Help get the call for projects page finished so we can launch!

Workspaces LOTE4 “The Stewardship”
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Ok we’ve decided that we are going ahead and prototyping the new format for LOTE events. To get it started we need to put together a page calling for projects.

That page needs to describe the process very clearly.

My suggestions for what information the page should include:

[a beautiful photo with people in it]

A paragraph calling for projects and describing the format (without introducing the term “harmonious hackathon” as any new terms/branding require additional explanations and alot of additional pr work etc)

What you can expect from the process:

  • What is unique about what we are offering? The twitter pitch to great people running great projects who could use some help, are stretched thin for time/money and have valuable skills/experience to offer others
  • Open to what kinds of projects? What are your criteria (esp. James) for projects that you are willing to help.
  • Who will be participating? LOTE will be bringing together an unusual mix of people who build things with their own hands and state level actors, so you get access both to the grassroots experiencers and skills, and the perspectives of stakeholders whom you are likely to interact with/ affect your work on some level.
  • Process will be open source, prepared online here [], and require the following things from you:
  • If you want to support any particular project or the process as a whole you can: do x (url), y (url), z (url).

The program team will evaluate and develop proposals here (url):

Background

The harmonious hackathon concept and the corresponding online-offline workshop methodology is being developed by members of the Edgeryders community. After 10 years of participating in, evaluating and designing multiple open innovation event formats we feel the time has come to step up the game. It today is offered by Edgeryders LBG ( uk registered not for profit ) as an element in dedicated events or as part of larger conferences.

More information about this approach is available here (url):

Schedule

July 20, 2014: Submissions accepted

August 20, 2014: Submissions deadline for “Call for Projects”

August 30, 2014: Notification of accepted “projects”

October 1, 2014: Registration deadline for project teams (owners + people committed to work on them during event)

October 15 to October 23: Pre-conference project development sessions at the unMonastery, Matera in Italy.                                                                                                                                                           October 23 to October 26: LOTE conference at the unMonastery, Matera in Italy.

Further information: For further information regarding this “call for projects” and to get early feedback whether your challenge is suited for the conference, please contact James Lewis at

Format for Project Submissions:

1. Contact data Only project proposals submitted by individuals with filled in personal profiles will be considered for a slot.

  1. Project title and URL 

Describe your project in few words. Don’t forget to include a link to a website or github repository if you have one.

  1. Project Context.

Briefly explain the story behind your project and why it matters to you. As well as an important problem or challenge your project is facing within its context. If it is financing, please describe what it is you think you need financing for and how it would be used to towards your project’s ability to work better or more efficiently. We do not offer funding, however if your project is selected into the LOTE program it will recieve in kind support from skilled participants. 

  1. Current understanding.

Explain what you know about the problem your project is trying to solve, its effect, what you found, your assumptions, your previous ideas (discarded or best) in a matter of research, experiments and/or observations.

  1. What is sought, what are key requirements of a good solution?

Provide some solution constraints (technological, manufacturing, applicability, economic, organizational, cultural, social, politic, etc.) based on your needs. List your questions. What would be criteria for a good solution to your project’s challenges? 

Submission Deadline: August 20, 2014

Submit proposals as posts in the LOTE4 group on Edgeryders (You need to be signed in to do this, if you don’t already have an account you can get one here)

For more information contact James Lewis at

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Possibly if we have time, a banner for FB events etc

Edgeryders_LivingOnTheEdge_LOTE4_VisualProfile.png1800×3395 146 KB

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HH Concept & Process

This is a write up of a conversation I had with Nadia where we brain stormed on how to curate HH’s.

This doc available on Hackpad here: Dropbox Paper . If there’s a better way to do this through the ER platform, please let me know.

Harmonious Hackathon
 
  • Summary
  • Enable success in a Hackathon by facilitating working groups focussed on the Mission of the Event, who have successfully worked together prior to the Hackathon starting.
  • Listeners and Editors curate well defined Projects, each with an evocative short Story.
  • Analysts Extract Remote Tasks, to be worked on as a team building exercise before the Hackathon, and Hackathon Tasks, which are worked on on the day. All Tasks have a Skill profile.
  • Attract Collaborators who are engaged and interested in the Mission of the Event, with skills relevant to the Tasks and who are engaged and who are willing to work on Tasks prior to and during the Hackathon.
  • Curate a process/online space whereby Project Stories are published, and Collaborators come together before the Event around the Projects. Make this process cycilcal and self-reinforcing by facilitating the Collaborators engaged with the event to reorganise around emergent groupings of skills or interests to start new Projects, which may then attract new Collaborators, and so on.
  • To encourage consolidation and coherence around specific Projects, set a clear pre-Event time scale. This may include a date by which groups must achieve a token task, and a date on which Collaborators are asked to 'fix' the Projects they will work with at the Hackathon.
 
  • Organisation
Although their role is mainly to facilitate the above Project and Collaborator interaction, the Organisers have the responsibility of setting the theme/subject/goals ('Mission') of the event and providing important information about any structure requirements, conditions as well as the facilities, services that will be available. 
 
  • Process
 
Projects
  • Organisers make a call to Project Owners, around the Mission of the Event (and skillset of Collaborators, if available)
  • Project Owners apply, giving the Story of their Project,  and desired Tasks to achieve before and at the Hackathon.
  • Work with Project Owners to:
  • Refine the Story (through Listener and Editor role), and Tasks (through Requirements Analysis role)
  • Define at least one small 'Remote' Task and one large 'Hackathon' Tasks:
  • Set a date for the Project by which one Remote Task should have been completed, and a minimum skill set of engaged Collaborators required to make the Project Owner feel confident of a productive Hackathon.
  • Publish the Project
  • Curate Collaborators around the Project by matching Collaborator Skill profile with the Task Skill profile
  • Track progress of the Remote Task happening by the set date
  • Organisers make Selection decision on including the Project in the Hackathon
  • If Selected, engage Project Owner and Group, and get consensus on the size and content of the Hackathon Task
 
Collaborators
  • Organisers make a call to Collaborators around the Mission of the Event (and Project Stories, if available)
  • Collaborators apply, giving the skill set
  • Collaborators engage with Project Owners to understand the Story and the requirements of the Tasks by asking Questions
  • Collaborators make a commitment to achieve one or more Remote Task for a specific Project
  • Collaborators work towards a Remote Task.
  • Collaborators make a commitment to achieve one Hackathon Task
  • Organisers or Project Owners make selection decision on Collaborators to invite to Hackathon
 
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This is great! Maybe we can ask for help visualising it!

I’ll post out the call for help.

So next steps. Getting the first stories up?

If you recall we discussed this during the community call on July 3. We agreed that the first step is for us to go out and ask project owners some open questions to help them arrive at a clear, easy to understand presentation of their initiative. As well as identify a clear challenge they have. The outcome of this first phase would be a collection of engaging stories with clear calls to action. The next phase: we then reach out to our networks (networks of hackerspaces, organisers of ccc) and the Internet at large to get inout around the calls to action and hopefully a couple of people who want to help out.

We decided that a sustainable way to do this is in a chain: have the first set of people with projects interview their peers and posts the results here. And then the person interviewed would ask one other person and post their story. And so on.

In order for this to get going we need someone to take the first step. That is compose a few blogposts with the results of this process, and we add the calls to action at the bottom of each of those post. That way people know what is expected (produce something like what they just read). It’s a bit of work but the good news is we wouldn’t be starting from scratch. We already have a number of interviews with community members as well as summaries that @SamM has written and he’s volunteered to help with the Documentation and Storytelling for lote4. Project owners stories, the people and their initiaitves, are a big part of that. So maybe they could help? Also @Inge Snip can point you in the direction of some of the really cool people and project we came across in futurespotters here on the platform.

While you are getting that done then the rest of us can share the work of preparing the rest. We need to:

  1. Construct an initial questionnaire so each of us can go out and interview groups, online and off. Does what I posted above work?

  2. Set up and run a hangout for people to drop in and talk about their projects. For it to pick up it needs to happen every week at the same time, same url. Who can drive this? Im running the general community calls already so it needs to be someone else…

  3. Write the initial call for participation inviting project owners to the hangouts, why we do them and which kinds of projects we are interested in. And give them simple instructions for how to join. It will also need to contain short and concise information about LOTE4 Who can put this together? I started here but got a bit stuck, can someone help please?

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Oh yes also

@Grupo Cooperativo de las Indias too…

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yup!

yes, please feel free to ask me anything about cool futurespotters! :))