MinneBar and the Organization of Conventions

I would love to attend MinneBar but sadly I've had a conflict both this year and last year. But one of the things that interests me is that at least for me, the nature of how we try to do programming at the science fiction convention CONvergence is not that far off of the BarCamp philosophy.

Obviously, unlike a BarCamp there is a membership fee for CONvergence -- and if you haven't registered, now is the time to do so -- but that's because we aren't sponsored by organizations and companies in the same way either. We're renting the space, buying the food, flying in and putting up the guests of honor. We're also fund-raising for our non profit -- sending authors and scientists to schools, supporting our community in both the narrow and larger sense.

An event like a BarCamp is mainly scheduled collaboratively online by the participants -- it's user-driven and built by the people attending it. That's different from some other conferences where the event may be packaged by some corporate sponsor and you have people in the audience and the people on stage.

And as I look at this, I see that we have a similar sort of programming philosophy at CONvergence in a lot of ways, and did before the BarCamp phenomena really started -- we certainly encourage our membership to present and participate in programming. It's not identical -- we have a little bit more centralization and formal scheduling -- but I certainly find this sort of method a good way to do it for the more informal type of events like this.

Even as we bring in outside professionals and expect our programming to be organized ahead of the event -- so we can make it accessible and organized -- we certainly try to have it so our program in proposed and filled out by people that volunteer for events.

This is certainly a bit different from how some other sf events might do it -- while we do dig up panelists, and invite people to sit particular events -- the expectation is that most of the event is participant-driven.

One of the complaints I hear from time to time is that "CONvergence doesn't have moderators" -- and certainly I don't think the programming department should always be dictating who the moderators actually are -- but I would certainly encourage any panel to have a moderator. But that's really something that can be decided on a panel-by-panel level, and shouldn't (and with several hundred panels, realistically can't) be addressed by a programming head in many cases. That's the sort of thing that can --and to some extent, really should -- really be driven by the participants.

I suppose there is always some degree of overlap between technology and SF Conventions -- but I think sometimes it's not even as overt as Penguincon does it...

CONvergence Programming - Grid Lock!

I may not be the programming head -- but the programming head will be reporting to me starting next year as part of the events division, and as I'd previously been a head, it's important for me to promote the schedule.

The schedule has started to solidify now, and to quote the current programming head:

And please, please, please - if you are attending the convention and see some panels you would like to be on - follow the email instructions at the top of the webpage and let me know. Usually we have a limit of six people per panel, so if you see a panel that already has six people on it, then it's full - pick some that have 0-4 people instead, you can really help the programming dept. out!

Likewise, some panels are just for guests of honor or are gameshow style panels that have certain panelists who are running the event (again, should be pretty clear which these are from the panel description).

We recommend a limit of eight panels per person to avoid burnout (but if you can handle more and I have personal knowledge of that - then we can make exceptions).

So, if you are attending the con, please sign up for some (more) panels and pass the message along!

It's going to be an exciting year -- and I'm really excited to see the schedule come together.

CONvergence: Best of the Twin Cities

I'm astonished that CONvergence was chosen by City Pages as Best of the Twin Cities. Not because we were picked -- but that the category was even created this year.

It is a great compliment to the hundreds of people that have been involved in putting the event on, especially since the publicity was not searched for.

True, they had a typo and changed Marv Wolfman's gender (to Mary) -- but otherwise it was a very nice description and something I'm happy to point to.

CONvergence Call For Panelists

I'm no longer CONvergence programming head - and they won't formally report to me until 2009 when I take over as Events Director, but this year's list of CONvergence Panels is now available. With the larger scope of this year's convention it's especially a good chance for people to sign up and participate in panels -- the one thing about a convention like CONvergence is that in order for a programming item to happen we need participation.

There are a lot of excellent ideas out there this year -- I certainly encourage checking it out and emailing programming for panels that you want to participate in.

The Geek Vote

I can't believe for a second that it would actually happen, but I'd be very amused if Barack Obama made an appearance at the San Diego Comics Convention.

One of my strangest memories mixing politics and fandom was meeting Senator Paul Wellstone in the hallways of the Sheraton after a CONvergence planning meeting. We gave him a brief description of what we were doing -- though I regret not going into the non-profit side of MISFITS a bit more.

While I look at the convention and fandom as a whole as being a bit of fun and a recreational activity, I also think it's a good way for us to do good as well. And one thing I've also realized is that some of the skills that you get out of this sort of organization running transfer over into other realms as well.

On Day Passes for SF Conventions

As I'll probably be getting day passes for Marscon - provided I get over this virus I've been fighting for the last couple of days -- I thought it was interesting to think about the reasons to have or not have day passes for your science fiction convention.

Day Passes make sense for some conventions and don't make sense for others. I think you lose some of the community aspect of a convention if you have people drop in for only one day. One of the appealing parts of a convention is that community aspect -- and day passes are more appropriate for the "show" events where people get tickets to see a celebrity, as opposed to the user-generated content of my favorite fan run conventions and the attendees are members and active participants.

I'd generally be against day passes for a convention like CONvergence -- if you have a large enough attendance that you don't need the additional people to make your budget, or if you were in a position where you need to cap membership (like Anime Detour) -- Day Passes make much less sense.

I can see where Day Passes would be useful for other conventions -- especially if you're looking to get as many people as possible. I can see it as being sensible if you've got certain sorts of entertainment guests -- this is why I think it makes more sense for Marscon, because they tend to have more celebrity actors, and their Dementia music track has a "show" quality that may have an appeal for day people.

The interesting thing is that Day Passes aren't really just an economic decision -- but one that can end up reflecting the kind of convention that you put on.

CONvergence/MISFITS Future

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I was a candidate for the CONvergence Events Division Coordinator position, and I got the most votes, so I'll be running the events division for the 2009 and 2010 CONvergence. (I just realized that was 2010. Can I be scared now?)

It's a bit daunting looking at the nine ring circus an event with 3000 science fiction and fantasy fans can be But it'll be an exciting challenge -- and I hope you check it out, and if you're willing to help -- I'm sure we'll need it.

CONvergence Coordinator Elections

I haven't mentioned this here yet, but as the blurbs were posted on the MISFITS website it's time to mention that I'm a candidate for the CONvergence events coordinator position, which Tim Wick has held for a decade. My official "statement" is after that link.

I've thought about how the organization transitions its leadership for a number of years -- and it has been an incredible ten year run with the same people in the key positions.

It is an immense responsibility to look at running an event with the nearly 3000 people that CONvergence attracts, and the many people that help run the event and organization -- especially as I try to figure out the right way to "campaign", and how we make the organization and convention continue and improve for another decade and beyond.

Fandom's OS Distribution

One of the more interesting questions came up as part of last weekend's CONvergence committee meeting. As I mentioned as I started to look at building a SF Convention IT Infrastructure, one of the biggest challenges in working with a non-profit volunteer organization like a science fiction convention is that you have a variety of different operating systems amongst the people working on it, and unlike a business environment, there's very little centralized control over what sorts of systems that people have.

I was interested in seeing that about 25 percent of the people attending the committee meeting were Macintosh users, with the rest being Windows users. I was surprised that there were only 1 or 2 people that were primarily Linux users; I would have expected to see that higher than average.

My biggest take away is how much you'd like to build systems that can handle multiple OSes -- a department like programming should ideally work where the heads don't need to be running a particular operating system in order to handle the data needs of their department.

I'm curious how our percentages compare to other convention committees, both locally and around the country -- that's a higher percentage of Mac users than generally reported on in the general population, but that is really difficult to be sure about.

Building a SF Convention IT Infrastructure

I've worked on CONvergence for nearly a decade now, and one of the things that I'm now looking at is the information technology needs for a science fiction convention (and also for the related nonprofit)

Unsurprisingly, the SF community is filled with IT professionals -- it is perhaps the most common job category. But then you also have a wide variety of skill sets -- people that are partisans about one sort of technology or another.

You have several departments in a typical convention that might have a need for some sort of data storage need -- convention and organization membership is the first, but then you also have your programming and other event schedules, your art show, and your dealers' room.

You have two environments as well -- you have the environment of 360 or so days a year, where the convention staff is geographically diverse, and unlike a business environment, there's no way to really dictate what sort of operating system people may use. The other 3 or 4 days you are all at the same location -- but it's an environment that you set up there, and in some situations may have need to get at that data at all hours.

One of the other challenges is that your available pool of skills is limited to what you can have for free -- but that means that you don't really want to make something that requires very specialized skills. You need something that just about anyone with IT skills can pick up.

Technology really helps the modern convention -- I can't imagine how this would have been done in the era before e-mail. But many of the pieces in place right now are frequently of the personal computer era; using Microsoft Office applications like Excel and Access. To go buzzword happy -- and as such I deserve serious abuse -- what is the Web 2.0 convention IT architecture for a Science Fiction convention?

Right now I mainly have questions, and don't yet have answers.

Physics of Superheroes

Several videos of Dr Jim Kakalios giving his CONvergence talk about the Physics of Superheroes have shown up on YouTube.

1. The Death of Gwen Stacy
2. Electro
   
3. Superhero Physics Bloopers
4. The Atom

(of course, it already got a Boing Boing plug by ubergeek Cory Doctorow -- so you should already know about it..)

Ain't It Cool at the Monster House

Thanks to Ain't It Cool News CONvergence members have a chance to see Monster House early. Pretty cool.

CONvergence Panels

Another reminder that I'm hunting for participants for CONvergence Panels this year.

Sign up! Send me e-mail...

The Physics of Superheroes

SFX reviews The Physics of Superheroes, a book by CONvergence regular (and former guest of honor) Dr. James Kakalios.

So the book is getting over to the UK!

CONvergence 2006 Panels

I've got our list of CONvergence Panels posted. Right now we're collecting panelists and starting to schedule panels. So if you're interested in something, now is the time...

She's Such a Geek

Following this post on Boing Boing I followed it to this Call for subs: She's Such a Geek. One of the things that has interested me is that our little corner of geekdom at CONvergence has managed to do a fairly decent job in having both male and female involvement.

But I've also seen (and to be honest, have been a part of) geek groups that haven't been particularly good at adapting to women being involved at all as well, and I'm not even sure it's a conscious decision on anyone's part either.

It'll be interesting to see some of the essays...especially as I'm always intrigued by the different cross-sections from both the IT career perspective as well as the hobby-and-cultural perspective.

Interest in physics growing by quantum leaps and bounds

CONvergence 2005 Guest of Honor Dr. Jim Kakalios had an article written up about him in the Star Tribune about his book The Physics of Superheroes, which I definitely recommend

Female vs Male Sci Fi Fans

It's been slashdotted, so you're probably already aware of this, but apparently in the UK a recent study says that there are more female fans than male fans of tv science fiction.

Actually, that's not as terribly surprising as it sounds -- CONvergence is very gender balanced locally, and while some pockets of fandom are more male dominated than others (local Doctor Who fandom is currently predominately male, for example), over all, it's pretty well mixed.

CONvergence Programming 2006

The CONvergence programming brainstorming meeting -- and our main programming kick off meeting -- will be Saturday, November 19th 2005 at 2:00 PM at the Sheraton Bloomington Hotel. It'll probably be on the 22nd floor, but it should be posted at the hotel.

This meeting is open to anyone interested in suggesting ideas for CONvergence for 2006. It's our most important meeting for the year as far as programming at the convention goes.

CONvergence 2006 will take place July 7-9,2006 at the Sheraton Bloomington Hotel.

For more information, contact programming@convergence-con.org. Also, if you are unable to attend and have ideas, or would like to help with programming for 2005, please e-mail at that address.

Michael Sheard Tributes

Dork Tower's John Kovalic has some nice pictures and memories of Michael Sheard. (they both attended CONvergence as guests in 2003.)

Michael Sheard

Michael Sheard, who appeared in several of the best Doctor Who stories, including Pyramids of Mars and Remembrance of the Daleks, and was memorable as Admiral Ozzel in the best Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back, passed away recently.

But he was also a really friendly, full of life individual. He had been a guest of honor at CONvergence twice, and he endeared himself to our entire community, and I know from many of the other tributes I've seen that he'd done the same sort of thing all over, and he'll definitely be missed.

Good CONvergence comments

I was thrilled to read Marv Wolfman's comments about CONvergence -- since most of us who started to read comics in the late 1970s or early 1980s were reading comics written by Marv, it's especially nice to have them say nice things about the event you worked on...

A Certain Age

One of the reasons why I was excited by having Marv Wolfman and Len Wein at CONvergence this July is that for those of us who really first came to comics between, say, 1975 and 1985, the odds are really, really high that the first superhero comic you got, whether it was for DC or Marvel, was either written by or edited by one or the other of them.

I knew that Marv Wolfman was writing for Fantastic Four around issue 200, when I first started to read the comic regularly, but when I picked up Fantastic Four Visionaries: George Perez, Vol. 1 today, I discovered that Len Wein was writing for it before that, with some of the earliest comics that I ever got, when they would be packaged up in random groups of three, where you'd see what two of the issues were, but the third would be a surprise.

Hi,

We're rapidly closing in on our publication deadlines for this summer's CONvergence.

We're still looking for participants as we put things together. Our list is at here, and if you see something that interests you, please e-mail programming@convergence-con.org as soon as possible so we can get it ready.

Thanks!

CONvergence Panels

It's mid-march, and that means we're about three months out from CONvergence, the largest Science Fiction and Fantasy convention in Minnesota. One of the things that we have, like many fan-run conventions, are a variety of panels and discussion sessions about a variety of different topics relating to science fiction and fantasy. We like to have a variety of different participants, both professional and enthusiast; and if you're interested, please check out the list and drop us an e-mail.

Planning ahead

The next two months are big for our planning for the panels at CONvergence, the largest annual gathering of science fiction and fantasy fans in Minnesota. Right now we're updating the descriptions and starting to update panelists; and both of those are things that I try to get feedback from as many different individuals as possible.

If you see an item that you'd like to help improve, or a panel you'd like to sit, or anything, send us a message. I like to keep our process as open as possible.

Free Enterprise,Special Edition

Former CONvergence guest of honor Robert Meyer Burnett has an interview talking about a new special edition DVD of one of my favorite films, Free Enterprise.

One of these days, I'd love to see an american sit-com that would be like Free Enterprise, Spaced, or Clerks. If I worked for the Sci-Fi Channel, I'd be working real hard to develop a series like that, instead of some half-baked reality series.

You can now register for CONvergence online.

The CONvergence Programming Brainstorming Session is going to be
November 20th at the Sheraton Bloomington, at 2:00 PM.

The brainstorming session is really the most important meeting of
the year for us. It's where we get much of our ideas.

CONvergence! is less than two weeks away!

I'm co-running programming at CONvergence again this year, and I have put up our ideas for panels. We're now really starting to search for panelists, so contact us at programming@convergence-con.org if you are interested in sitting a panel. (Even if you've never been on one before!)

As a disclaimer, note that this is a Very Tentative list -- we're going to be cutting a bunch of the panel ideas that we don't have space for, and panelists will change several times as well.

City Pages: Geek Chic
The City Pages CONvergence article. There are a couple things I'm not thrilled about in the article, but all and all, it's a pretty positive review.
.

Harmonic CONvergence
Robert Meyer Burnett's article about CONvergence.

Rob's Retinal Fetish is super-cool CONvergence guest Robert Meyer Burnett's column. He was great to talk to...

Some CONvergence 2002 pictures are already up, and it isn't over yet!

Find out what CONvergence 2002 guest of honorRobert Meyer Burnett is up to. And why it's going to be so very, very cool.

CONvergence Panel Grid is now up. It's still way, way early, so everything is going to change, but it's up there!

We're still revising the list of CONvergence Panels on a fairly regular basis. The next month or two will be especially busy as far as scheduling items and finding participants, so if you're going, and want to do something, let me know...

One thing I've done since I started work on CONvergence's programming is to see what other conventions do, even if I'm not going to the convention. It's Arisia in Boston this weekend, so here is their Programming schedule.

(Also, if you are reading this and are interested in CONvergence's programming, and would like to volunteer for panels or advise on what we have up, send me e-mail.)

[Science fiction conventions I am likely to go to this year include Supercon, Gallifrey One, Marscon, Minicon, CONvergence, Diversicon, Chicago TARDIS, and perhaps one other...]

A little note -- the open meeting for brainstorming about CONvergence 2002 programming will be at the Radisson South, on November 10th, starting at 2:00. It's intended to generate ideas, so is open to anyone who has some for next year's convention. (It'll get on the CONvergence website sooner or later, I hope, but I thought I'd mention it here...)

A really nice CONvergence 2001 write up, with some pictures (including me) too.

More CONvergence 2001 pictures have been found....

more CONvergence 2001 pictures

Someone else's Convergence 2001 pictures.... The three pictures that start from here feature me during the opening ceremonies Douglas Adams tribute. (a 42 towel salute)

I just put up some CONvergence 2001 Pictures

Well, CONvergence day -1 is over. (Like the Common Era, there is no CONvergence day 0; though I suppose the Thursday before a con really does qualify. It certainly will when it's next year, and the thursday before is the 4th of July.)

Today was a lot of driving around friends, picking up some at the airport, and going around shopping at various book, comic book, music, and video stores. I picked up Ultraviolet, as I just loved it when I saw it on the Sci-fi channel last year. Then it was check some friends into the hotel, hang out at the hotel for a while and go home. Things are really coming together -- I love going to a convention on a Thursday night, as you see the con slowly come together; it's not yet crazy like it will be this time tomorrow.

Well, I want to charge up my sleeping batteries, as I imagine I won't get much for the rest of the weekend....

CONvergence is on my mind, of course. It's this weekend. Since I put the schedule on line, it's even more so, as I've looked over the programming items quite a bit over the last couple of weeks.

I've been going to Science Fiction conventions for fifteen years now, my first was TARDIScon 1986 in St Louis, a three day Doctor Who convention; where I was moved by what weekend long conventions were all about. It got me into some trouble as I got more and more involved in local Doctor Who fandom, which was peaking at the time, and we were at the center of it. And various Minicons through the years; and while I was never involved with it, it provided my connection to any sort of fandom through much of my college years. It was the Minicon in 1997 where I realized that I really wanted to move back here, it was home. And while I was a little stunned the following year to discover that my home wasn't really Minicon, it turns out that I wasn't the only one, and CONvergence was welcoming us home.

At the time, I think there was every reason to believe that things would go horribly wrong. Lots of divisions that exist in local SF fandom were revealed -- there are generational issues and cultural issues involved; silly non-words like "sci-fi" and "fen" became fighting terms. And while Minicon has radically shrunk in size, the people who wanted it that way got what they wanted, and perhaps next year it'll be something that will appeal to me more. Especially since I know more people from minn-stf now then I did before this years Minicon. Though it took 15 years in fandom to actually have a conversation with an active and identified minn-stfer Hmm.

But enough of that. I think things are better than ever in fandom, at least for me -- I went to a Minn-stf meeting last weekend, as it was pretty much in my neighborhood and I was free, two things that don't happen very often, and had a real good time. It was a bit odd; as one thing they don't tell you is that people show up a whole lot later than the posted start time. I picked up some information and registered for Diversicon, so CONvergence won't be the end of my convention calendar for the year. But the meeting was a good warm up for the convention, I think...

And just when I think it can't get any better, MISFITS goes ahead and gets the original Superman back on the big screen for a week in August.

And I might go down to Chicago for Chicago TARDIS, if a critical mass of my friends go.

As I go through the CONvergence week, I'll keep this all going with "My CONvergence", in the tradition of my Minicon and Marscon reports. Though it may be a while before I get to it, as there is more going on for me as far as this one goes...

Shh. I've been playing around learning php, and I came up with a little web app based around the CONvergence Panels that lets you check the panels that you are interested in, and then it displays a report of only the panels you selected. I might enhance it further....

It's also CONvergence 2001 Guest of Honor Peter Mayhew's birthday as well. :)