In 2008 we had the chance to design and run a 24-hour creative marathon for ETH Zurich (for details see here). The over 100 participants generated 17 project proposals how to reduce CO2 emissions and energy consumption at this university.

Not only was this great fun to do; Patricia Wolf* and Ralf Hansmann, both ETH Zurich, and Peter Troxler*, Square One, Rotterdam, studied why the event was such a success. Together, we wrote an article revealing the mechanisms behind unconferencing. This article just appeared in the Journal of Organizational Change Management and is available at this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09534811111102319

Patricia Wolf, Ralf Hansmann, Peter Troxler, (2011) “Unconferencing as method to initiate organisational change: A case study on reducing CO2 emissions of a university”, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 24 Iss: 1, pp.112 – 142

While we had to transfer our copyrights on the article to Emerald Publishing, I may legally provide a private reprint over at Square One (direct link to pdf).

Our second paper focuses on the sustainability part and unconferencing as a tool to start it: Patricia Wolf, Peter Troxler, Ralf Hansmann, (2011) “Moving Universities: A Case Study on the Use of Unconferencing for Facilitating Sustainability Learning in a Swiss University”, Sustainability 2011, 3, 875-896, http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/6/875/.

* Patricia and Peter are unbla board members