During last week’s community call (This was actually a month ago now, only posting now) I had a realisation, having taken a step back to think about how LOTE has come together in the past and considering my own motivations for attending events or conferences.
It seems clear to me, that what draws people towards LOTE is not necessary the content but rather the people, and the scale of thinking or desire/ability to build something meaningful collectively. Everyone seems to favour a co-produced session over a fixed teacher pupil relationship. Reflecting on LOTE1, I was reminded of the session Smari suggested ‘can the internet build big things’ – a lot of people turned up, Smari didn’t have anything other than the title to structure the session - but it turned into one of most fruitful sessions
In recognising the potential for the high density of smart, capable and willing people planning on attending LOTE3, it seems logical to me to lay out some of the fundamental questions and building blocks that have yet to be built for the unMonastery in the form of skeletal session proposals, for others to run with. I’m not proposing to run or facilitate each and every one of these, what I’m suggesting is there are very able facilitators within the community that have the desire to contribute to the project, this is the most straightforward way in which I can imagine this happening.
Hopefully by merging the conversations that have been happening around unMonastery into a series of potential sessions, there will be sufficient appetite for developing each of them further prior to the conference.
Because conversation is often easier than delivering quantifiable outcomes, I’ve laid out a provisional structure of each session, which goes something like this:
- Outline / Rationale.
- Key Questions the session seeks to answer.
- Reference Points (existing projects and concepts that are relevant)
- Outcomes (Actionables and real usable stuff)
- Needs (What does the session require in order to happen)
- Ideal Facilitator (Each session focuses on differing areas of expertise, thus a specialised knowledge base on the part of the facilitator can greatly improve the quality of the session)
Here’s links to the sessions I’ve outlined and uploaded so far:
Future Thought: The unMonastery’s 200 year trajectory.
Infrastructural implications of the unMonastery
Replicating unMonastery: Pattern languages and unMonastery in-a-box
What can unMonastery learn from the ancient past? [Haven’t written yet]
What can unMonastery learn from the recent past? Social Centers, Hackerspaces, Squats and the communes. [Haven’t written yet]