You’ve just given me a week’s worth of nutrition to digest. Thank you!

It’s farts on windless days, in windowless rooms, that you need to worry about. Could a strong gust of wind blow a fart back in your face? Is that the concern? I don’t think it could.

There are plenty of events here in SF too, of course—but not the kind I’m talking about. Either they’re entirely social, or they hew too much to the “heyyy let’s set some guys up with a projector and hear about their product” format.

So yes, producing something like this is a lot of work—and the format I’m proposing is even MORE work than usual. Because I’m talking about real production values, and about a work-flow that doesn’t end when the last attendee has wandered out the door.

But I’ve got to wonder—is it really THAT much more work than, say, conceiving, commissioning & designing a monthly magazine? Or running a high-volume blog day-to-day?

The answer might be “yes,” simply because working in the physical world involves a specific kind of friction. Things must be gotten to places; plane tickets must be purchased; cats must be herded. But I’m not sure.

But here’s another angle that I think is really, REALLY important: I think it’s a shame that all this work goes into these events that sort of live and die in this tiny little time-frame. You’re exactly right: tens to hundreds of hours of prep work for a day or two of live content. So I think it’s inexcusable not to design that content such that it can be captured and shared online and actually find an audience. So this disqualifies perfunctory recordings of panels; it probably disqualifies panels altogether! But precisely BECAUSE it’s so much work, I think it’s important to find ways to extend an event’s life, to draw it out, give it a bigger footprint in time & space.

I’m a serial event organizer, and I’ve got news for you… it takes tens to hundreds of hours and a lot of money to produce a day or two of high quality “content”. It’s easy to show up to something interesting, but to actually program and manage the logistics for these things is a full time job. Burn out, creative differences, and over-saturation are very real issues that you’re simply not addressing.

I live in Toronto, Canada — a city spoiled by the sheer number of events that cater to the tech, business and social marketing community. I would not be exaggerating to say that there are multiple events every night of the week. There aren’t just BarCamps… that was so 2005! We’ve got ScotchCamp and SproutUp and Rails Pub Nite and Founders & Funders and oh my god just make it fucking stop already.

Even a large and vibrant community would find this supposed participatory media Eden completely and utterly exhausting to attend, much less put together on a consistent schedule.

Please, prove me wrong but I think you’re farting in the wind until you organize one major event for every three you attend.