So your VMWorld Session got denied too.

Well join the club. Honestly, I’m not entirely surprised, but I still held out hope that I could get the nod. It was my first submission, and won’t be my last. I have mad ideas for next year. #Dr.EvilLaugh

That said, @CXI is floating the idea of VMWorld “Unconference”. Scott Lowe has a blog post up about it as well.

Here are some of the ideas that were/are being tossed about:

1. A physical “unconference” where people gather and we select people to talk. The big problem with this idea is money—who will pay for such a venue? Would we even be able to find such a venue at this stage in the game?
2. A virtual “unconference” (perhaps associated with the vBrownbag series) that would allow people to share the sessions that were not accepted. This option offers more scalability with almost none of the cost (no venue to book and pay for, and a lot more people could potentially attend online).
3. A series of 10-minute “flash talks” at the conference. Most people are suggesting that VMware utilize the Communities lounge for this. The benefit here is that we have the face-to-face interaction that is so valuable at events such as VMworld, and we don’t have a book a separate venue. The disadvantage? You only get 10 minutes to talk

I like the idea of longer sessions working through the #vBrownbag group. Their format lends itself well to a longer and deeper technical dive into a session. The whole crew do a great job and I think their current setup is well suited to this kind of concept. Not to mention, the ability to save sessions for later viewing on iTunes is very helpful.

The 10 minute flash talks are intriquing as well. I think that would work at VMWorld itself, but I wanted to throw out the idea of setting up a kind of photo booth, like the one you get pictures taken at with your peeps at the mall. Instead, this would allow you to go in and do your 10 minute flash session, and then VMWorld could upload those to the VMWorld site. I think that would probably garner a lot of interest.

And before I forget, I’ve got my ticket for this years VMWorld so this will be my second year running. I’m excited to get to meetup with a lot of my vFriends and attend some great sessions. So I’ll be looking to see a lot of you there.

Edited:  For those of you who wish to submit to the vBrownbag Unconference, go here