Lightning Talks at NICAR
February 18th, 2010 | Published in IRE | 2 Comments
This year’s computer-assisted reporting conference in Phoenix has a couple of new sessions on the schedule. One of them is an idea a couple of us have been pushing for a few years: lightning talks.
A staple of technical conferences, lightning talks are based on the notion that while 45-50 minutes presentations are good, sometimes you only need about 5 minutes to express an idea or show off an example of something interesting or useful. And I’m pretty sure, based on sessions at the hotel bar at past conferences, that there are plenty of ideas out there. Attracting and organizing them is the goal of this app built by my boss, Aron Pilhofer, and launched today.
This is a new thing for the CAR community, but I think it could be a useful way to draw out ideas from people who aren’t doing panels or who might shrink from a 50-minute session. So let’s get started. Want to give a talk?
February 19th, 2010 at 1:23 am (#)
Sounds awesome. I wish I could make it to NICAR, but I’ll settle for beer and BBQ in Austin. I’d love love love if any of you rockstars did some recording/streaming/etc.
February 24th, 2010 at 11:40 am (#)
This sounds like a fantabulous idea Derek. Glad to see some outside format ideas seeping into journalism conferences.