The success of traditional conferences largely depends on the quality of the presentations: that’s not the case with the Techdirt Greenhouse. Techdirt’s secret sauce is to minimize “presentation” time, and get everyone involved in lively discussions/debates. Add to this an innovative scheme of randomly rotating participants through different groups, and you get 
maximum networking effect. A perfect mix for a great unconference.
But instead of me describing the “secret”, get it right from the source: Mike Masnick, Techdirt’s Founder & CEO was interviewed on CNET/News.com.
The crowd was a mix of startup-types, service providers to them (consultant, lawyer..etc), venture capitalists, media types…a good mix. For example at one of the breakout-groups tackling the issue of “What is the place for traditional media in an environment where the public is making their own entertainment” we mostly had entrepreneurs, but there were 2 participants representing “old media’, which provided a good balance.
The quality of the presentations or simply their relevance to the predefined, more generic question is always the unknown factor, and this event was no exception.
Jeff Nolan does a good job of explaining what went wrong with the first presentation. Before we knew what was going on, we were deep into looking at features, the presenter typing away live, when all she had was 5 minutes. I would have spent that 5 minutes describing the business, the problem I am solving – basically focus on the what and why, rather than the how.
I few other presenters insisted on using their Powerpoint slides, despite Techdirt’s explicit request not to. Mike, if you don’t mind me giving unsolicited advice, these are issues you can handle in advance: guide your speakers whether you expect a product demo or overall intro, and most importantly, stick to your own rule: No Powerpoint means exactly that, No Powerpoint. If someone cannot speak for 5 minutes without the slide, they are likely not the right presenters, so move on.
Initially I was baffled at some of the selected presenters/subjects, for example Alignent, a company developing a process management/control product around innovation at large corporations. Now, in my world, innovation and structure, process, control do not belong in one sentence. (see Jackie’s comments here). But it turned out to be a good choice, after all, the key tenet of the Greenhouse is that it’s not about the presentations: we spend most of our time on the breakout groups, and this presentation provoked quite a lively discussion.
I will write separately about some of the discussion topic I lead or participated in .
While on the subject of discussion I’d like to believe it’s not over .. in fact we just started something that will live on. The intensity level of the debates, the energy level in the rooms was fantastic, and we often felt we were just warming up by the time we had to wrap up… so why lose that energy? In fact why not widen the group of people and involve many others who could not make it California last Saturday? Everybody, please feel invited to participate: the Techdirt Greenhouse Wiki is open, waiting for you. There are two ways to contribute: adding comments to the relevant pages, which is like using a typical discussion forum, or clicking on “Edit” which allows you to modify the original entry. Yes, there are no controls – it’s an open social experiment. (Thanks to WetPaint, whose easy-to-use platform will launch in the very near future)
Summing it up: I enjoyed the the second Techdirt Greenhouse just as much as the first one: Mike, when is the third one?
Update (6/14): Special thanks to Sean Murphy, who keeps on updating the wiki with valuable information, and is doing a lot of mundane background work, to include all attendee’s URL’s, links to presenting companies sites, as well as related ones.
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Zoli, you write, “I would have spent that 5 minutes describing the business, the problem I am solving – basically focus on the what and why, rather than the how.”
This is excellent feedback. Before the next Greenhouse, please offer this advice to the people who are going to present there.