Welcome! Will you be joining the Internets & Brusselites at Living on the Edge 5, 25-28 February 2016? It is the fifth edition of the Edgeryders annual gatherings and this year the theme is Fail unfail (more).
This is the place to start. Leave a comment below and tell us something about yourself, anything you want really (make sure you are logged in).
Would love to be a part of this great event - fuckups is what I’m good at and I got lots of stories to share! I’m considering contributing in one of the following ways: organisational tasks, storytelling and leading a community call + document it. Will have more time to look into the options and choose some in the coming weeks.
Question: I’d need a schengen visa to travel, so I’d need you to send me an official invite to apply for a visa. Is that feasible and have you had such a case before?
@Iriedawta I’m anxious to see you again! As for the tasks, you know your way here and how to get started, so we’ll be in touch as soon as you take one on. The most needed ones currently are contributions with stories and what we stand to learn from others’ experiences.
Re visa: with Edgeryders we didn’t issue support letters yet, when conferencing in the Caucasus UNDP would always send the letters to people who needed them. I don’t see any reason why we can’t send you one. Better yet, you draft it according to what’s needed and we will sign it. @Patrick_Andrews will correct me if I’m wrong…
@Noemi I so want to meet you all together again - it’s been 2 years now - the saga continues! Besides, this will be the first time I will be away from my daughter(i basically never left her overnight) but now she is almost done with breastfeeding so I am really really looking forward to treat myself to some quality time in Brussels with Edgeryders!
I already suggested to become a speaker and give a talk about Care at LOTE5 and I can definitely help with logistics/organisation on the ground + cooking please(vegetarian stuff, I’m a mom so I cook all the time, trust me I’m good at that)!
I will also try and find time to share some case studies about fuckups and what we gain from them asap!
Concerning the visa, I will find a sample text for the invite and share with you. Visa issues suck big time, I need to have an account full of money, a stable job with regular income, etc but I am ready to do all the paperwork for the sake of LOTE5 ))
I just hope @Inge can make it too not to have any missing links
Hegazy mentioned needing one also- do we have a template?
@Hegazy maybe contact Patrick directly with information about what you need seeing as this is probably going to come up a lot…maybe even propose a template for the contents of letter?
Ok, this is cheating because I’m part of the organizing team, but seriously, I’m very excited about LOTE5.
I will contribute with communications, practical coordinations, venue searching, partnership hunting, on-site management, I think will guide a bike tour in the green belt around Brussels for those brave enough to face the cold
My latest experience with failure is a funny one. Just now I gave a keynote speech for a client and they weren’t very enthusiast about. BUT I was very happy and still am, I thought that was a damn fine speech. A bit like when you put on an amazing outfit in the morning and it turns out you’re the only who likes it.
Anyways, very much looking forward to meet all the people who will failunfail LOTE5 with us.
I’d like to join the event, and I’d like to help with the visuals in any way I can. I have experienced “failure” and “unfailure” in many different circumstances, both on personal and professional levels. I’m a big fan of explorations, experiments and change, and perhaps pardoxically I’m really scared of failure, although in my experience it has always brought something positive with it. Creative work has taught me that failure sometimes is a big gift, and very beautiful results can come out of what you could consider a mistake and was not what you intended to make.
I’d love to meet the Edgeryders in person and see what can result out of the connections.
Failure just might be one of my favourite modes of operation. I’ll be there for sure. Not sure how best to contribute, but feel free to throw something at me. I’ll try not to fail
One of the conversation/action tracks will be on failures in creative industry. @Matteo_Uguzzoni is taking the lead, but it is the first time for him to be on ER platform. Maybe you can help, and I know with 100% certainty you have some good fleshy material to write a blogpost on your own creative-industry-flanders-fuckup-experiences.
It has been some time since I last posted at ER platform. It was exactly almost two years ago that I first encountered myself with Edgeryders at LOTE 3 in Matera, Italy. The LOTE 3 experience changed my life for the best of course, finding meaning to my work and networks from my interests and a community which is passionate to perform stewardship for all.
In the upcoming LOTE 5, the theme (of Fail unfail) is perfect for me to revitalize myself again from the current projects I am engaged In Europe.
I have added myself in communication and creative industries teams for the lote 5 event, moreover if possible I like to also conduct workshop or hackaton for “online community journalism” - as a case study for Edgeryders.
Hi @aden and welcome back, there’s much need to learn how to do community journalism, especially when most of the time we’re working with little to no comms budget.
As part of the creative industries team, did you see what Matteo is working on? He started from identifying one fail in connecting speakers with their audiences, and has proposed a solution which he is building as we speak. My suggestion for you in order to get down to simple and concrete is to do the same - identify one current fail when it comes to the tools you tried - communication kits, audio documentation of events, community radio - and explain how we could go about solving it starting with Lote5 comms maybe? It’s where we are most short of solutions at the moment… so the timing could not be more right. Then if it works organising a workshop on that in Bxl will be natural. Start from the Creative industries team page and add yourself a new task.
Thanks for the feedback. I saw the posts from Matteo about matching right stories with right audience. I was also thinking the same, to compile all pro’s and failures to the tools i tried before with ER in an interactive manner, which is resulted in developing “Manuals” for becoming ER Community Journalists.
How exactly I will go with this documentation is something I am working at the moment in terms of space, relevance and resources. Will post clearly soon about my plan of action as task under creative industries as you pointed out.
so I drafted a -still to be filled- template for how an invitation letter could look like, via Dropbox here.
In brief, there are 2 sets of information that are important:
Information about the conference:
Real Contact persons with contact information, including at least on person in Belgium with a Belgian phone number.
Registered organisation with contact information and valid address, again preferably in Belgium
A description of the general demographic of attendees
A description of the purpose of the conference
A description of the Agenda of the conference, and what will take place, at what location, and at what time.
2 things matter: That the conference seems serious and legitimate, and that there is someone tangible to contact and some physical place [conference location, organiser office] tangible to account for.
Information specific to each invited attendee:
Name
Country of origin
Passport Number
Reason of attendance
Possibility of funding
Hope that helps?
I will need a letter myself, and will coordinate my personal information via e-mail. Who will handle that?
Good to know you will be coming @Hegazy and thank you for the template. Here’s another version addressed directly to the consular section of the embassy, this is the approx. text of my previous visa support letters. It is very important to mention the inviting party is covering the travel/accommodation expenses specially if you don’t have much money on your account, otherwise you risk being refused, so I’d suggest we have this mentioned even if it’s not the case.
Date:
To: (the consular section of the concerned embassy)
Dear Sirs,
This is to confirm that applicant’s name (date & place of birth, nationality & passport number)has been invited to Lote5 conference as a (speaker on the subject of Syrian refugees in Armenia or other) in Brussels, Belgium between date and date.
The conference accommodations and programming will be located at the [Venue name] at [Venue Address]. Most participants will arrive on 24 February and depart on 29 February.
The travel and accommodation expenses will be covered by [name of the company]. If you require more information about this trip, please contactreference name at name of inviting company on telephone number telephone number of inviting company.
Your kind assistance in approving [name]'s application for a visa would be highly appreciated.
… as soon as we have a venue and you guys know you’re coming. I understand for Hegazy the window is mid December, at which date he will make a call. I’ll be in touch with you two!
I am definitely coming if I get at least partial coverage of my travel costs. I will either represent ARP or just myself and my experience. Will keep you posted.
The earlier we apply for the visa the better I guess, right @Hegazy? When do you plan to apply?
