Jackie Danicki

(First see my list of Five Things I Loved About Liberty 2006, please.)

1) Put up a pre-conference wiki - now, as the date is already in stone - and let attendants add their names (and link to their blog, and one liner bio) to the list of those who will be there. For an example of how this works, see the London Girl Geek Dinner sign-up wiki. This lets people see who’s going to be there, connect with attendees before and after the event, and gives everyone the chance to take the connections made beyond the two days at the National Liberal Club. Also, start a wiki page of panel ideas and speaker suggestions, and mine the brainpower of the collective (sorry, couldn’t resist). Have pages where people can list conference ‘fringe’ events or offer couch space for the weekend.

2) Have an open space session on the first day, after the last panel and before the bar opens - participation purely optional (but I bet it’d be very popular). How does it work? Well, this photo sequence from David Wilcox, taken at a Policy Unplugged event, gives as concise an explanation as I can find. (Antoine and I each came to the conclusion, independently of one another, that this is a must-have for next year’s conference. Great minds, great minds…)

3) Actively seek out bloggers - even (especially) those who are hostile or ambivalent towards liberty-minded politics - to come to the event. Give them free tickets. Do not ask them to blog about it, but leave them free to do so however they wish. This is a win-win no matter how you slice it. The only down side is that people given a free ride will often be flaky in deciding whether or not they’ll be taking it, which could mean some logistical hassle in finalising numbers for the awards dinner or whatever, but…worth it.

4) Get more value out of the sessions by getting rid of the barriers between the speakers and the audience. I’d love to see the conference done in-the-round, town hall style. The Liberty conference already has a strong conversational streak, and the formal format may be comfortably familiar, but it does not allow for maximum value out of interaction. If in-the-round is too radical, just get rid of the table that the panels sit behind and shove them on any old sofa we can move into the Lloyd George Room. This is a small change that would make a big difference; it works for the Putney Debates and worked for Brian’s Fridays, and would work extremely well for this conference.

5) Assuming we want an injection of new blood who are likely to become longterm and generous supporters, have some ’sideshows’ running concurrently with the panels.

For example, get a couple of independent financial advisors to come in for the day and run personal finance clinics, free of charge. Promote the hell out of this. It could attract potentially very lucrative donors - people who have a strong interest in, say, tax avoidance (not tax evasion, which is illegal - tax avoidance, which is perfectly legal), because they make a decent living and object to a large percentage of it being repossessed by the state, but don’t consider themselves wealthy and so may not seek out the services of an IFA on their own. (NOTE: Don’t even ask if I’m suggesting that we ask the IFAs to persuade people to donate to the cause. I AM NOT.)

After the talk from John Pendal from the Spanner Trust, I’m convinced that a sex law bootcamp - advising people about which sexual acts can land them in prison and how to avoid that kind of ruin, and just plain educating people who are interested in this most shameful aspect of British law - would be popular. Attract enthusiasts from events like the Skin Two Leather Ball and from fetish clubs to attend. These people may not yet connect the dots between their beliefs about personal freedom in sexuality and how those should logically extend to other areas of life, but we can help.

Okay, that’s just a very rushed list off the top of my head. I think Liberty 2006 was a great event, but there is a lot of scope for even greater participation and longterm benefit from the next conference. Whatever happens, I plan to attend Liberty 2007 - I’m just annoyed I’ve got another 11 months to wait.

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