Form Storm

Workspaces FormStorm
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Hi all!

Who is up for switching into a temporary superorganism mode for a Form Storm?

I guess, some of us, probably have some forms to fill. It sometimes gets boring. The last one we did with @noemi, the process was significantly less painful (Noemi did a lot of work as usual, but I hope I helped a bit… with swearing), and the reward for me was to googledoc side by side with her, but anyway:

This might signify that an online Form Storm can be a fun format to get boring shit done. It basically works as an accelerated peer reviewed academic journal, except of it is not a journal and it is not academic. A bit faster than your usual basecamp, but more chilled (something like a sphackaton mentionned in the Burning Edge) - we can always adjust the speed.

The feautures this beast might have are: getting each other out to get stuff done. And, of course, a lot of swearing in comments if working in google docs or alike.

This post also made me think that it can be something we can try, the fact that ER has a magic power to mutate into a superorganism and back ( need to mention (o__O) @nadia here) , and the Twittestorm (that’s why the name).

Again: no deadline for doing this, except of that one, but would be nice to try it out in the coming week.

So, yeah, @k11 ping me.

(that kind of hug)

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Ok so I tried to make a form

Here it is.

My thinking (the contents of an email i would like to send out to mailing list tomorrow) is as follows:

Email #1: What happened?

[Beautiful photo collage here with lots of people in it]

Four intensive days jam packed with conversations followed by all nighters takes it’s toll on our memories. Let’s help one another to fill in the gaps :slight_smile:

This is the first of three emails where we ask you to answer 3 questions about lote3. Your feedback will be aggregated into a synthesis of the event in forms that supports collaboration, action and more engagement in the near future. If in addition to answering the questions below, you want to contribute more to help us all make the most of the time we spent together, join this google hangout next week.

Good for you: Give yourself the gift of 30 minutes to reflect on, synthesise and celebrate 4 intense days with over 70 people surrounded by beauty. As well as make it easier for others who were there to re-connect with you.

Good for everyone: The unMonastery started out as a discussion during a previous lote event. By sharing your answers in a format easy to access and share you make the learnings from the event accessible to everyone who could not make it. As well as increase likelihood some of the many insights and ideas generated will be realised.

if you are already using the Edgeryders online collaboration platform (edgeryders.eu), please sign in and answer the questions in the form we prepared for you here.

If you do not have an Edgeryders account, you can sign up for one here.

If you have any trouble figuring out how to use the platform check the FAQ, schedule a human to human call with noemi@edgeryders.eu.

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A form asking about members vision, strategy for Edgeryders…

…and how they want to contribute towards realising it with others. The Events are an important part of what we do, so asking for impressions of lote3 and how we want to drive future events is relevant in the context. So really we need one form asking all the questions.

  • The form should also ask about what people are especially passionate about and working on right now
  • what they feel they have to offer
  • and they would like to learn 
  • and what kid of help from peers they need 
  • As well as if they want to be involved in collective fundraising drives e.g. through EU Calls and tenders.
  • if so we then need some organisation info that makes it easier for us to ping those interested when relevant opportunities come up.

So it’s a combination of these questions about Edgeryders vision, questions asking for feedback about Lote, and more questions relevant to finding the right partners for larger calls and collaboration opportunities.

cc [Caroline Paulick-Thiel]  [Alberto]

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Suggestions for Questions - please complete

My name and the name of my organization are:

I am especially passionate about:

At the moment I am working on:

I enjoy to be part of ER because of:

Within the next five years I would like ER to take a path that:

I could imagine to navigate into that direction by:

Next steps could be:

I would like to be involved in collective fundraising activities and could imagine to take on specific tasks like:

I especially good in:

I would like to learn or need specific help with:

And then the LOTE3 questions?

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Which forms?

Are you thinking of the session feedback forms?

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…

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EU Form Storm

Yes - trying to organise a form-storm for Edge applications to the EU thingy (deadline 11th Dec).

  1. Groups all hack on their own projects together - in physical and virtual space
  2. We pitch to each other
  3. We hack, black hat and praise
  4. We submit
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Now, this sounds interesting!

[fortyfoxes], could you clarify? Which WU thingy are you talking about? Any links?

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i think i got it. I’ll try to be a bit more clear.

@alberto! I think @fortyfoxes means this by the EU thingy. And a main thing to work on while Form Storming. Form Storm and make all that goes through purely ER.

Am I getting it right? So there is this in the first round of that EU thingy, so mb good I ping @matthias.

Apart from this, it can be other forms and applications, but to have a bit of a core in the Form Storm, lets say it is a main thing.

What I meant when posted the Form Storm is peer reviewing any other possible calls for applications edgeryderians can possible go for. Sort of. But this is optional. Sorry for a vague language of the original post. I’m trying my best to be less vague in comments.

Example: (bear with me, I’m trying to figure out what the Form Storm can be, I just have a hunch about it being a good thing we can do and that ER has features enabling us to do that)

ER X has a project she’s been working on that needs funding. There is a call for applications which fit this project. Deadline is set.

Would it be benefitial for X to participate to the Form Storm?

  • to get constructive critisism, advice and peer review
  • to find buddies if there is bigger capacity/scale needed.
  • to just simply have a specific timeframe to get stuff done, because FormStorm is an event fixed in time.

ER O has rather raw idea which sort of could be turned into actionable, but not quite enough for a project, more of an element. O joins a Form Storm and the Xs project seems like this O’s element can be modified and added to the application. ER Y and Z have no ideas or projects at the moment, but bloody good at reading text and looking for key words and being consistent and gone through similar process few times in the past. N is a freaking optimist and full of courage. N also has other special skill which can be useful in a Form Storm. Whatever. It might be something else. Bear with me, please.

I suggest we do a hangout on that any time soon, before I completely drown in vagueness of my posts here. I promise to be clear during hangout.

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Not vague at all

@k11, I get it. This is clear, and makes perfect sense. It seems we have another candidate sociotech innovation, just like the community call and the Twitterstorm. We should try it – or rather YOU should, because I don’t want to be in conflict of interest.

Not easy to design it, though. A Google Doc per project, with a shared chat to coordinate (“X, please come on project 1, we have a question for you”)? Or even without, with people simply keeping six or seven project GoogleDoc in as many browser tabs, and bouncing around them? Or coordinate on Twitter + hashtag?

This is so interesting. Wheee! :slight_smile:

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Storm attempt of prototyping&infrastructuring

This is probably the best complement I got sinse a while “@k11, I get it. This is clear”. (thanks, Alberto! +that kind of hug)

So far, the step I see to get to the eye of the Form Storm is to prototype it asap. I’ll try to do that around next week. During the prototyping I want to have a look at multiplatformness. The important thing that I would like to keep in mind and I believe in is that simplicity beats features. So the multiplatformness test is to make sure that features don’t beat the simplicity. I’ll stick to those we’re using so far.

• Lets say during the actual Strom: 1 google doc per project where the application is to be filled. One hashtag (formstorm) on twitter for quick communication/pinging. Google Hangout for discussion is small groups, Skype for one on one conversation if needed.

• Prior to Storm:

  • One Doc (or post) describing in a short and comprehensible way what the hell is the Form Storm for and about, and who is envolved and why. (I’ll work on it, shall pray for clarity of expression)

- popplet if required (for those like me who are into mindmapping) - it can be The General One Something Like That + 1 per application, or more, or less. Or non. + Pads or/and more googledocs

• If someone who has more wisdom about the ER taskmanager jumps in, will be cool. I don’t feel particularily confident with this beast yet, but willing to go there if buddy up with someone (inhibition from diving, I suppose)

The next, or a parallel step can be some kind of infrastructuring. I would like to figure out who is in and who does what, and how people are linked to projects ans processes. I probably wouldn’t be able to grasp it all, but the rough idea or a mindmap of these, to me is probably is the most important step to insure the balance between simplicity and features.

• Again The General One Something Like That popplet might be useful to see who are the people, what are they doing, and other related stuff (I can look at and refresh my understanding of all this craziness)

• I have to be transparent about the fact that I will be missing out on a lot of relevant stuff, so if people who know stuff relevant to the Form Storm will be pinging me, it will be very very handy. And if people knowing other people whom I should be pinging will tell them to ping me and/or send them to the popplet. For shorter messages/pointing direction towards relevant stuff the easiest for me will be @ed on twitter. Longer chunks of info for example with multiple links - email. Adding to the general popplet.

Please, add elements which are leading towards the transformation into a superorganism which (not me) will be doing the Form Storm.

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Yes, I’m in!!

This is a great idea, and boy don’t we know help with completing funding applications would come in handy ?:))

I’m up for helping both as a participant in the storm and also if you need another hand with designing a process and call for participation. Michael, Dorotea and David have suggested a post Lote3 community call and hangout this Tuesday at 12 pm, would you be available? https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/crhkaecsiu35pqvjac26dlce5ng?cfem=1

I agree with the idea of multiplatformness and testing different channels to coordinate, however i’m in doubt about the privacy issue: would most people be ok with sharing their work-in-progress online and linking to it throughout the web as part of the coordination and collaboration work? especially if it’s a competition based on ideas, like EU Social Innovation? i honestly don’t know, just putting it out there for consideration…

Looking forward to this, let’s do it :slight_smile:

 

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fund application formfilling activity

This is cool: my vague language lead to several interesting interpretations.

One is creating forms for internal communication (@nadia’s comment) - it actually gave me a couple of ideas on what kind of internal communication forms I would like to create.

Another one (and one I was thinking of originally while writing this post) is the mutual-supportish/constructive critique/getting-things-done online event dedicated to applications for funds. @fortyfoxes’ suggestion is to focus on one with the deadline Dec the 12th (brief info on that will be helpful, so we can proceed with the storm)

It can also include other applications, if anyone has something in mind (project&possible source of support), and want comments from the edgeryder-platformers for the reason of feeling stuck, or for any other reasons.

So my suggestion: any of us, who come across this post and want to build a formstorm, can have a look inside of their head for whatever projects they would like to realise. And for possible means to realise them projects apart from individual craze; such as, for example, an afore mentionned call for applications.

Then we choose a date and get it done in a 12, 24, 48 hours or may be 1hour 15min.

Glossary: (…as far as I get it)

formstorm - online hackatonlike fund application formfilling activity with hangouts, pads&docs, popplets, people, edgeryder platform and a lot of swearing.

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Form Storm: Collaboratively going after EU funding

Group, process, wikis and spreadsheets and checklists for collaboratively building and submitting EU Research Funding and Tendering funding applications: If we have a core of things that Edgeryders can offer, and spreadsheets to calculate budgets for each one, then we can enter several calls, offering basically the same things presented slightly differently in each call. If we actually win one or more calls the people driving each application can coordinate with each other to ensure:

  • the activities are as aligned as possible with initiatives/projects that community members are excited about working on, and generate revenue for them where possible
  • activities complement each other in terms of timing, input and output 
  • that work is done as cost effectively as possible (without underpaying people) and any surplus after running costs are covered goes back into community e.g. in form of travel fund for events.

I have just returned from Vilnius where I participated in the presentation of a set of funding programs called Horizon 2020: the Eu’s new program for research and innovation. It’s an event where the funding body describes what they will be focusing on in the different funding calls, and where representatives of different organisations meet to find organisations to apply for funding with (usually you need to be part of something called a consortium to be eligible for funding).

After going to the various sessions and speaking to some people I met while there, I think it may make sense to go about testing the above strategy on this round of calls which opens in December (and which we would need to start preparing for from now).

So I’ve set up a group for everyone who wants to try it out together here: https://edgeryders.eu/horison-2020-eu-funding-application-collaboration-space

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Group Access

Nadia, I can’t enter the group and am forwarded to a Access Denied page. Is that easy to fix? I’m happy to contribute to a useful application basis. Could jump in around the beginning of Dec. Would like to push on the combinations of topics like e.g. Climate, GMO, (Bio)Diversity, Health, Youth, Fair Business… What do you think about a short ER questionnaire where we could get an overview from the community?

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Hey, Caroline

Hey,  I had this before: try to click around and enter from different sides. I didnt create any closed groups, if you’re talking about Form Storm, I’m sure. It will be great if you join in! Lets make a hangout this week? 14th-16th, someth like that. I want to prototype the FormStorm this week to see how it goes and ways to run it smoothly. Any thoughts on forms themselves or the format of the event, please, ping me!

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Closed so search engines dont pick up work in progress

The group is focused on getting work done and needs to be accessible only to people working on the specific applications. Because the processes are competitive and entries should not leak to others applying for the same call until after the closing date when everything has been submitted. Anyone who wants to join in on the work can email me: nadia@edgeryders.eu.

Caroline I’ve already added you so you should be able to access it now.

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Thanx, Nadia.

Which group you guys mean, by the way? Can you add me too, plz, if it’s a FormStormy one. Or am I in?

And what about a hangout? Would you like one? Make it 14th of Nov?

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it’s the one for Horison 2020 applications

here, this one: https://edgeryders.eu/horison-2020-eu-funding-application-collaboration-space

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sweet

Thanx. I’m in, whatever I can do, and however a FormStorm activities might be helpful.