Talking social media at an unsocial event

Tonight's  meeting of the London Social Media Club, convened "to discuss the latest in tools, technologies and success stories" was a ... ***?!**

Whoa! Pause there.  The social reporter is meant to be collaborative and celebratory rather than critical, and I'm feeling a bit challenged on how to do that.
Start again.
The second Club meeting was hosted by PR company Fleishman Hillard London, and they did us proud in the board room with a table laden with beer, wine and nibbles.  Our hostess kicked off the conversations with some challenging questions about the role of blogs and other tools in the world of PR, and the 20 plus people there all had a chance to chip in their stories.
That's all true, but am I being honest? No. Here's another attempt.
Architecture is important in buildings, on the web, and at events. Board rooms, cafes and bars are designed for different purposes. Blog communities and web forums offer different types of conversations and relationships. Pre-programmed conferences, with slots for Powerpoint presentations, offer a very different experience from social conferences - or unconferences as some people call them.
Styles of hosting and/or facilitation are hugely important too, whether as dictator, conductor, or chameleon.
Among the most interesting facets of social media and things Web 2.0 are self-publishing through blogs, the development of self-organising networks through feeds and links, together with a willingness to be open and informal. You can choose who you talk to, how you do that - text, audio, video - and what relationships you foster. It's a very bottom-up sort of online club in which the participants evolve the rules and set the agenda ... leading to a participation culture.
For those reasons I had high hopes of the Social Media Club as a place to chat face-to-face with other people on topics of our choosing ... with an architecture of flexible space, and light-touch hosting. Maybe a mini version of the open space conferences I've been involved in with Policy Unplugged.
It wasn't like that. We had a board room with seats tightly arranged around the table, and facilitation as gentle inquisition. Our hostess asked questions and we responded. OK, it was all pretty informal, but we had one conversation at a time instead of maybe half a dozen in parallel. The initial introductions round the table gave me three or four people I would have loved to talk to ... but there was no way I could get to them.
I tried asking why we were talking about Web 2.0 using an Event 0 format, and got the offer of another drink. I clearly didn't explain myself well ... which is why I'm blogging it here. Maybe everyone else was happy? No - several others left for the pub after an hour. Maybe it all changed before the end? If so, I'm glad, and hope to read about it.
However, if future meetings are going to be run the same way, I suggest calling them round tables or something similar. Alternatively try something like the excellent Gurteen Knowledge Cafes.
Of course, it could be me - and Groucho Marx.  I shouldn't try and join any club that would have someone like me for a member.
Tomorrow I'm conference videoblogger at e-Democracy '06 with my son Dan, and on best behaviour.
Update: the more clubable social reporter Lloyd Davis comments below that it did all get more social a bit later ... so I hope Jackie won't take my comments to hard. I just couldn't resist the analogies.

Comments

[Lloyd Davis]

We broke just before 8pm into a more social form, but several people left at that point completely too, I didn't stay much longer.

As a veteran party-within-a-party activist I favoured changing the system from within and spoke to Jackie who seemed quite open to other formats in future & promised to put me in touch with Chris (Heuer, I presume) - I don't see conspiracy or cock-up here, just a format designed for a different sort of people that turned up. I can understand your (and others) annoyance at what seems like an obvious mistake but I think the key is to roll with it and make it work next time.

Looking forward to seeing the e-democracy stuff! :-)

[Chris Heuer]

Sorry you did not get what you expected - we have been hosting these as round tables and discussing them as the same. The unconference experience is one format we hahave been facilitating for more than a year, but not anything we have done at a relatively short evening event such as these hosted discussions. Interesting thought though - unfortunately in my experience, hosting ongoing open space events generally leads to the same people talking about (or rather promoting) the same ideas each successive gathering.

One of the guiding principles we are embracing is to find the balance between lightly structured and ad-hoc formats. In my experience, round tables have been generally good for getting things started (particularly with a variety of people and their often vastly different expectations).

At the first round table we hosted back in September in London (same location, different room) this went very well, but only a few people joined us out for drinks. I guess my favorite Howard Rheingold saying is more true than ever these days - "What it is --? is up to us."

Any other suggestions are welcome - as well as other venues and other topics. The point is to figure it out together, so I hope I read correctly your willingness to participate in that conversation constructively so we can all be the better for it.

Thanks for the comments and the rather immediate feedback - I am looking forward to hearing about what happened in Phoenix, Arizona tonight...

[Chris Heuer]

PS - there wasn't any powerpoints or podiums was there? Hopefully next time, more people will see the primary post about the event and contribute more of what they would like to see in advance of the gathering as we requested http://www.socialmediaclub.org/2006/10/31/social-media-club-london-meeting-2/

Of course, I realize now that the Wordpress theme I chose for our Blog merely 'looked' cool and in fact is not very practical for our purposes - this is one thing I hope to be fixed soon once we gather some funds and get more help with resolving the problem with my inability to clone myself (our president doesn't care for such science, though thankfully our governator in California does)

To Lloyd's point (thanks for making it), this was no cock up or conspiracy at all, merely trying to do something that works for everyone without knowing who 'everyone' is...

[davidwilcox]

Lloyd - thanks for the update, and Chris - thanks for the good humoured response and explanation. On reflection perhaps I was being over-sensitive to the environment ... or expecting my preference to be other people's. However, what would help in my view - and reflecting some of your points is: clearer statement of format and purpose beforehand; an invitation at the event as well as online for people to put their own issues for discussion; and more opportunity for networking; different venue if similar numbers are expected.
Small room, plenty of interest ... that's easy to deal with! I'll look out for the next event, and the chance to make a more positive contribution. Thanks to all concerned for the opportunity.

[Jackie Danicki]

Just wanted to point out (as I should have made more clear last night) that I'm not employed by Fleishman Hillard - I was just hosting as a favour to my good friends Chris and Kristie, who founded the SMC. There is definitely much to be said for expectation management, but the unstructured (read: drink and talk) portion of the evening lasted a good deal longer than the roundtable. It was very good of Fleishman to let us all linger in their office as long as we wanted, and to donate the space and refreshments for this free event.

[David Wilcox]

Thanks Jackie, and apologies for any confusion in my post.