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BlogPhiladelphia is almost here, and by almost here, I mean tomorrow! The bloggers will be rolling in today, checking in at their hotels this afternoon. One of the many attendees is Josh Hallett, the man behind BlogOrlando, an unconference that occurs in, well, Orlando. This social media guru took the time to sit down and answer some questions for us about unconferences and BlogPhiladelphia.

Q. Tell us a bit about yourself!

A. Hmm, I’m 34, 200lbs and 5’8″ with brown hair. To pay the bills I operate Hyku, which is a social media consulting firm. I work with traditional media (think newspapers) as well as corporations and PR firms across the US. I’m based out of Winter Haven, FL and enjoy my virtual office status.

Q. So, just what IS an unconference? Where did this concept come from?

Much of the concept comes from the original BloggerCon conferences that started back in 2003. The notion is that often at conferences the real value you get is the interactions and conversations with other attendees and not necessarily the speakers. Why not bring that conversation into the room and out of the hallway. There are session leaders, but their role is not to talk AT the audience, it’s to talk WITH the audience. As a rule there are no boring powerpoints or long-winded speeches by the session leaders. Session leaders are there to facilitate the conversation.

Q. What do you think people should expect, coming to BlogPhiladelphia?

This is a difficult issue with unconferences. If you’ve been to one before it’s easy to manage expectations. However, if you’ve never been to one and have traditionally attended regular conferences the format can seem a bit chaotic. In many ways you get out of the conference what you put in. Have a question? Ask it.

I remember the first uncon I went to. It was BlogNashville and I specifically went to hear two people speak. I got to the conference and the first session leader said, “My role is to lead the discussion…” I said to myself, “They’re not presenting… I flew all this way to hear this person and they’re not presenting?” As it turned out the discussion was great and I was able to ask more questions directly than in a traditional presentation format. That turned me on to the concept.

In an event like BlogPhilly it’s also a chance to actually meet other bloggers in person. When we held the first BlogOrlando is was the first time many Florida bloggers actually met in person. They had always communicated via e-mail or blog comments. Putting the face with the blog is always a great experience.

Q. You run BlogOrlando, what was your funniest moment during that?

We had one session called ‘Off the Record” and the premise was to allow people to talk about the things they couldn’t blog about, i.e. what’s the one story you wanted to tell, but couldn’t. The caveat was that nobody could blog or record the session. I introduced the topic and it was first met with silence. Nobody wanted to talk… crickets. Eventually somebody broke the ice and we had a good session. For a while there I thought I had derailed the entire conference since it looked like a momentum killer. That’s not really funny… mostly interesting :-)

Q. What are you looking forward to the most in Philadelphia?

It sounds cheesy but just meeting new folks and getting together with old friends. I also haven’t been to Philly since I lived in Pittsburgh as a kid so I plan to spend some time doing the tourist thing on Saturday.

… thanks Josh!

For more information on BlogPhiladelphia and what’s going on, be sure to visit the official website! Check back here for live blogging updates from the unconference.

BlogPhiladelphia
www.blogphiladelphia.net