A Successful Experiment(实验成功)
Sarah Milstein
2008/04/23
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During Web2Open yesterday, we ran an experiment that turned out to be a big success. Because it felt like a model that could be extended and used by others--but it hasn't been blogged about widely--I'll explain here what we did. We started with the idea that we wanted to hold a conference speed-dating event. But we didn't have a natural set of pairs who'd want to meet, like VCs and entrepreneurs, or writers and agents. What we did have were a number of well-known experts and a bunch of thoughtful attendees. So we ran small speed Q&As with the experts: we set up five tables, one each for programmers, designers/UI specialists, marketing/community experts, businesspeople and undeclared, and then we had five experts--Clay Shirky, Kara Swisher, Matt Cutts, Saar Gur and Tim O'Reilly--each hold a nine-minute informal Q&A at a table. Every nine minutes, the experts switched tables until they'd hit them all. The whole thing took 50 minutes, plus lots of lingering afterward. It had great energy, and people were smiling the entire time. Why'd it work? It was intimate (about a dozen people gathered at each table), engaged and informal. All which provided a nice contrast to the general conference. And it required no prep on the part of the experts (except their life work, of course): they just showed up and chatted. What would we do differently next time? At least two things. 1) We didn't have a bell to signal the 8-minute mark or that it was time to switch tables--so we shouted. That was too much like we were yelling at people. 2) Afterward, Tim said, "That was great, but I wish I'd had time to ask the participants questions." Good point. It would be cool to increase the time per table to at least fifteen minutes and let the experts do some asking--or possibly make it all questions from the experts. (Update: Clay adds two more good suggestions: Make it an hour, with four 12-min sessions, and spend 12 minutes at the beginning introducing the speakers, to give them time and context for the initial questions.) How would you adapt and use speed Q&A? |
昨天Web2Open上我们做了个实验结果大获成功。这应该是一个可以扩展被更多人使用的模式——但却还没有广为人知——所以我在这里介绍一下： 最初我们有想法在会上搞一个速配活动。但是我们并没有一组自然的希望会面的人，比如风险投资商和企业家，或者作家和经纪人。我们有的是一组知名专家和一些有想法的与会者。所以我们举行了小型的专家快速问答：设五张桌子，分别分配给程序员、设计人员/UI专家、市场/社区专家、商业人士和未分类人士。然后有五位专家——Clay Shirky、Kara Swisher、Matt Cutts、Saar Gur和Tim O'Reilly——每人在一张桌子进行九分钟的非正式问答，然后换到下一桌，直至结束。整个活动进行了50分钟，后来结束不了又延长时间。很活跃每个人自始至终都带着微笑。 为什么这个做法可行？零距离（12个人一张桌子），参与性强，方式活泼。这些都与那种正式会议相反。而且专家们不作准备（当然只有每天的日常工作）：他们展示真正自我和聊天。 下一次我们会做什么改进？至少有两件事：1)没有准备一个铃铛来告知大家已经8分钟了该换桌子了——没办法我们只好喊。看上去我们在跟大家嚷嚷。2)Tim说：“很好，但是我希望我能有时间向参加者也问些问题。”好主意。每张桌子增加到至少15分钟让专家有时间问些问题会非常好——或者可能的话全部让专家提问。（更新：Clay增加了两点好建议：扩展到一个小时，分成四个12分钟的小节，还可以在开始时用12分钟介绍发言者，给大家时间和背景信息来发起提问。） 你会怎样采取和使用这种快速问答的方式？ |
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