What’s better than the Free State Project’s Liberty Forum conference? A thousand Liberty Forums! That’s the conclusion I reached after brainstorming about how to rescue the canceled 2011 Liberty Forum. My idea, in a nutshell, is to coordinate conference meetups across the country in as many locations as people want – in meeting halls, hotels or even living rooms – with the Agora I/O online unconference.
Agora I/O, in case you haven’t heard of it, is a new biannual un-conference where you’ll find the greatest people, ideas and tools for advancing the stateless society. You don’t want to miss it, and you don’t have to! Agora I/O is exclusively online, so you can participate from anywhere an internet signal reaches. Plus it’s free! And now there are ways for you to make money from your participation. Check out the Agora I/O blog for more information.
We can connect the online component with real life meetups in cities like Manchester, Austin, Keene, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Grafton, Atlanta and many more. The real life meetups can offer any combination of food, lodging or just a place to sit and access the internet. They can have exclusive events as well, like shooting lessons, a cocktail party, sunday brunch, you name it! The model is open to meet the needs and preferences of each individual. Customize it to fit your unique market.
With this model, we keep costs down and max out participation. The need to travel or stay at a hotel is reduced. Instead of passively hearing big national or international level speakers pimp their books and projects, the focus is local and the conversation can be with people you’ll actually continue working with when the conference is done. Or maybe you’ll snag a big name speaker to balance out your lineup, as well. Of course there’s nothing stopping one of these meetups from being really big, like Liberty Forum.
So that’s where I am with the Liberty Forum rescue plan. The Agora I/O project is rapidly moving forward. I invite you to engage with it in a way that is profitable for you.
2 replies on “Let a Thousand Liberty Forums Bloom”
Cool from several different directions! I’m probably too short of money to go to LvMI’s ASC 2011 this year and will be putting everything into getting the coffee shop open. Will try to get things together to be a Richmond, VA outpost for the March event.
That would be really cool, Mark!