High Ed Hangout Podcast HEH 14: The Conference on Conferences Conference (RIP SXSW)

HEH 14: The Conference on Conferences Conference (RIP SXSW)

This episode is all about conferences. How do we get funding? How often do we get to go? How do we select a conference? We also reminisce (again) about how great SXSW used to be.

  • Daniel at HighEdWeb in Memphis
  • Double-ken
  • What makes a good conference?
    • SXSW with a lot of variety and a great social aspect to meet others and network
    • UXDev Summit
  • How are conferences funded in our areas?
    • Iowa Libraries: a set budget that can be spent until it’s gone per person/year
    • UALR: provides training to support services with one conference per year. The budget isn’t ever clear.
    • Iowa Admissions: we have Admissions-specific conferences and maybe (based on funding) can go to a larger conference outside of higher ed.
    • GVSU: gets one conference per year
  • Many times the non-higher-ed conferences provide better information because they are working on a larger world scale, when we in higher-ed sometimes get lost in our higher-ed protected bubble.
  • What is the best (non) SXSW conference you’ve been to?
    • Smashing Conference – single-track conference with really great speakers
    • HighEdWeb recommends to not stick with a single track aligned with your job
    • SXSW has a voting system for picking their speakers. It just got too big for it’s pants! 2014, SXSW saw roughly 400,000 people attend official festival events!!!
  • HighEdWeb Upcoming Tracks (looking forward to)
    • Rest
    • Slack Workshop
    • Digital Signage
    • Web Components
    • Stop treating your website like it’s a project

Urban Dictionary Word of the Day: “Wake Me Up Inside” syndrome