I just got back from my second year at ChibiCon, a small anime convention at Branham High School in San Jose.  It's a pretty neat idea; their anime club does a yearly mini-con with games, skits, and more.

I did two panels:
The Power of Brainstorming: This was a modified version of my usual panel which some of you have seen – with a new addition, applying the exercises to creating an anime/story.  The end result involved post-magical-apocalypse motorcycle gangs, a kind of Romeo and Juliet story, and an alien observer who had become stuck on earth (shades of Riverworld).  by the end of the event people were saying this had to be made.  Also Hetalia was involved, but we won't go into that.

The State of The Geekonomy: This is going to be a new feature at all or most cons Bonnie and I do.  It's a review of our trend-spotting, ala the Geek Scanner.  This went pretty good for the first time, though this was a condensed version.  It did keep people's attention, and I broke it up with some humor.  I think a half hour isn't enough time for a real interactive panel, but it was fun.  I think it'll be easier when I tag team with someone.

The con itself was nice and tight and simple.  I thought I'd add a few thoughts about it.

ChibiCon is a con run by a club thus 90% of the attendees are from the school or club; it is essentially a kind of club event done as a con.  However this idea works – it takes the "con concept" and applies it to a get-together.  People were joking and cosplaying and having fun, and it was obvious we were all enjoying ourselves.

Think of what a con is.  It's an organized series of events based around particular themes and interests that lets people have fun and socialize.  You could easily use the "con structure" to do similar events, turning your club or group's experience into a mini-convention, with all the benefits (and in some cases, less of the disadvantages).

I think this is something for a lot of us geeks, pro geek and otherwise, to consider.  We have all these examples of how to run interesting convention events, schedules, and happenings.  We know how to set up the LANs and organize the costly and run the videos.  Why not use that to build a fun event for your group or club?

And, to keep this progeeky, do some career events.  Hey, I'm available . . .

- Steven Savage