Bookmark Collector

By almost every measure, I’d have to say that the Bookmark Collectors Virtual Convention 2010 was a success! It exceeded my expectations, and from the feedback I’ve received so far I’d say it exceeded everyone else’s expectations as well!

Speaking personally, I had fun, learned a lot, met many of the people I’ve only read about,  saw a lot of beautiful bookmarks, and refined my plans and goals as a bookmark collector.

And as an indication of what the other attendees got out of this convention, I think there’s universal support for another convention next year (although many wondered why we were waiting an entire year).

2010 Convention

We started shortly after 8:00 am (PST) on Saturday, February 20 (the delay was due to a bad link I had installed and quickly corrected).  Over the next 24 hours, 6 speakers presented 7 different talks (8 if you include my review and closing discussion). Most of the talks were given twice, and they filled three 6-hour sessions

The presentations were the core of the convention. Not just because of the quality and breadth of the presentations, but because the presentation tool we used encouraged chatting between the attendees during and between the presentations. The time between sessions was an opportunity to get to know the other attendees and talk about the convention. For me, that was the surprise success of the event.

At the same time, a set of photo galleries were available for viewing, and they grew as more participants submitted photos from their own collections. It’s a pretty impressive show of bookmarks, and our curator (Laine Farley from BiblioBuffet) did a fabulous job of organizing and updating before and during the convention.

The forums were actively used and were a place for the attendees to introduce themselves and leave a short bio, point out problems and make suggestions, respond to classified ads, append additional information from the talks, and socialize outside of the presentation tool. They helped me find problems and trends that needed addressing during the convention.

We had a couple of poster papers (thank you to The Bookmark Society!) along with the transcripts and recordings from the presentations on file for the attendees to download. From comments I received,  know these were used during and after the convention. Now that folks have seen examples, I expect to see more papers in future conventions.

And yes, there will be future conventions. I think this one proved that a virtual convention provides real value, especially for a group that’s dispersed all over the world. We had attendees from 12 different countries and 5 continents. Social interaction was easy and an important success of the convention. We had a strong educational component, an opportunity for collectors to share their own collections, and a marketplace for people to shop with vendors.

Suggested Improvements

Any criticism I received for the convention was always constructive. In the next week, I plan on sending out a review form to all of the attendees for feedback and additional suggestions. For now, here are a couple of initial concerns.

Attendance wasn’t large, and now that everyone at the convention has a better idea of what it is (and can be), there is a lot of interest in promoting the next one.

Our tool for uploading images to the gallery su… wasn’t very easy to use. It was a lot of work for anyone submitting an image, and was particularly hard on Laine. Now that we have a better idea of the process, we’ll have something better for next year.

The convention was almost exclusively in English. I’d like to see more languages represented because there are a lot of amazing bookmark activities outside of the English speaking world. In addition to more language support at the website, sessions dedicated to specific languages has been suggested.

I’ll make another post with additional suggestions after I get feedback from the mailing.

Thank You’s

I want to thank everyone who made this convention happen:

Lauren Roberts (Editor in Chief at BiblioBuffet) was the co-organizer of this convention and presented two papers. I would not have put this on if it wasn’t for her help and advice.

Laine Farley (contributor to BiblioBuffet) organized the galleries and presented a paper at the convention. She kept the idea of collaborative galleries alive.

Jen Fun Weber (Funk and Weber Design) was an enthusiastic supporter of the convention and presented one of the papers, despite her denials of being a collector.

Deanna Dahlsad (who contributes to every blog in existence, including Kitsch Slapped, Inherited Values, and Ululating Undulating Ungulate) inspired me to see my collection as something important and also presented a paper to the convention.

Don Baldwin (who will someday have an amazing collection on-line – watch for him at www.bookmarkcollector.com) was a tireless supporter who helped shake out problems with presentation tools and presented a paper that wowed us with his amazing collection.

Olga Sotomayor Sanchez (Coleccionista Chilena de Marcapáginas) was an early supporter and helped create the Spanish language materials on file. She intended to present at the convention, but personal conflicts kept her from participating.