Defrag Blog

Sometimes vacations afford you the opportunity to turn the prism of work on its side and look at things differently.

On our recent jaunt to Vegas, we had the good fortune of seeing Cirque du Soleil’s production, KA. If you’ve ever seen Cirque du Soleil do *anything* you know how amazing they are, but KA blew away anything I was expecting. They spent 2 years and 10 million dollars simply constructing the *stage* (which was capable of going up 90ft in the air and rotating 360 degrees). Watching this commercial won’t even come close to doing this show justice (it is worth flying to Vegas simply to see this; yes, it is *that* good).

That experience got me thinking about the boundaries within which we normally constrain “tech conferences.” Tech conferences really don’t stretch themselves at all. I mean, there’s an incredible *consistency* of format and feel (form and function): Put some speakers on stage, have some sponsors, pick a topic. In fact, *most* conference producers assume that the excitement comes from picking a topic that is relevant to the audience — although attending ANY show on “SOA” in the last three years would certainly tell you otherwise. At the end of the day, there’s really very little thought given to content. And there’s even less thought given to content in the context of *narrative.*

Cirque du Soleil creates an *experience*. They take great care in crafting the details of that experience and they are experts in understanding that experience is, well, experiential. All of that experiential stuff drives toward a central narrative — a story line that unfolds, draws you in, makes you care and excites you.

What would a tech conference look like if we approached it like Cirque du Soleil approaches a production? Can you imagine a tech conference that spent 2 years building the arena in which it would all take place?

Or, more simply, can you imagine a tech conference that spent time on “the narrative” — building a story arc that unfolded as you went through the show? So, that it wasn’t all simply “powerpoints and Q&A.” This is, of course, part of what’s driving the current “unconference” movement — and there’s power in communal narrative, but there’s also something about a well-crafted story that is told *to* you.

As I think about all of the above and Defrag, I’m a little overwhelmed by trying to reconcile what my brain can imagine and what reality can handle. It makes me want to start with the narrative. What is Defrag’s story arc? How does that unfold throughout the show? Have I paid enough attention to what we’re all there trying to discover?

These are the questions that I’ll be blogging through in the coming week. I’m back.