South by Deep South won’t be my first foray into unconferencing. It will be my biggest, though.

Years ago, I’d made some friends in an online forum for broadcast journalists. One of them, Randy Steinman, was coming through Birmingham on the way to the beach, and thought it would be neat to have lunch. He’s the sports director for the CTV affiliate in Toronto, and his family has a place on the Gulf Coast. It was September of 2001.

Yeah, that September.

The RTNDA was having its national shindig in Nashville that year, the 14th-17th. Needless to say, news management types had their hands full, and the convention was cancelled. Randy and his fiance were already committed to coming, so the two of them met me, my wife, and my sister at a Cracker Barrel for lunch. And thus was born “RTNDA-Not.”

A Larger Party

The next year, a few folks had heard about our un-gathering, and we opened it up a bit. When Randy and Sheryl came through the next year, we had a total of 17 people there for a weekend of eating, drinking, and fellowship. Lots of war stories about life in the news trenches. Jessica flew in from Houston, John drove down from Cincinnati, Carolyn from Louisiana – about half of the crew came from out of Alabama. A great weekend, any way you slice it.

2003 was an experience. We decided to bring some professional value to RTNDA-Not. (And that’s how it was known, long before the “un-conference” became the hip thing for the bloggerati.) I got four television stations to kick in some sponsorship money, and we brought Wayne Freedman from KGO-TV in San Francisco to lead a storytelling seminar. Wayne only had 40-something Emmy awards at the time, and is considered one of the premier storytellers in news.

We booked him, took over a donated hall at Samford University, and let him do his thing. We had more than 60 people from at least a dozen states who drove in for RTNDA-Not. And we didn’t charge a dime. It was the first time in years that Freedman had done a presentation where there was no cover charge. The informal breakout meetings were a blast, as was the weekend.

Then I got out of teevee, and there was no RTNDA-Not for 2004.

I’ll dig up some pics when I get around to it. SxDS is going to be off the charts in comparison. Go visit and offer to help. I’m begging you.

[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, sxds, south by deep south, RTNDA, Randy Steinman, Wayne Freedman[/tags]