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Here are some things they have at conferences:
What are they good for?
When you have a long topic that you want broadcast to a medium sized group, chosen by refs.
Also good for a speaker's CV.
This is used in many conferences, but I think it's mainly good only either (a) the topics that need to be discussed are really so complicated that they take a long time and should be broadcast, and the speakers need lots of advance notice that their talk has been accepted, or (b) when the refs form some central organization that wants to communicate in a broadcast fashion.
When you have a long topic that you want broadcast to a medium sized group, not chosen by refs, or when you want to have an emergent discussion.
When the refs want to communicate something that almost everyone needs to or wants to hear in a broadcast fashion.
I think these are overused. Often the refs don't really have anything to say that almost everyone needs to or wants to hear.
When the refs want someone else to communicate something in a broadcast fashion that almost everyone needs to or wants to hear.
I think these are overused, for the same reason.
When you want a medium-sized group to come to share some understanding about something, or to decide something that isn't too controversial.
When something important and potentially controversial must be decided collaboratively in a medium group, or when anything has to be decided in a large group.
When someone wants to have something available for others to look at after the conference.
If refereed, then also good for a submitter's CV.
When you want zillions of people to get to present some pictures and talk to others individually for varying lengths of time.
When you want zillions of people to get to present an artifact and talk to others individually for varying lengths of time.
When people have short things to say that they want lots of people to hear.
There are two sorts of conferences. When the conference is being held just so that people can get together and talk about their projects, or talk about some topic, then if there are so many submitters who want to speak that refereeing is necessary, then the conference isn't being held often enough. In this case, dispense with refereed talks, traditional plenary speeches, invited plenary speakers, except in special circumstances (i.e. when some company is talking to outside developers).
On the other hand, if the conference is being held so that a large number of people want to keep up with only the most important developments in some field by going to talks, and these people don't have time to go to lots of conferences, then the traditional refereed format is appropriate. However, even in this case, those people will probably want to talk about their own projects somewhat too, so there should be a mixture (in traditional academic conferences this mixture is provided by poster sessions; open space sessions should probably be added too).
If (and only if) something must be decided, then schedule parliamentary procedure meetings but don't make them plenary; precede them with an scheduled open space session on the issue which is run like an open space plenary (mb the day before); if the issue(s) is/are complex, then precede that with a scheduled talk by the organizers or a (one or more factions of a) committee, talking abouthe agenda topics.
Open space talks are good (for when someone has something to say that is longer than a lightning talk, or that is only interesting for a few people). Poster sessions/demos are good (for when an artifact or poster needs to be presented). Lightning talks are good (for when a non-ref has something to say that they want everyone to hear). Have the lightning talks be plenary. Have a few scheduled plenary or semi-plenary talks which are chosen by voting (so that if most people want to attend them, they don't have to miss something else in order to do so). Have short open space sessions (10 mins; can't go shorter b/c of room change jitter) as well as long ones. Clearly mark open space sessions as "broadcast" or "discussion" or "broadcast + discussion" (if at least 1/3 on each).
There should be a (non-plenary) open space session where people can talk about organizing the next instance of the conference. Don't have a plenary to collect advice from the attendees for the future organizers; this can be done individually.
I think the Ignite format (5 mins, 20 distinct slides autoadvanced) is fun but short talks would be fun anyways, and the format makes it hard to communicate complicated ideas. How about:
This would allow you to fit about 10 ppl in 1.5 hrs. By keeping the autoadvance constraint from Ignite, you remove the need for the moderator to cut off a talk that goes over the limit. By removing the minimal number of slides limit and the prohibition on duplicate slides, you allow the presented to present some slides that stay on the screen for a long time, thereby allowing the discussion of a complicated idea. By increasing the talk length by 40% you allow a lot more content.
If people just have very short tips that they want to give ("use version control!"), rather than complex ideas, you allow people to submit 3 minute talks, too.
Things could be further sped up if there was only 1 minute in between talks (have presenters come up to the stage during the previous talk). So, you could have 3 minute and 7 minute talks (4 and 8 with the one-minute change time).
