jesse
Thanks Karen for your note! I’m glad you caught the ministry meets technology meets social justice focus. It was actually intentional 🙂
Also, we had difficulty with the site map because we could draw one up nor did they have one that was easy to read. Nevertheless, it would have been nice. Also, most of the other info you wanted was online. We also posted some of that info on doors. Sorry to hear that you didn’t see them. It sounds like we need to make it more visible.
Jesse, thanks also for the note. I think you have a good point there. Maybe we should have done something like Thursday evening to Sat lunch. Will keep that in mind. I’m so glad you enjoyed your time with us.
charles: kudos man. really. great job in many ways. infrastructure was there. but i also thought you were great up in the front.
couple thoughts:
1. thursday start and saturday post lunch end. really wished everyone stayed around for saturday pm – not for me but they really missed a treat w/ scott harrison.
2. having lunch boxes available for more networking.
3. i’m blown away at the number of folks that followed along online. that in itself is pretty revolutionary. accessible. free during and afterwards.
Thanks Eugene for the note. It was so good to have you there and actually meet you in person 🙂
I definitely echo your insights. The accessibility was a great unknown factor that proved to be very powerful. I also love the fact that our videos are accessible on vimeo.
Charles — I just wanted to echo those voices who have already expressed gratitude to you for your vision and leadership in bringing together The Idea Camp. As DJ said above, I think the intentional diversity from the main stage, the workshops and the overall conference was of great value. Tied in nicely with what Dave Gibbons said about creativity and leadership coming from the margins and from the intersections of traveling to places we’re not used to.
I loved the ethos of open-source collaboration and innovation. The energy there was markedly different from other conferences I’ve attended; this was more about participation than passive attendance. The Idea Competition (submitting ideas, voting via text, each finalist’s video) was brilliant — it was incredible to watch people rally around WikiChoice and offer their gifts & talents to bring a worthy idea to life.
For the future, I *love* the idea of Idea Consultants. I get the feeling those consultants will have completely jam-packed schedules should there be another Idea Camp (which I definitely hope there will be!). I think the Thursday PM to Saturday lunch (+ box lunches) is a great suggestion — people definitely missed out on both Scott and Eugene (although, understandable for those of us with lots of Sunday leadership responsibilities).
I’m still wrapping my head around much of my experience at The Idea Camp. Thanks again!
Thanks for your note Daniel! I was so glad you were able to make it out. Love your thoughts of affirmation about the power of collaboration. The scheduling of days seems to be important for people. Will consider…:)
I was one of those people who came with more questions than ideas lol. But I think the ability to network with so many people who are already implementing their ideas was of tremendous benefit to those I came with and me personally. I was really challenged to think about how to utilize technology in youth ministry more effectively in order to help youth feel more connected with our leadership and each other. Thankfully I was able to connect with Rich Kirkpatrick who was one of the leaders on the discussion about technology and ministry. I think a good point was brought up by Dawn Carter, introverts really have a difficult time trying to network with people. I think personally, maybe it’s my cultural background, it is difficult to go up to someone, who you are assuming is a idea-technology-social justice giant, and ask them to go to lunch with you. But maybe it’s just something a person has to work on. I don’t know if there are any ways to help those people out in the way the conference is structured???