Techdirt Greenhouse: An Idea Workshop
At Techdirt, our core belief is that ideas are living things -- and that by getting smart people to think about and discuss various ideas, they can often be made much better. It's what we try to do on Techdirt -- presenting ideas and getting people to discuss them -- as well as with customers of our Techdirt Corporate Intelligence service. We now want to take that same concept and try it in a live environment... the Techdirt Greenhouse.
Techdirt Greenhouse is a different kind of event. It's designed to be fun, interactive and thought provoking. It requires participation, rather than passive listening, but has enough structure that it's not a total free-for-all. In fact, the structure is quite similar to the Techdirt blog.
A group of pre-selected companies and individuals will present ideas in quick, five minute presentations. Unlike a standard product showcase, this is not the "final word." After a group of presentations, the attendees are split up into breakout groups, and given a specific issue from one of the presentations to "workshop." For a company with a new product, this could be anything from "what new features should be added" to "what target market should they focus on" to "is there a business model here?" Other presentations may not be about products, but ideas, and the workshops will be related to those ideas.
After a short period of time, everyone will reconvene and discuss some of the findings and takeaways for the presenters (and the attendees) to consider.
Think of each presentation as a Techdirt post -- and each breakout group as the comments around that post. This allows us to create an event where many different interesting topics gets discussed among a diverse group of people with a wide range of perspectives and opinions -- all in a short period of time.
Leave the Powerpoint and the sales pitches at home. Here's a chance to interact with some of the smartest folks around, while helping to solve real and interesting challenges facing the technology business today
