The thought here is to go for speed. But speed in the world of Asynchronous Writing is a new form of slow speed. An evening perhaps.
A Lightening Talk is a shot 3-10 minute talk, which anyone can propose, where the timing is strictly adhered to by a moderator. It is a way of getting many community contributions to a conference in a short space of time without a lot of administration.
By "federated" we mean that the speakers may well be at different physical locations (distributed), in small groups (satellite conferences) of equal status. It implies a dialogue between the sites, and a slower more asynchronous style.
Format
The format will evolve through practice and the contributions of the community. As a starting point we can take a classical World Cafe or Unconference format and consider how small groups could work (write) together and then summarise there work in a short 3 minute presentation - linking this to their written work.
In the world of Federated Wiki the table around which the group gathers (let's call this a Federated Gathering), is a central Federated Wiki Page
A Distributed Unconference would in this way be made up of a series of Federated Lightening Talks taking place over the period of the conference.