Denominationally churchy folks run into two common problems. We “need” experts to speak at all manner of conferences. They “need” 45, 60, 75 minutes, and more often than not these presentations are low-powered or boring.
The Demosthenians who read this will know how much time you need – no, are given – to get your point across: five minutes.
Oddly enough, that’s the time limit for lightning speeches that seem to be a regular feature at Perl conferences. Or perhaps not: I’ve never been to one. But the point is that if you have five minutes to speak, you can get your point across and sit down. You don’t have be the Expert of the Universe to have five minutes worth of thought, and more importantly, ideas are shared without the too-familiar painful schedule-sucking void.
Imagine: an hour block with eleven speakers. (Presumably the remaining five minutes are reserved for people to get to the lectern.)
Of course, this year’s BloggerCon – in Cambridge, Mass. – is dispensing with speakers’ panels altogether and putting their experts in interactive ninety-minute sessions. I almost want to go just to see the dynamics of the conference. Note, too, that lots of time is built in for networking.
General Assembly office and parallel district meeting committees: have you seen this?