Doc Searls channels Vonnegut on conferences and workshops:

I've been amazed lately at the growing difference between conferences and workshops. Conferences are like television: everybody in the "audience" faces speakers and panels that comprise the conference's "program". In workshops, everybody participates. They get together in rooms and around tables and talk about common interests with purposes in mind. Progress usually happens. Stuff moves forward. It's amazing how well this works.

You have to do workshops in person. Kurt Vonnegut writes,

Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We are dancing animals.

How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something. We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.

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