I had a general session speaker back out for a conference later this year, and have spent the last few weeks trying to figure out how I am going to fill it. Inspired by the Technology Conference, I'm considering having the attendees create the session themselves.
I am thinking about starting a wiki that would ask members and attendees to contribute their best ideas on the conference topic. Visitors to the site would rate them, and those that are rated highest would be asked to present during this general session.
The risks in doing this are: a) no one will participate in the wiki; b) no one will vote on the ideas; c) attendees won't know which ideas are going to get presented at the session, and won't stick around for it; d) there is no precedent for this in our association and it will take a lot of time to get this off the ground - more than I have; e) this will be wildly successful and we won't have created the proper infrastructure to support it.
Fortunately, of all of our conferences, I think this one has the audience that would most likely participate in this exercise. And, I have more flexibility in designing this conference than other programs. I just have to figure out how to make this work, and how to sell the idea.
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This sounds a lot like a type of conference we covered in a recent issue of Associations Now. I don't know if you still have that issue, but the article is available online if you'd be interested in checking it out--"The Ultimate Roundtable."
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