I’m here to talk to you today about the value of an international conference on social media. But it’s the last session on the last day of a long conference, so let’s not mess about - I’ll cut to the message.
Now. I’ve expressed the value here in sterling and I know that currency conversions can be challenging, so in view of our international audience I’ve done some maths for you.
So there you have it - although of course that’s not the full story and I’d like to explain why.
I have to start with a disclaimer: I am Natalie May and I am part of the organising committee for the Social Media and Critical Care conference. I love SMACC. I do not make any money from the conference and neither does anyone else.
And they have kindly given me permission to speak on their behalf about the conference today.
The committee is headed up by these three handsome chaps: Chris Nickson, Oli Flower and Roger Harris
There are twelve of us in total on the organising committee and this is where SMACC starts to be different; this group is drawn from doctors, nurses and medical students from Australia, the UK and the US, working in Intensive Care, Emergency Medicine and General Practice, specialists in ultrasound, paediatrics, toxicology and medical education. You might also notice that we are now 50/50 men and women.
So having answered a question about the value of a conference on social media, I’d like to abandon that title for a while and address a simpler question - why SMACC?
Why does a conference about social media and critical care even exist?
To understand how SMACC as a conference is different, there are three elements to consider: the vision of SMACC, the voyage of SMACC, and finally the value of SMACC.
To understand where the vision of SMACC originated, we have to take a step back for a moment and understand the world of FOAM
Although blogs like LiFTL have been around for more than five years, it was in 2012 that the name FOAM was coined to encapsulate the movement which used Social Media to collaborate internationally across borders, specialties and disciplines to improve patient care
And around the same time the idea of bringing together participants at a conference to physically embody the ethos of FOAM was born.
Roger, Chris and Oli envisioned a conference for those on the frontline of medical care, to bring FOAM contributors’ innovation and passion to a live audience while uniting specialties and disciplines into a single tribe in the interest of providing the best possible care to patients. They hoped that a physical meeting would reinforce virtual relationships and ultimately generate even more FOAM resources.
And as we know, wherever you have EM clinicians and beer, there will be camaraderie
It’s important to emphasise that:
… powered and enhanced through social media. Everything we do in EM and critical care works best if we are in effective teams - learning together promotes this
Although the idea of getting the people behind the blogs and podcasts together in one place was an attractive one, there were some significant concerns about how it might work in reality.
Prior to SMACC 2013 the organisers were genuinely unsure whether the conference would be a success or whether they would turn up to
SMACC 2013: March 11th-13th 2013, 600 participants
SMACC Gold - all singing, all dancing: 1200 participants
Opening ceremony: fire eaters and dancing girls (worth seeing)
By now presenters expanded to include ENT, trauma surgeons, nurses, social workers, trainee doctors, paediatricians…
Why is SMACC successful? Why is it growing in popularity?
Key to SMACC success: engagement and participation. Attendees not coming to ask “what can I get?” but instead asking “what can I bring?”
Aimed to reduce silos between professionals but also between speakers and audience
Everyone involved, even those who weren’t physically there
No lectern on stage - dynamic speakers chosen not simply for their knowledge of subject but their ability to give a great talk
Presentation skills - an art
The audience, both physically present and in the wider social media community, is invited to engage; questions are taken via twitter through a moderator and those which cannot be answered during the session itself are addressed publicly later
Take-home messages are explored through real-time on-stage knowledge translation; simwars competition and sonowars.
What makes SMACC different?
Short talks, dynamic speakers,
Legacy: PODCASTS
408000 downloads from 168 countries
Legacy: PODCASTS
408000 downloads from 168 countries
Between May 2013 and May 2014 the SMACCgold hashtag was used by:
It was used in:
And it made:
1 blog post per month prior to SMACC Gold
2.43 blog posts per month since SMACC Gold
Therefore SMACC Gold has a Body Index of 243% in increasing his productivity as a single intervention. I asked him about this in May:
“I think stress just grinds you down, stops you being productive. SMACC cut right through that and made me remember my passion for EM.”
So what next on the SMACC voyage?
Venue
Programme launch soon: workshops, social, gender inequalities
Registration from November
Rog & Oli personally invested $100K in the original SMACC meeting with no guarantee of return.
Each of the preceding SMACC conferences has made enough of a profit to act as a deposit to bankroll the next conference. The conference is not a money-making exercise but it is hoped that it will start to make a profit.
SMACC Europe 2016?
Additional funds into not-for-profit charitable trust known as C4, the Centre for Critical Care Collaboration
Hoping for dividends beyond seeing the next meetings such as supporting FOAM initiatives around the world.
Financially not about making money or lining people’s pockets…
But in looks like the world over healthcare professionals are feeling the strain in their jobs and in these circumstances SMACC is invaluable.
Enthusiasm is infectious. Bring together enthusiastic people to do something they love and you will see a groundswell in enthusiasm