Summary of unMonastery/LOTE Community Call #2
Today’s call was characterised by high energy, plenty of actions points and a full house - it quickly filled up and we had to split the call due to the 10 person limit. This call was aimed at boasting and shaping the unMonastery track for LOTE3, we covered a full range of subjects.
Present were: Antonio Elettrico, Nadia E., Alberto Cottica, rita orlando, Farine Zero Zero, Francesco Cingolani, Dorotea Mar, Noemi Salantiu, Håvard Tunheim, Vinay Gupta, Auli Kütt, David Ridge, Kathleen Murray Cassidy and myself.
From a personal perspective it feels that the unMonastery in the past weeks has begun to pick up real momentum, with the adoption of roles and with pledges of commitment from those in the EdgeRyders community and newcomers - we’re very close to establishing a team that can drive the project forward and in new positive directions.
Going forward unMonastery community calls will be 11AM CET Mondays every week - LOTE3 community calls will be on Fridays.
Points covered in the call were as follows.
The unMonastery Track, Session Proposals - LOTE:
- Nadia and Alberto are currently in Matera and have met with a number of local individuals and groups - we need to develop a series of call to actions, so that we can loop them in. To achieve this we need to firm up the tracks and sessions, so they can be shared directly.
- One of the core tracks for the unMonastery day of LOTE3 will focus on the co-design of the unMonastery both architecturally/physically and culturally (the unRule) - Action: Ben to organise a call between Francesco (who has volunteered himself to take the role of Facilitator of Design and Dispersion), Andrea (CASA NEUTRAL), Antonio (MIMERS) and Bembo. To firm up the details.
- Alberto signalled the potential involvement of Costantino Bongiorno who has recently established a hub space in Milan and specialises in hardware hacking - I’m following this up.
- Alberto has connected me to Zoe Romano founder of the amazing OpenWare project, who I skyped with shortly after the community call and she is keen to develop a co-design workshop focused on the clothing of the unMonasterians. We'll have a blogpost about it on EdgeRyders sometime soon!
- Applications from the international call will form a core track for the unMonastery day - we’ve still to determine which ones but this will happen soon after the peer review process of the call.
- It was suggested that there are existing proposals within LOTE3 that may fit better in the unMonastery track.
- These notes from Bembo were shared in the agenda, outlining a first parse at the meta-framing and concerns of the unMonasteries approach to LOTE3: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZHDkxlfDYmP0Qo-zHVuPa-f2_VOADhfgvyO6MDNulAY/edit
Previous Actions Points from Monday’s call:
Logistics
- Status update on the building is coming from Antonio, hopefully today.
- We need a shuttle service, between Bari and Matera.
Roles:
- Fabio and Ilaria have paired up to adopt the role of Facilitator for Communication and Community
- Francesco has designated himself Facilitator of Design and Dispersion
- David Ridge put himself forward as a highly qualified meet and greeter, highlighting he is well equipped to contribute at least a session to the burning edge track - as well as offering support to existing roles within unMonastery - we’re meeting on the 9th in London, if anyone else can join.
- Dorotea has offered to support any aspect of the unMonastery for love of the project, specialising in psychology, perhaps pairing with David could lead to interesting things?
- If you would like to create a role come forward on this post and tell us all about it: /t/unmonastery/315/the-unmonastery-the-space-and-co-design-in-matera
Bring back the crazy:
- Establish a call to focus on the things we love doing, the high energy and free flowing enthusiasm that makes EdgeRyders fun.
Communication and Promotion of unMonastery & LOTE3:
- Basic approach to promoting the project is being discussed here: /t/unmonastery/315/circulating-unmonastery-lets-push-things-forward
- We desperately need to write a press release, so that we can syndicate to journalists for easy news stories and coverage. I was advised that the number one rule for journalists is treat them as being lazy - we need to spoonfeed the story they ‘write’.
- We need a press kit - containing all material. In addition we need to bring together preformatted presentations so that people can give keynotes at conferences on the concept.
- PRESS CONFERENCE - idea to stage a PRESS CONFERENCE online. Needs to happen soon, Ben and Nadia to take the lead in writing a post and building momentum - filming etc.
- We need a digital badge and avatar design for the unMonastery website that people can share.
- We should begin producing one minute videos highlighting exciting happenings on EdgeRyders after each community call, Ben to produce the first example after Monday’s call on unMonastery.
Technical, functionality ideas and more on the EdgeRyders Platform:
- The site can be difficult for newcomers, or even long time infrequent users, functionality is always being improved - suggestion to produce a 5-7 minute screencast explaining functionality and what it’s all about.
- Private Tours - Dorotea, came up with the amazing idea that we should offer private tours of the site and how it works, with a ‘Call a Human’ button on the front page.
Alberto reinforced this by saying “a key feature of EdgeRyders.eu is that you are never alone, algorithms will never do our work for us” - which could become a byline. ‘EdgeRyders: Because you’re never alone’ ? ‘EdgeRyders run by humans not algorithms’ (would make a good sticker). Anyway…
Hopefully this covers everything. Lots of things need doing, dive in? And please highlight anything I may have missed - we covered a lot.
