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You can use this page to email Henrik Kniberg about How to run an internal unconference.
About the Book
(NOTE: this book is not quite finished. The most important parts are done, what I have left to do is a make a nice cover page, and finish off chapters with extra material. I'll do that if enough people take interest in the book. If you buy the book you will of course get all updates for free.)
An unconference is like a normal conference but with no predefined agenda, no predefined list of speakers, no slides, and...er... actually it’s not very much like a normal conference at all!
It’s more like an alternative to a conference. If the purpose of a conference is to collaborate and communicate, then an unconference will often fulfill the same purpose in a more simple, fun, and effective way!
There’s lots of ways of doing this. This article is about one specific format that I’ve been experimenting with over the past 5 years, mostly at companies like Crisp and Spotify.
By now it is well tested and works especially well for 1-2 day internal conferences with 20-80 participants. Participants often say things like “all conferences should be like this!” or “best conference I’ve ever been to!”. Even the most rabid meeting-haters seem to like (or at least not hate...) this meeting format :o)
The purpose of this book is to share what I’ve learned about running company-internal unconferences, so you can try it yourself!
About the Author
Henrik Kniberg is Chief Scientist and cofounder of Ymnig.ai. Henrik’s focus is the practical application of Generative AI in product development and other areas. He explores the frontiers of this technology, builds AI agents and AI-powered products, and teaches courses and workshops on how to use this technology effectively. He created the viral video ”Generative AI in a Nutshell” and the book with the same name, and created AI agents for the Swedish TV documentary series Generation AI.
Henrik’s background is Minecraft gameplay design & development at Mojang, and agile/lean coaching at LEGO and Spotify and other product companies. He is also co-founder of Hups.com.
Henrik is well-known for his books ”Scrum and XP from the Trenches” and ”Kanban and Scrum, making the most of both” and ”Lean from the Trenches”, his viral videos ”Agile Product Ownership in a Nutshell” and ”Spotify Engineering Culture” (commonly referred to as the Spotify Model), and silly metaphors like the skateboard metaphor for product development, and ping pong balls to demonstrate the concept of flow. Henrik has also been engaged in climate change – he created the video Friendly Guide to Climate Change and cofounded GoClimate.com.
He lives in Stockholm with his wife and four kids and a bunch of random music instruments.