A few (many?) years back it was unthinkable that anyone would register and pay for a conference via the Web. Then Web only conferences came along. Face-to-face conferences gave out CD-ROM’s of proceedings, and later followed up with web-access for conference attendees. Vendors can now see their booth space on the Web and position it relative to their competition – for a price. Conferences also precede events and follow-up with mailing lists and contact information. The conference media keep changing.
The latest that I’ve heard of is from Eugene Kim, who discusses the use of wikis as a way to tap the energy produced at face-to-face meetings. It’s not as easy as just placing a wiki on the web and everyone will merrily contribute to it, but Kim offers a lot of good advice. My own experience with wikis is limited, but we were successful in using them as a way for physically distributed social workers to stay in touch and develop policies & procedures. It may take a lot of of hand-holding and support to get someone to the "ah ha" moment of understanding the potential of wikis, but after that moment you have to run to keep up to them.
