Now this is a really neat find and a wonderful example of people taking a standard aspect of academic practice (the conference) and adding increased functionality and community. Confabb, put simply, combines a database of conferences, conventions and trade shows with social networking tools. The result is a conference site that has the capacity to truly expand the experience of people attending conferences all around the world. Jon Mandell from Confabb was kind enough to outline some of the key features (and upcoming features) for me in a couple of emails. I will do my best to summarize the highlights.

History and goals of the site

Confabb is the brainchild of Cameron Barrett (www.CamWorld.com) who came up with the idea about two years ago. The idea did not take shape however until brought it to Salim Ismail, a serial entrepreneur and former search engine CEO. With the help of a few mates (Jon Mandell, Jim Morrison, Adam Fields, Bill Lovett and David Parmet) they started developing the site in Spring of 2006. Development continued until the site officially launched in November 2006. Interestingly, the entire site was built and launched by a completely virtual team. Not once did this team ever get together in one room prior to the launch. Also cool? Everyone was unpaid–they worked for equity.

Since the launch, the site has added a range of social networking tools to take full advantage of the huge database. The plan is for Confabb to be “the site” for conference organizers, speakers, attendees and anyone else who wants to follow events in real-time through the site. It’s designed to maximize the value people get from going to shows, but also to help them network better by allowing them to connect before, during and after events.

Basic Features

Visitors to the site can browse (by category) and search (by keyword) through Confabb’s extensive database of conferences and events. Psychology conference can be found here. The front page keeps a running tab of the number of conferences in the database, as well as recent reviews and discussions of conference sessions. Advanced search options allow you to search additionally by location and date.

Advanced Features

Registering at the site (which is completely free) opens up a whole new array of tools for conference attenders and organizers. Registering allows you build a detailed online profile which can be used to find others with the same interests and to share ideas. Obviously, the more information you provide the better as it helps others get a better grasp of what subjects (both professional and personal) interest you. Once you have a profile, you can link this profile to specific conferences (allowing you to review sessions at those conferences) or to other members (allowing you to build your network). Searching and browsing when you are logged in allows you to “watch” conferences (i.e., keep you eye on them) as well as comment on speakers and sessions when the conference is actually up and running.

Some interesting uses of the networking tools are possible. For example conference organizers or attendees at a conference can organize ad-hoc gatherings at existing conferences through the current conference listing. There’s an ‘events’ tab within every listing where the organizer alerts the attendees to other happenings around a conference. Similarly attendees can organize and promote an event straight from the individual blog available to them as registered Confabb users.

Conference organizers

Jon informed me that the reason Confabb has got such a large conference database (currently over 25000!), is that conference organizers have been uploading their events. In fact, he said that most of the events in the database have been uploaded by organizers. This isn’t surprising as adding an event is as simple as visiting the “Add A Conference” page and entering the details. We just need more Psychology conference organizers to make use of the system and upload their events. (p.s. Confabb are happy to
walk anyone through this process, and have done a lot to make the process easy and intuitive).

One feature which is not as evident on the website but is extremely powerful is that conference organizers can use the Confabb platform as a low-cost alternative to out-sourcing the full development of a conference website. The Confabb platform is a repeatable model that can be “skinned” with a conference’s theme. As a result it has all the social networking tools of the Confabb site itself but takes considerably less work to create and manage. To see some examples, visit tba2007.confabb.com, and pdf2007.confabb.com. Interested conference organizers should contact Confabb to discuss prices and logistics.

Future Directions

By the sounds of it, Confabb have some great features up their sleeves for future versions. These include:

# Session notes - take notes at sessions and share them
# Calendaring for Outlook, Googlecal, YahooCal, and others…
# Alerts of new conferences by category and subcategory
# Alerts by emails as well as RSS
# More speaker functionality
# Web-based chat rooms per conference and per session
# Podcast and videocast directories of sessions per conference
# Deep-level control of data for Conference Administrators
# RSVP functionality for Events

For Psychologists

My suggestions?
1) Browse/search the site and see what Psychology conferences are registered. If you know of a good conference coming up - consider adding it to the database.
2) Create a free account and if by some chance you are at one of these conferences, try writing a brief review of a session/speaker or connecting with other attendees.
3) If you are a conference organizer, at a minimum register your event. If you are in the early stages of organizing your conference, contact Confabb to see if setting up a conference website might be appropriate.

I’d love to hear from anyone who has used Confabb recently as an attendee or organizer