Shortly after I posted about LobbyCon a wiki was formed and the discussion started heppening. While I originally envisioned one larger thing where people flew in from around the country(world, Joi?) to attend, much the way you would with a real country, Eric Rice might be onto something with his local "here's the time and place, show up" approach.

I think it's got it's plusses and negatives though. Just getting people from your city to show up and hang out is great, it takes a second to set up and there's not much more to it that that. So for ease of use it get's a 10. But one of the draws to the conferences is seeing the people you don't get a chance to see on a regular basis. Of course, not all bloggers hang out together so you might not see local people all the time anyway, but if I go to a conference I'm not going there to see the people who live in LA, I'm going to see the people who don't. While I might not see Xeni, Wil, Michael or Jonah on a regular basis, if I want to talk to them about something face to face I call 'em up and say "hey, let's get some coffee" and then go see them. I'm not waiting until the next conference we both might be at, like I am with other people who live further away.

There's been talk of several smaller LobbyCons happening at the same time linked up via IRC or webcams, which sounds good but then it's not really much different that IRC to begin with and you have the time zones to worry about and it gets messy. But maybe a few smaller ones need to happen to get the exposure for a bigger one? Maybe Eric has a LobbyCon-SF, and I have a LobbyCon-LA and someone else has a LobbyCon-NY or whatever and we pool everything we learn from the smaller ones and then have LobbyCon 2004 at the end of the year (I'm in Florida all of December, anyone want to meet up?) or 2005 at the begining of next year that people come together for.

Seeing a group of people on an IRC channel at the same time is cool, but it's nothing like having them all in the same room. Especially if those are all people involved and doing things. Getting "movers and shakers" together always results in high energy and great discussion. That's what we found in the Lobby at e-tech and BlogOn and I'd guess the same was true of SuperNova and BrainStorm. That's where I think LobbyCon could really excell.

Of course, that requires getting these people there. So the discussion continues...