🌈 Unconference Chat! 📣

[julianpistorius]

This is a running, general chat about the unconference day of the 2024 festival.

Why?

To make the unconference day of this year's festival fantastically fun & enriching!

Who?

• Any unconference-curious people
• Aspiring attendees, presenters, and facilitators of the unconference day

How?

Jump in with your ideas and questions (in true meta-unconference style 😆).

What?

End up with a flexible framework with clear expectations to encourage spontaneous, organic, peer-to-peer sharing of ideas.

[julianpistorius]

I volunteered to create a poll for selecting the unconference format, with explanations and examples to help folks choose: #9

@lwdozal I would really appreciate a sanity check of what I come up with.

[julianpistorius]

@lwdozal could you please check the poll blurb to see if it makes sense? (before we promote it widely) #20

[Aariq]

Hello 👋! I'm hoping to lead some sort of discussion on improving adoption of reproducible research practices in academic lab groups. I'm interested in figuring out what the barriers are, how to lower them, and how to improve group buy-in. @lossanna is interested in helping out with this topic also.

[julianpistorius]

We're chatting on Zoom tomorrow (Friday) at 3pm MST. Send me a DM if you did not get a calendar invite and you're interested in joining.

We'll also catch up at Hacky Hour today.

See some of y'all today & tomorrow! 👋

[julianpistorius]

Schedule

The plan is to have three sessions on the unconference day, Thursday May 16:

• 09:00am-10:30am Speed Geeking: Similar to speed dating, but for presentations. Quick exposure to a range of topics.
• 10:30am-12:00pm Lightning Talks: Quick, 5-minute presentations allowing a wide range of topics to be covered rapidly.
• 01:30pm-03:30pm Birds-of-a-Feather Sessions: Informal discussions for those with shared interests, without a set agenda.

Explanation of the events

Speed geeking is a method where participants can quickly experience several presentations within a set time. Presenters are positioned around a room, and small groups of audience members rotate among them. Each presenter has about five minutes for their presentation and Q&A before the audience moves to the next presenter. This format is similar to speed dating and is useful in events like ResBazAZ to allow for rapid, diverse exposure to a wide range of topics or research in a short amount of time. For more details, you can visit the Speed geeking page on Wikipedia.

Lightning talks are brief presentations, usually around five minutes, offered in quick succession during a conference segment. This format requires speakers to be concise, allowing them to communicate their main points efficiently and enabling a wide range of topics to be covered in a short time. For ResBazAZ, lightning talks could be a great way for participants to share their research findings or insights on digital tools quickly, making it possible to expose attendees to a broad array of ideas and projects in a limited timeframe. For more details, you can visit the Lightning talk page on Wikipedia.

A "birds-of-a-feather session" refers to an informal discussion group at a conference, where people with a shared interest gather without a pre-set agenda. This format allows attendees to spontaneously form groups around specific research interests or digital tools, fostering organic conversations and networking opportunities. For more details, you can visit the Birds-of-a-feather session definition on Wiktionary.

Next steps

• Confirm topics for people who have already indicated that they want to present
• Decide on mechanisms for people to self-organize and add their presentation/session to the unconference roster. This would be digital (e.g. Google Sheet) and then switch to physical on the day (e.g. sticky notes on a white board)
• Solicit more presenters/sessions

Have I missed anything?

[julianpistorius]

I had forgotten that @brandon-jernigan suggested we reformat Speed Geeking to be 1:1. I think this would be a great way to start the day.

[julianpistorius]

I think what @brandon-jernigan was imagining (and correct me if I'm wrong) is that participants are paired and given a set time (say 5 minutes each.) During this, one person, the "geek," talks about their passion, expertise, or research on a topic they know well. The other, the "audience," asks questions and learns about the topic quickly. When the timer ends, they switch roles. This gives people a chance to both share and learn, and creating new connections in the ResBaz 'social network'. We can probably switch pairs 7-8 times in 90 minutes.

What do folks think?

[julianpistorius]

What do people think about having an 'open' fishbowl conversation during lunch? It is like an unmoderated panel with space to invite audience members into the conversation.

From the poll:

A fishbowl conversation is a dialog format suitable for large groups, often used in participatory events such as unconferences. It involves a small group of participants in an inner circle (the 'fishbowl'), discussing a topic, while the rest of the participants sit outside and listen. In an open fishbowl, an empty chair is left for any audience member to join the conversation, while in a closed fishbowl, a set group speaks before leaving for a new group. This method promotes democratic participation and equalizes the roles of speakers and listeners, making it a great fit for ResBazAZ's inclusive and interactive atmosphere. For more details, you can visit the Fishbowl conversation page on Wikipedia.

[lwdozal]

I like this idea!

[julianpistorius]

@bjoyce3 did you locate a template for lightning talks?

[bjoyce3]

Yessir. I'll need to update my slide as well but here's the template: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CThGaSZwf22YpDlSVslYthLI-lmj-UZseKDWBHbOa40/edit?usp=sharing

[julianpistorius]

Thank you @bjoyce3!

[julianpistorius]

Following up:

• @Aariq Did you send a message to the CCT Fall Workshop Attendees?
• @kepplerm Did you send a message to the postdocs?
• @ejahnUA Are you the Instagram point person? Have you sent anything about the unconference in that direction?
• @lwdozal What are we missing?

[kepplerm]

Hi! yes I did and I saw the festival also being advertised on the postdoc email list. But I'm happy to send a reminder and extend to some more channels today.

[lwdozal]

Do we have someone to do the welcome orientation?

I'm going to send out one last email blast tomorrow (or Tuesday if needed) to get people to sign-up and provide some logistics. I can make this email more descriptive, or I can just send them to the website ... or somewhere in the middle?

[Aariq]

Yes, I did email the CCT Fall workshop attendees last week. Haven't heard anything back from anyone either way (except for a few automated responses from folks who have since graduated), but hopefully some will attend!

[julianpistorius]

Whatever you two three did brought in a bunch of new registrations.

@bjoyce3 will be doing the welcome orientation.