The LOTE4 video is now online! Watch it here!

Campfire
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Thank you so much for a beautiful Lote. We finally managed to find the time to really meet one another and have an open conversation(s) about many questions and issues. Including where we want to take things looking forward together.

Before getting into all that, the eagerly anticipated lote4 video by @SamMuirhead!

LOTE4: The Stewardship from Edgeryders on Vimeo.

To honor the care and attention that went into our coming together, we thought it might be a good idea to put together a simple overview to remind us all of what was agreed (before we forget :)) and make it easy for others to contribute towards the shared goals/initiatives. The ethos is if you are interested in something, want to see something improved, or feel something is missing
 get involved. In Edgeryders nothing happens till you say “I would like to do x” :slight_smile:

The big picture: What we agreed on

1. A key aim of Edgeryders is to facilitate and encourage mutual support between community members and collaboration on projects.

So over the next year we are going to focus energy on

A. Harmonious Hackathons: making them happen on a regular basis (several times a year) and making them an economically sustainable line of activity (ensure people organising them are paid). We would do a number of themes one of which could be #HackCare continuing on foundation set at lote4 by @RĂ©my, @Ben and everyone who participated. Interested?

B. Building an Edgeryders home base. We also agreed that we need “our own” space to run events regularly, as hackathons need weeks rather than days to “complete” work. This will make it easier to keep money and time costs at an acceptable level.

C. Edgeryders.eu/ Makerfox integration: the experiment with using barter to build lote4 using makerfox produced promising results. In order for us to use it for more activities the integration with Edgeryders needs to be smoother, so we need to specify what needs to be done and find resources to cover the cost of the work. Ping @Matthias in the Makerfox project if you want to help


D. Building stronger community ties: We aim to grow the number, thickness and quality of Edgeryders community members social ties with each other, members of other communities and networks and with members of organisations with resources and need for their skills/projects.

We will do this online with regularly updated content like Get Back in the Box! and the Making Space series curated by @Bezdomny. If you enjoy writing and editing for the web, please do step forward- we’re trying to build editorial team to create something interesting and economically sustainable together.

When I organise/ participate in physical meetings, I commit to ensure they are properly documented here on the platform so as not to fragment the community or exclude others from the conversations. If you can do the same it would be much appreciated.

2. The unMonastery prototype was successful and we want to continue developing the existing site and set up new ones.

The unMonastery was again a highlight of Lote4, with a lot of reflections. It was agreed that the time is not mature for setting up a separate unMonastery organisation and that Edgeryders LBG should continue to be the “home organisation” for the unMonastery project.

A. Continued presence in the Palazzo Casale complex:  We agreed that the next step would be to produce a credible plan for running the space including revenue streams/fundraising activities in order to present to the Committato Matera2019 before they are dissolved (i.e. before end of the working year). For those interested, @mariabyck, @katalin, @NicoBis and @RitaO are exploring this.

B. New possible unMonastery sites: Edgeryders LBG has been approached by with two requests for new development projects which could involve setting up new unMonastery sites. After discussing the matter with community members in the room one proposal was sent off to Fabrizio Barca.

3. We would like to experiment with different formats for community events

Lote4 was generative at many levels (documentation is available), yet it is an annual sprint of 3 months with over 50 community members collaborating on it and there’s some risk of burnout in the core team. The question is can we look for lighter event formats and teams to drive them?

Proposals ranged from piggybacking existing events and making ourselves visible as “Edgeryders”; to making them more harmonious hackathon focused; to doing a walking format (a long trek and people host conversations while walking or during breaks). The key thing being that whatever the format it has to not exclude people with disabilities if they want to join, and honour the commitment to great documentation.

We have started participating in events where we can support others, and draw support for community members work. Next up: #31c3 in December (@danohu, @msanti, @Dorotea,@cjd , @igel are coordinating here ) and Transmediale in January ( @Kei, @Lauren, @katalin, @elf_Pavlik, @Ben, @James, @Bembo_Davies are driving this). Any other suggestions? Please let other community members know in comments below so everyone can self organise around shared interests.

We’re probably missing a lot of important things, there is a lot going on
 After our conversations we realized there is a huge information asymmetry between those of us who have been involved in Edgeryders for the longest and more recent arrivals. Step one to honoring our pledge to bridge that divide so we have more of a level playing field is now online, and you are most welcome to join the conversation.

Where to begin?

Think about how you can align your own interests and work with any of the above.

Leave a comment below and let’s see what we can do together.

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Proposals of new event formats

Regarding new events formats, do have a look at this ressource:

http://co-creative-recipes.cc/

I have collected over 450 co-creative formats from smalls icebreakers to large flashmobs, it covers a wide range of domains from start-ups to agriculture and you can search by the type of action you want to to do together (#communicate, #think, #produce, #debate, #play 
)

For each format I try to find a recipe and/or a community of practice to make it easier for other groups to copy and reuse the format.

@Nadia : I don’t think this is the right place to write this, but the suggestion link in the newsletter points here. Feel free to move my comment in a more appropriate place.

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Thank you Lilian this is a great contribution

I had started doing some research on Hackathons and this will make my life a lot easier, if I come across anything you’ve missed I’ll let you know so you can add it.

Two questions: is there any of these that you enjoy getting involved in building yourself? and which ones would you say are good at bridging the online offline divide for a community like ours that is spread over many parts of the world?

There are a lot of options to choose from and I think many people in the community have been to different event formats. What makes the decision is when people choose to start working on a format and self-organising


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hackathon

Hi Nadia! The collaborative hackpad from the hack4good people offers nice insights (they organize multiple hackathons across the world). Particularly check out their hackathon ambassador handbook (this was about a global+distributed hackathon on climate change): Dropbox Paper

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Did you attend?

Hi Simone, the page is indeed a super comprehensive overview, thanks! Did it work, this highly distributed, simultaneous effort? curious if you have any insights
 I’m counting about 100 ideas developed but it’s hard to tell which ones are promising and where the effort goes. One of the things we think is special about harmonious hackathons is continuity over time and dedication to see projects growing into something of impact
 Thanks so much for sharing this!

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some ideas


@Nadia: Sorry for late reply, didn’t notice your post.

These days I enjoy building events which mix work, education/mutual improvement, art and fun all in the same time and space.

Can we not only think and discuss but also get into action ? Can we get some people to prepare bread or food for the event while also learning new skills and recipes ? Can we add music to make it more fun ? Can we offer various possibilities for people to contribute and not just one or two ?

Hackathon are great formats formats because they combine several carefully chosen formats in one sequence. But you can design other kind of events that combine several sub-formats; for example a large event can combine:

  • icebreakers to get started
  • a serie of "ignite talks" to set a context in a short and dynamic way (http://www.co-creative-recipes.cc/recipes/ignite/)
  • a "remember the future" to think collectively and create a shared vision (http://www.co-creative-recipes.cc/recipes/remember-the-future/)
  • then end up with a collective work time to produce whatever you want to produce (mapping party, translathon, repair cafĂ©, weed dating ...) (http://www.co-creative-recipes.cc/recipes/repair-cafe/, http://www.co-creative-recipes.cc/recipes/weed-dating/)
  • in the middle you can host a "disco soup" to co-cook in a fun way (http://www.co-creative-recipes.cc/recipes/disco-soupe/)
  • and mix some artistic or body-related (laughter club) formats to promote creativity or relax between intense thinking periods. (http://www.co-creative-recipes.cc/recipes/laughter-club/)

Bridging the Online/offline divide is a big question


First step for me is to look at how to optimize your online meetings. See for example the Co-pomodoro for small working groups (http://www.co-creative-recipes.cc/recipes/co-pomodoro/)

Other thing to explore that look promising:

unhangout, an open source platform for running large scale online un-conferences on top of google hangout (see in the webtools section: http://www.co-creative-recipes.cc/links/webtools/)

how to integrate online and offline meetings. A global event with various local satellite events on the same date seems a good way to start.

See for example the P2P foundation global wikisprint (http://www.co-creative-recipes.cc/recipes/globalp2p-wikisprint/) or Shareable’s Sharing City mapjam (http://www.co-creative-recipes.cc/recipes/share-cities-map-jam/)

Having a short time, a clear superordinate goal (Superordinate Goal - P2P Foundation) where everyone can find a way to participate is a good way to get people together.

You could also have an open video chat between various locations where people physically meet so there 's some feeling of togetherness


Bridging this divide is a big challenge, but I think expanding our “Do-It-Together” vocabulary will make it easier for groups to self-organize. The first step is document our formats to make them shareable (Open Source Recipes to Make Social Innovations More Shareable - Shareable)

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Very nice!

Great work! Indeed, an event like you describe looks super interesting. And the action bias definitely resonates with me, as well as (I think) with the Edgeryders community at large.

The down side is that needs to be big, which in turns means large organizational overheads. How to solve this?

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Shared “Do-It-Together” vocabulary facilitates self-organization

What I described here was for bigger groups, but the same thinking can apply to smaller groups as well, it’s just about design. The group can co-create the design of its own meeting.

For example, ten people can get together to write a book in a “booksprint”, cook for themselves using a “disco soup”-like mode and have “walking meetings” in between for refreshment and creative thinking
 and so on


Again I believe having a shared and large “Do-It-Together” (DIT) vocabulary will facilitate “intentcasting”, self organization of groups and reduce the cost of organization.

If I say “lets play football” or “lets play basketball”, if you know the games we can play immediately together without a need for much discussion and organization. But that implies we both know the game and we use the same name for it (‘football’ or ‘soccer’?).

In regard to this, it’s interesting to note that some formats like barcamps or hackathon have become part of the global culture.

Maybe I’m going too far, but I envision a world where tomorrow we might not only say “let’s brainstorm”, but we could say “let’s makestorm”, “let’s bodystorm”, “let’s rolestorm”, “let’s barcamp”, “let’s hackathon”