The We Media conference in Miami has come to a close, and undoubtedly there are more conferences being planned right now.

But I wonder if the type of conference that just finished is the model that should continue forward? If we want to walk the walk of user-generated content and “We Media,” let’s start by changing the way journalists organize conventions.

Only a few weeks ago I asked why journalism doesn’t have a go-to unconference model? “Let’s expand on the latest mantra of “take a blogger out to lunch” and serve a buffet instead.”

If blogging is just a tool, not a defined status, and “we are all media now” — then journalists should organize a “We Media” conference without set panelists, judges or jury on whose who, and what the latest achievements of main stream media are.

Michel Tippett, of Now Public suggested to Mark Glaser that the conference would have been better served as an unconference, the open source child of traditional conferences. Now that’s the ticket.

Besides, everyone knows the best ideas, networking and conversation at these big-time conventions happen in the hallway anyways. Why not admit that, remove the talking heads and really throw the spaghetti on the wall to see if it sticks.

Doc Searls had the right idea when he organized a Newspaper 2.0 meeting in Santa Barbara this weekend modeled after unconferences.

Perhaps he is taking notes from his experience with BloggerCon, one of the original unconferences. The key here, however, is that he is adapting that method for traditional journalists who haven’t grasped the horizontal shift completely.

Understanding that the audience knows more than you doesn’t just mean hosting public blogs. It’s a re-think of how an entire field learns to innovate.

Isn’t that the point of these mass gatherings anyway? Some reports from the ground made it sound like everyone was sitting around trying to knit the emperor some new clothes — and quickly.

Unable to stand the self-congratulatory attitude from mass media organizations that were finding ways to exploit the whole “citizen journalism thingy-mo-bog,” Mark Glaser asked a poignant question:

“What no one wants to admit is that the mainstream media has lost power and lost control to the people,” I said. “And Big Media is here to try to figure out how to exploit or make money off of citizen media. I’m not saying that they can’t be part of this new world, but they need to engage it in an authentic way.”

Outside in the hall, our own Jay Rosen approached Glaser and put it this way “They are trying to change the vocabulary without changing the grammar,” he said. “They use the new vocabulary [of new media] but they are not changing their mindset, and accepting a loss of control.”

And what better proof of that then the We Media conference itself?

——-

David Cohn, the editor of NewAssignment.Net’s blog has been to three types of unconferences and is eager for more.