I personally met quite a few new people, but I did so at the Hackathon (where no one I knew was there) and at random (i.e. the non-event/invite) dinners. During the conference proper, when I didn't have something I really wanted to see, I followed a pre-conference friend to what they were seeing.
Also, yes we need to do the "Ask me about..." thing. I saw a lot of custom messages written on people's badges, and those were more effective conversation starters than just project listings alone.
Sven
On Jul 19, 2012, at 12:25 PM, Andrew Lih andrew@andrewlih.com wrote:
Make sure to put everything here:
https://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/Feedback
I'll remind the HK folks about it too, as I love the idea of more "wiki-like" mixing methods.
-Andrew
On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 9:05 AM, Joseph Fox josephfoxwiki@gmail.com wrote: I do hope the HK guys are reading ;)
Joe
On 19 Jul 2012, at 23:59, Thomas Dalton wrote:
On 19 July 2012 05:57, Florence Devouard anthere@anthere.org wrote:
The first is that I see a trend in seeing Wikimania as a "conference" rather than a sort of "giant meetup". I regret it. I was particularly sensible this year to the fact we had "factions". I could see the French speaking guys hanging together here. And the German chapter people hanging there. And in another corner the editing community of the English Wikipedia. And over there, the Glam people. And though there were naturally bridges between those groups, there was not much mixing and bonding.
I certainly found myself talking to people from the UK far too much. I did make a point of leaving the UK group to go and speak to other people a few times, but there is a strong tendency to drift back to the people you know. I think it becomes more of a problem the larger Wikimania gets.
Having been to quite a few international Wikimedia events, I know a lot of non-UK people too, which helps. People at their first international Wikimedia event must find it even harder. There difficult part is always initialising conversation with someone new (we're all Wikimedians, so finding something in common to discuss once you've started talking is usually pretty easy). I have two ideas for helping people initiate conversation:
- A speed-dating style event near the beginning of the conference.
Make sure it is the only thing happening at that time to maximise participation. You won't be able to get everyone to talk to everyone else within a reasonable amount of time (1000 people, 30 seconds each, that's over 8 hours!) but you could speak to a large enough proportion of attendees for there to be someone you've met in most groups so that you can easily join the group.
- "Talk to me about..." lists on badges. Knowing that someone is
interested in a particular thing can give you an excuse to talk to them.
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