New Toy for the Nexus: Attendr

I've written before about a conference I'm planning to attend in March - the Nexus for Change. One of the Nexus organizers, Gabriel Shirley, has created an "Attendr" site for the Nexus. I always get a kick out of these new Web 2.0 toys, so I had to try it out.

One of the features Attendr provides is a tool to indicate people you'd like to meet at the conference. This feature caused me a lot of consternation - not because it is difficult to use, but because it made me ask myself some questions. For example, how selective should I be in listing people? Part of the fun and learning at a conference is meeting people outside your usual circle - people you might never pick out of a directory as someone you just had to meet. So would naming people ahead of time be limiting that emergent experience at the conference? Would those people I named, presently strangers to me, feel weird - like they were being stalked? Would the people I didn't name feel left out?

The safest thing to do was to name no one. Since I'm trying to grow out of doing the safest thing all the time, that choice was easily eliminated. The next thing I tried was naming three people - these were people I've "met" online, but have never actually been in the same physical space with. Okay, that's still pretty safe. So the next thing I did was name everyone on the list. Being the connector that I am, I want to meet everyone anyway! And it seems like it would be a nice thing to see on your Attendr profile that someone wants to meet you. So that's what I finally landed on.

A related feature in Attendr is the ability to indicate who you know at the conference. This is intended as an aid to networking - if Jane wants to meet Larry, and she can see that you already know Larry, it's an easy thing to ask you for an introduction. Again I was faced with questions and dilemmas. Should I name people I've only met online as people I "know?" Will the people I truly have met in person be uncomfortable in any way by having me declare that association publicly? I decided that my virtual acquaintances would go on the "to meet" list, and that anyone brave enough to list their name in Attendr would be brave enough to have my name associated with theirs on the World Wide Web.

Gabriel writes about Attendr and provides a brief user guide on his blog, Dancing Fish. If you're going to the Nexus, check out Attendr as part of your pre-conference experience!

Tags: nexusforchange