Can you name this person?

Five days of the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona have left us with around 2.500 photos (see a selection on Flickr). Our task now is to catalogue them to make them useful for IUCN in the long term. I covered the Opening Ceremony yesterday. Could you guess who standing on the picture below?



Neither could I. I did find the names [1] in the end, using my best detective skills. But there was one picture of a speaker that I did not manage to identify (since I hadn't managed to participate in the ceremony).



Then I received a mail through flickr:

I'm Solange Marquez the MC of the Opening Ceremony, hope you remember me :) he he. I was wondering if you can help me, I need at least a picture of myself at the opening ceremony.

Puzzle solved. Thanks a million, Solange. And for the rest of you: Should you recognize people on the pictures we post from the World Conservation Congress, leave a comment and help us out!

[1] From left to right: Valli Moosa, IUCN President, HSH Albert, Prince of Monaco, HRH Felipe, Prince of Asturias, José Montillo, President of Catalunya, Elena Espinosa, Spanish Minister of the Environment and Jordi Hereu, Mayor of Barcelona

Calling all bloggers at the World Conservation Congress!

Wherever you look at the IUCN World Conservation Congress, you see people frantically typing away on their laptops. Some of them must be blogging, some of them must be twittering, that’s for sure.

There’s no real social media strategy for the congress, so we’re building one from scratch. So far we've:

1. Found out what’s out there
   A simple search gave us a list of people who had twittered their departure to the congress, a handful of blogposts, and two social networks targeted at congress participants.
2. Said ‘hi’
   The next step was to join the networks, follow the people and leave a helpful comment or two. We also proposed to use a tag for congress related things (wcc08)
3. Shared what we’ve found
   A special page on the congress website links to all social media places. In addition, a tumblelog collects quotes from all blogposts.
4. Filled the feedreader with relevant searches
   For easy updating, subscribed to relevant searches on flickr, technorati, blogsearch, delicious, etc.
5. Create gathering places where they were missing
   In our case, this consists of a special twitter account and a flickr pool.

We now know of a good dozen active bloggers and twitterers at congress, and made sure they know of us. It would be great to see them refer to our services and infrastructure over the next couple of days, and create a conversation. And then, maybe, possibly, engage those that are not yet using social media. Seven days to go.

Forever vs. Time-bound

Here's the first thing I teach organizations that come to me for advice on their new website:

Figure out which content is 'forever', and which content is 'time-bound'.

Then make sure that you write the 'forever' parts so that they are independent of the moment of reading: Avoid announcements like 'soon' or 'next year' and references like 'the current board'. If the content isn't there yet, just remove it from the navigation and commit to adding it asap - it is far too easy to forget about the In Construction signs all over your website. Even if you don't expect changes, be nice to your visitors and let them know when you've last updated the article.

All other content comes with a date stamp, and can be written with reference to it ("The board meeting today concluded..."). Over time, older content sinks down in the lists of documents, news, events etc. and is essentially archived. Particularly important content (eg. a seminal publication) should be featured separately and linked to from 'forever' or static pages.

What is the first thing you teach?

The Swiss Army Knife of Synchronisation

I work on three machines with different operating systems, and sometimes in internet cafés and other random locations. Yet, wherever I am, my contacts and calendars are already synced - thanks to a service called Plaxo.

Plaxo is an online address book and calendar - just like many others. The exception: Its synchronization tools. With plugins for both Outlook and Address Book, it sits quietly in the background and makes sure that my office PC and my home MacBook share the same information. It also syncs my Google Calendars, but struggles so far with the Gmail address book. To get my phone into the loop, I used to periodically sync my Nokia through iSync and Bluetooth. For the iPhone, iTunes takes care of the job.

From the far end of the bee hive

Organizing conferences is madness: You work on them for months, maybe longer. Then the big day comes and all mistakes that you have made in the last months will become apparent, and now it's too late to avert damage. Some days later it's all over.

Organizing a good conference is extremely gratifying. Organizing a bad one is plain frustrating.

The difference between a good and a bad conference is often planning. Here's a handful of lessons learnt from this week's endeavour:

1. Visualize the end result. Imagine you are a participant - what do you need (information, material, services)? Imagine a speaker or workshop organizer. How about press? Write everything down.
2. Put things into a timeline. Where do you have dependencies? Eg. before the registration can open, you need to take decisions on reimbursement. Do everything without dependencies as early as possible - the closer you come to the conference, the crazier things will get.
   
3. When chosing a venue, consider implications: How easy is it to get accommodation close by? Are there workshop rooms? A secretariat? A press room? Lots of time was lost this week because some hotels were 40km from the conference venue - without any public transport link.
   
4. Set up the conference secretariat first. This allows people to take care of their emergencies. Don't forget internet, printer, copying machine, a spare computer, extension cables and possibly a landline. While you're at it: Use it as your internal communications hub and post all schedules, phone numbers, roles and announcements on the wall.
   
5. Allow participants to connect. At the beginning of a conference, people are usually slightly tired and confused. Give them time (and occasion) to understand who else is there, allow them to connect directly, and leave room in the program for this. Rather cut speeches than breaks.
   
6. Spread information widely. Not everyone will be in the room when you make an announcement. Put all important information on walls in the conference foyer. Brief your staff thoroughly, so that they can provide information if needed.
7. Take care of personal needs. Make sure you sleep enough. Encourage staff to take breaks. Provide for water and snacks in the conference secretariat. Have someone (and a car) available to cover unexpected needs. Distribute praise and a smile to other people working hard to make this conference a success.

We had a good conference this week, but it could have been better. I can feel the itch to get involved next time.