Idea 18: Organising a virtual (un)conference (2 mins)
Every day during September we will post up an idea for you to vote on. The most popular ideas will become the things that the inaugural Organizing Committee of the Critical Physiotherapy Network focuses on in 2015. So please make sure you cast your vote at the bottom of each post.
(Un)conferences are all the rage these days. With an (un)conference, instead of people meeting for formal presentations and hours of plenary sessions, the structure of the meeting is left open and it develops organically based on the participants' needs. (I confess that I do have a bit of a problem with the *un* prefix here since a conference was always meant to mean 'bring together,' and so does not presume a fixed agenda...anyway, enough of my pedantry!)
Virtual conferences are also becoming quite the thing. Web conferencing software is making it much easier for people to host discussion forums with groups anywhere around the world, and as bandwidth improves opportunities to host more and more people at the same time in real-time conversation are becoming a real possibility.
Within our group there are some clear 'special interest groups' of critical physiotherapists with a strong interest in different philosophical and theoretical positions, so if we could overcome some of the technical and personal challenges inherent in new the use of new technology, shouldn't we look to save people the time, money, effort and CO2 emissions of travelling half way around the world for a meeting whilst still bringing people together from around the globe to share and to inspire?
Post update: please note that voting closed on 7 October 2014 (results are available here), but please feel free to post your comments in the space below.