In brief
An unconference is to a conference what a seminar is to a lecture, what a party at your house is to a church wedding, what a pick-up game of Ultimate Frisbee is to an NBA game, what a jam band is to a symphony orchestra: it’s more informal and more participatory. To get the most out of THATCamp, have fun, be productive, and stay collegial. Don’t bring a presentation (unless you’re teaching a workshop). Propose a session and take charge of running it. Talk, make, teach, play. Listen. Help take notes. Sign up for Dork Shorts. If a session isn’t useful for you, go to another one (that’s the Law of Two Feet). Bring a laptop, not a tablet. Dress comfortably. Consider volunteering to teach something. Keep a record of the experience. Don’t forget to fill out an evaluation.
Further resources
- Unconference 101: A Quick Guide to Transparency Camp and Beyond by Laurenellen McCann
- How to Prepare to Attend an Unconference by Kaliya Hamlin from Unconference.net
- Unconference – Wikipedia
THATCamp Ground Rules (4:50)
A video we didn’t make (2:50)
Here’s a great video about unconferencing at Transparency Camp: just about everything in it applies to THATCamp as well.
Anne Collins Goodyear (Co-director, Bowdoin Art Museum) is former curator at the Smithsonian's American Art Museum. As president of the College Art Association she presided over its first THATCamp in 2013.
Ari Epstein (Terrascope, Civil and Environmental Engineering, MIT) devises innovative settings for project-based, team-oriented education, from youth radio to exhibition design.
Nicole Starosielski (Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU) focuses on the global distribution of digital media, most recently on how transoceanic cables from telegraph to Internet have affected the geopolitics of islands and coasts. Her new media project Surfacing inspired the conference's title.
Andrew Stauffer (Department of English, University of Virginia) is renowned as a digital historian of 19th-century literature and for his leadership of NINES (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship).
