One of our major goals is to make VoiceCon a year-round, ongoing event that never stops, so that Crystal has even less free time so that we get the most out of the huge amount of content that this operation generates. More specifically, we want to integrate the on-site events with the on-line world–for the benefit of those who attend the shows, as well as for the benefit of those who never do.

A key idea is that each VoiceCon live event session should really be a node on a network of discussion about that session’s topic. The session shouldn’t just last an hour in San Francisco in November, then be over forever. As soon as we come up with the session, it should come to life on the Web, as a place where everyone can discuss that topic, post links to materials, etc. In turn, that online discussion should inform the session that’s actually conducted on site. And then the results of that on-site session should feed back into the online discussion.

That kind of a setup helps on-site attendees use their time on site more efficiently. They can “preview” the sessions, bone up on the topic, generally get a better sense of which to attend live, and get more out of that particular session. And obviously, those who can’t attend can still get a lot of information from this sort of session-based Forum.

The ultimate goal is to link these session-based topical Forums to the wealth of content we generate out of VoiceCon: Slides, videos, slidecasts; as well as collateral that can be added by anyone: White papers, Comments, links to blogs, and anything else that anyone can think of.

We’ve made a start on this effort, though I’ll be the first to admit it’s a little bit of a kludge. If you go to the VoiceCon SF program webpage, every session description has a link that says, “DISCUSS THIS SESSION.” Clicking on that link will take you to a feedback site where you can discuss the session topic. We’ve seeded each of these feedback forums with Discussion Topics which are basically the Key Questions that we include in each VoiceCon session description. You can discuss the topic by giving your thought on those session questions, or if there’s an issue we didn’t include in the session questions, you can start up a new thread by entering your topic in the box underneath where we ask, “What else?”

For example, if you’re interested in our Tuesday session, “I’m a Nortel Customer–What Do I Do Now?” just go to that session description and click on the “DISCUSS THIS TOPIC” link. It’ll take you to this page, where you can weigh in.

The feedback forums feature a voting system that let you tell us which questions/topics you think are most important. I’m happy to get this type of feedback, but I think the real value of this format is going to be just in the discussion threads.

It’s tough to start a community on the Web by just telling people, “Discuss.” Hopefully, building our forums around the session topics will jump-start things and build toward a productive experience that may be highlighted by a show in Orlando or San Francisco, but doesn’t begin or end there.

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