Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
I am thinking about: Hotel Voltaire Republique which I think is fairly close to Sean's house. Am I right about it being a good location? http://www.hostelbookers.com/property/reviews/index.cfm?fuseaction=accommodation.searchisdynamic=1strsearchby=propertystraccommodationtype=hostelsintdestinationid=1069strdestination=parisstrdestinationparent=intnights=10intpeople=1dtearrival=15%2f05%2f2009intpropertyid=19521strTab=reviews On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 4:46 PM, Nicolas Thill nicolas.th...@gmail.comwrote: Hi Marten, I would recommend the Montclair Hostel in the same neighbourhood (http://www.montclair-hostel.com/) which might be cheaper (there are rooms and dorms) and is on a straight bus line to La Cantine. Let us know if that works for you Regards, -- Nico Marten Vijn wrote: On Mon, 2009-05-04 at 14:39 +0200, Bastien wrote: Hello, Yhank for the tip, If you are not afraid of youth hostels, this one is good/affordable: Woodstock Hostel: http://www.woodstock.fr is booked, is this one nearby? http://www.caulaincourt.com/fr/hotel.htm thanks, Marten It is 10 min by foot from LaCantine, the place where the SugarCamp will be held. I will gather recommendations from other OLPC France members and post it somewhere uesful on our wiki. Best, -- Caroline Meeks Solution Grove carol...@solutiongrove.com 617-500-3488 - Office 505-213-3268 - Fax ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
Marten Vijn i...@martenvijn.nl writes: Woodstock Hostel: http://www.woodstock.fr is booked, is this one nearby? http://www.caulaincourt.com/fr/hotel.htm Yes. Anything in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 9th, 10th, 18th district of Paris is quite close to the place. -- Bastien ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
Hi David the list, I won't say there's good public transportation: there are no trains between 23h30 PM to 05h30 AM, but you're welcome to stay :) Sure it might sound familiar, Philippe Langlois was as at WinterCamp and he should be here, as well as other members of the /tmp/lab crew, hope to see you there ! -- Nico David Farning wrote: Does it have good public transportation to the site? If so, this sounds great for the smaller days around the official OLPC France event. BTW, were you at wintercamp in Amsterdam? /temp/lab/ sounds familiar but I can figure out why:) David On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 2:42 PM, Nico n...@openwrt.org wrote: Hi Chris, Christoph Derndorfer wrote: With regards to logistics I was wondering where we'll have the meetings, I assume the location that OLPC France is providing is only available on Saturday? Are there any hacker-spaces, apartments, whatever that we can occupy while we're there? Here at the /tmp/lab we can offer the full space for whatever meeting you're planning to setup. Remember that /tmp/lab is in Vitry-sur-Seine, roughtly 45 minutes from SugarCamp at La Cantine. Please le us know if you're interested in :) Waiting to hear from you, -- Nico ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ Grassroots mailing list grassro...@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/grassroots ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
Hi Marten, I would recommend the Montclair Hostel in the same neighbourhood (http://www.montclair-hostel.com/) which might be cheaper (there are rooms and dorms) and is on a straight bus line to La Cantine. Let us know if that works for you Regards, -- Nico Marten Vijn wrote: On Mon, 2009-05-04 at 14:39 +0200, Bastien wrote: Hello, Yhank for the tip, If you are not afraid of youth hostels, this one is good/affordable: Woodstock Hostel: http://www.woodstock.fr is booked, is this one nearby? http://www.caulaincourt.com/fr/hotel.htm thanks, Marten It is 10 min by foot from LaCantine, the place where the SugarCamp will be held. I will gather recommendations from other OLPC France members and post it somewhere uesful on our wiki. Best, ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
On Wed, 2009-05-06 at 16:56 -0400, Caroline Meeks wrote: I am thinking about: Hotel Voltaire Republique which I think is fairly close to Sean's house. Am I right about it being a good location? http://www.hostelbookers.com/property/reviews/index.cfm?fuseaction=accommodation.searchisdynamic=1strsearchby=propertystraccommodationtype=hostelsintdestinationid=1069strdestination=parisstrdestinationparent=intnights=10intpeople=1dtearrival=15%2f05%2f2009intpropertyid=19521strTab=reviews nice one, booked this one for me and Reinder. about 1000-1500 meters walk... thanks, Marten -- http://martenvijn.nl Marten Vijn http://martenvijn.nl/trac/wiki/soas Sugar on a Stick http://bsd.wifisoft.org/nek/ The Network Event Kit http://har2009.org 13th-16th August http://opencommunitycamp.org 26th Jul - 2nd August ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
Hi Chris, Christoph Derndorfer wrote: With regards to logistics I was wondering where we'll have the meetings, I assume the location that OLPC France is providing is only available on Saturday? Are there any hacker-spaces, apartments, whatever that we can occupy while we're there? Here at the /tmp/lab we can offer the full space for whatever meeting you're planning to setup. Remember that /tmp/lab is in Vitry-sur-Seine, roughtly 45 minutes from SugarCamp at La Cantine. Please le us know if you're interested in :) Waiting to hear from you, -- Nico ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
Does it have good public transportation to the site? If so, this sounds great for the smaller days around the official OLPC France event. BTW, were you at wintercamp in Amsterdam? /temp/lab/ sounds familiar but I can figure out why:) David On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 2:42 PM, Nico n...@openwrt.org wrote: Hi Chris, Christoph Derndorfer wrote: With regards to logistics I was wondering where we'll have the meetings, I assume the location that OLPC France is providing is only available on Saturday? Are there any hacker-spaces, apartments, whatever that we can occupy while we're there? Here at the /tmp/lab we can offer the full space for whatever meeting you're planning to setup. Remember that /tmp/lab is in Vitry-sur-Seine, roughtly 45 minutes from SugarCamp at La Cantine. Please le us know if you're interested in :) Waiting to hear from you, -- Nico ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
From where I'm standing it looks as though we should have 3 full days to get things done, with Friday - May 15 - being the arrival day for many people and therefore more aimed at socializing and whatnot. Saturday, 16th: To me this day should really be about the OLPC France event, listening to what they have to say, doing short intros of what everyone is working on and generally supporting them with whatever means required. Sunday, 17th and Monday, 18th: Focused on all-things-sweet! While I really did enjoy the FUDCon way of doing things I personally think this approach is overkill considering we'll probably only be 10 to 15 people... In the spirit of cross-pollination I also think that splitting people into too many sub-groups is a potential pitfalls. Especially since most of us are involved with Sugar and OLPC in more than one way, often covering several bases and topics. Therefore I'd rather prefer to start the first day with a broader session where people explain what topics (from the list David mentioned below, http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Marketing_Team/Events/MiniCamp_Paris_2009/Schedule#Requested_topics and other thoughts) they want to discuss and then taking it from there. If that means many small groups, hands-on coding or whatever: fine. If we decide that sticking together in one room and jointly discussing the various things on our mind: Just as fine. Also on a more personal note I really hope for Sugar Camp Paris to enable us to have a broad discussion about where Sugar should be heading over the next 6 to 12 months and in particular talking about Sugar 0.86 and what features people would like to see included in it. The desire to discuss this comes from a slight confusion about what to expect for the remaining months in 2009 because apart from SoaS and improved platform-independence we somewhat seem to lack a set of well-defined objectives and thoughts about how to reach them (aka a real roadmap). As always, let me know what you think. Cheers, Christoph David Farning schrieb: My guess base on attendees currently listed. We will have sessions in a number of different, often over lapping, tracks: Developer Marketing Education Community Building Business models/funding Developers will break down into separate sessions such as: Options for supporting existing deployment. Goals for .86 API stability ... Marketing will include General marketing strategy Engaging developers ... And so forth... If we have two or three sessions at a time there will be 3 to 5 people per session. Since this is a single Day, I suggest we make it a marathon. -- Meet at 8am to plan sessions and have coffee. Start the sessions at 9am with each running an hour. Break for lunch. Go until 5 or 6 pm Break for dinner. Spend the evening informally talking over what we worked on and overall project goals and exchanging war stories. -- david On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 2:07 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com wrote: David, Given that we have a one-day event (assuming the OLPC France agenda is addressing a different constituency, how would be best build in the notion of period caucusing to revisit the agenda that occurs in the multi-day FUDCON meetings? -walter On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 1:34 PM, David Farning dfarn...@sugarlabs.org wrote: On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 7:05 AM, Caroline Meeks solutiongr...@gmail.com wrote: Hi David, I was extremely disappointed in our last two SugarCamps. Rather then coming together as a community with shared goals, I got the feeling that we were just a bunch of people gathered in a room; each trying to push their own agenda. The turning point for me was when a scheduled speaker said, 'God Damn It. This is my hour and now YOU have to listen to ME.' I think we are in violent agreement here. Please go back and reread your response to my suggestion that we use protocols and I'll walk you through my thinking. Actually, I believe we are in complete agreement. We just differ in implementation and enforcement:) First, I think its extraordinarily important that we appreciate what an effective organization we are. Especially in our distance communications. David really covers that well in his response to my protocols post. We are doing a lot of things right and getting good results. Releases, publicity and much positive interest and increasing attention. The rest is of the post is going to be a long meandering digression into community building, group dynamics and setting mutual goals. If you are not to such things, the following is no more than psycho babble which has no more effect on your daily life than what Michelle Obama wore yesterday. 1. The protocols (like bylaw and trademark policies) themselves don't really matter. Every minute spent working on them is a sunk cost... because it take time and emotion away
Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 13:01, Christoph Derndorfer e0425...@student.tuwien.ac.at wrote: From where I'm standing it looks as though we should have 3 full days to get things done, with Friday - May 15 - being the arrival day for many people and therefore more aimed at socializing and whatnot. Saturday, 16th: To me this day should really be about the OLPC France event, listening to what they have to say, doing short intros of what everyone is working on and generally supporting them with whatever means required. Sunday, 17th and Monday, 18th: Focused on all-things-sweet! While I really did enjoy the FUDCon way of doing things I personally think this approach is overkill considering we'll probably only be 10 to 15 people... In the spirit of cross-pollination I also think that splitting people into too many sub-groups is a potential pitfalls. Especially since most of us are involved with Sugar and OLPC in more than one way, often covering several bases and topics. Therefore I'd rather prefer to start the first day with a broader session where people explain what topics (from the list David mentioned below, http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Marketing_Team/Events/MiniCamp_Paris_2009/Schedule#Requested_topics and other thoughts) they want to discuss and then taking it from there. If that means many small groups, hands-on coding or whatever: fine. If we decide that sticking together in one room and jointly discussing the various things on our mind: Just as fine. Also on a more personal note I really hope for Sugar Camp Paris to enable us to have a broad discussion about where Sugar should be heading over the next 6 to 12 months and in particular talking about Sugar 0.86 and what features people would like to see included in it. The desire to discuss this comes from a slight confusion about what to expect for the remaining months in 2009 because apart from SoaS and improved platform-independence we somewhat seem to lack a set of well-defined objectives and thoughts about how to reach them (aka a real roadmap). Yeah, that's as well my intention. Regards, Tomeu As always, let me know what you think. Cheers, Christoph David Farning schrieb: My guess base on attendees currently listed. We will have sessions in a number of different, often over lapping, tracks: Developer Marketing Education Community Building Business models/funding Developers will break down into separate sessions such as: Options for supporting existing deployment. Goals for .86 API stability ... Marketing will include General marketing strategy Engaging developers ... And so forth... If we have two or three sessions at a time there will be 3 to 5 people per session. Since this is a single Day, I suggest we make it a marathon. -- Meet at 8am to plan sessions and have coffee. Start the sessions at 9am with each running an hour. Break for lunch. Go until 5 or 6 pm Break for dinner. Spend the evening informally talking over what we worked on and overall project goals and exchanging war stories. -- david On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 2:07 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com wrote: David, Given that we have a one-day event (assuming the OLPC France agenda is addressing a different constituency, how would be best build in the notion of period caucusing to revisit the agenda that occurs in the multi-day FUDCON meetings? -walter On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 1:34 PM, David Farning dfarn...@sugarlabs.org wrote: On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 7:05 AM, Caroline Meeks solutiongr...@gmail.com wrote: Hi David, I was extremely disappointed in our last two SugarCamps. Rather then coming together as a community with shared goals, I got the feeling that we were just a bunch of people gathered in a room; each trying to push their own agenda. The turning point for me was when a scheduled speaker said, 'God Damn It. This is my hour and now YOU have to listen to ME.' I think we are in violent agreement here. Please go back and reread your response to my suggestion that we use protocols and I'll walk you through my thinking. Actually, I believe we are in complete agreement. We just differ in implementation and enforcement:) First, I think its extraordinarily important that we appreciate what an effective organization we are. Especially in our distance communications. David really covers that well in his response to my protocols post. We are doing a lot of things right and getting good results. Releases, publicity and much positive interest and increasing attention. The rest is of the post is going to be a long meandering digression into community building, group dynamics and setting mutual goals. If you are not to such things, the following is no more than psycho babble which has no more effect on your daily life than what Michelle Obama wore yesterday. 1. The protocols (like bylaw and trademark policies) themselves don't really matter.
Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
Hi Caroline, Caroline Meeks solutiongr...@gmail.com writes: With regards to logistics I was wondering where we'll have the meetings, I assume the location that OLPC France is providing is only available on Saturday? Are there any hacker-spaces, apartments, whatever that we can occupy while we're there? Have people figured out where they are staying? I'm probably going to try to find a hostel or low-end hotel. If you are not afraid of youth hostels, this one is good/affordable: Woodstock Hostel: http://www.woodstock.fr It is 10 min by foot from LaCantine, the place where the SugarCamp will be held. I will gather recommendations from other OLPC France members and post it somewhere uesful on our wiki. Best, -- Bastien ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
Sorry about the other partial reply. I meant to hit save to gather my thoughts, instead I hit send. On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 4:15 PM, Christoph Derndorfer e0425...@student.tuwien.ac.at wrote: Dear all, with the beginning of Sugar Camp Paris only being 2 weeks away from us I thought it was time to get started on some planning. While the list of attendees (http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Marketing_Team/Events/MiniCamp_Paris_2009/Attendees) is basically a guarantee for an awesome meetup already I think we should discuss what kind of tracks we want to have, who is going to do workshops and talks, what formats we want to have for these sessions, how we can include remote collaborators such as Yama, etc. I also haven't been quite able to find out what the exact plans of OLPC France for Saturday are, we should definitely try to coordinate that as well. For the schedule, I would like to try something complete different than the normal sit in a room and listen to scheduled talks. Instead, I would like to handle the organization similarly to how FudCons are run. I was extremely disappointed in our last two SugarCamps. Rather then coming together as a community with shared goals, I got the feeling that we were just a bunch of people gathered in a room; each trying to push their own agenda. The turning point for me was when a scheduled speaker said, 'God Damn It. This is my hour and now YOU have to listen to ME.' This time, I would like us to come together with no prearranged schedule or agenda. Instead, Saturday the 16th is OLPC France's day. We are there to learn what they are doing. Learn where the interests and goals of our various groups intersect. Learn how we can work together. Then, on Sunday and any additional days we have together we will run SugarCamp like FudCon. 1. We will have multiple meeting places. 2. The days will be divided into one hour time slots. 3. First thing each morning we will get together and people interested in leadings sessions will introduce themselves and their topic. 4. Then we will assign sessions to time slots and meeting places. At any point in the day participants will select which session is most useful and interesting to them. If you find a session uninteresting or not useful please feel free to get up and leave; attend a different session, go in the hall and hack, have lunch. Walter has started a topic request list at http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Marketing_Team/Events/MiniCamp_Paris_2009/Schedule . Pleases add topics which you would like to discuss. we will sort them out on the days of the event. There are no travel stipends for this conference. Everyone who attends has a rather large person investment. So, no open laptops during sessions. This is a time for face to face interactions. david With regards to logistics I was wondering where we'll have the meetings, I assume the location that OLPC France is providing is only available on Saturday? Are there any hacker-spaces, apartments, whatever that we can occupy while we're there? I am counting on Sean's apartment. david Anyway, let me know what you think. Cheers, Christoph -- Christoph Derndorfer co-editor, olpcnews url: www.olpcnews.com e-mail: christ...@olpcnews.com ___ Grassroots mailing list grassro...@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/grassroots ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
Hi David, I was extremely disappointed in our last two SugarCamps. Rather then coming together as a community with shared goals, I got the feeling that we were just a bunch of people gathered in a room; each trying to push their own agenda. The turning point for me was when a scheduled speaker said, 'God Damn It. This is my hour and now YOU have to listen to ME.' I think we are in violent agreement here. Please go back and reread your response to my suggestion that we use protocols and I'll walk you through my thinking. First, I think its extraordinarily important that we appreciate what an effective organization we are. Especially in our distance communications. David really covers that well in his response to my protocols post. We are doing a lot of things right and getting good results. Releases, publicity and much positive interest and increasing attention. I share David's disappointment with the quality of our in person meetings. We are not unique in this. I am in a class that studies School Reform this semester and the teacher spends huge amounts of time observing in schools. He says that 90% of teacher shared planning time and team meetings are like watching paint dry. Its hard to get people who are used to working alone to effectively collaborate in face-to-face groups. It doesn't just happen on its own. However, when it does happen the results and the coefficient on the effects on learning are quite large. So schools are working on this problem with what they call Protocols. I'm not a huge fan of the name. But I am a huge fan of accepting the culture and language of our users and finding what in their existing culture can help us help them use Sugar better. We trying to go into schools and tell them to use Sugar change to constructivism, don't do things the way you have been doing them. That is not a huge recipe for long term success. I'd like to try whenever possible for us to also be learning from schools. In this case both Sugar Labs and Schools have a shared problem. We know our face-to-face group planning time is vital, but its expensive and we are dissatisfied with the results. Caroline ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 7:05 AM, Caroline Meeks solutiongr...@gmail.com wrote: Hi David, I was extremely disappointed in our last two SugarCamps. Rather then coming together as a community with shared goals, I got the feeling that we were just a bunch of people gathered in a room; each trying to push their own agenda. The turning point for me was when a scheduled speaker said, 'God Damn It. This is my hour and now YOU have to listen to ME.' I think we are in violent agreement here. Please go back and reread your response to my suggestion that we use protocols and I'll walk you through my thinking. Actually, I believe we are in complete agreement. We just differ in implementation and enforcement:) First, I think its extraordinarily important that we appreciate what an effective organization we are. Especially in our distance communications. David really covers that well in his response to my protocols post. We are doing a lot of things right and getting good results. Releases, publicity and much positive interest and increasing attention. The rest is of the post is going to be a long meandering digression into community building, group dynamics and setting mutual goals. If you are not to such things, the following is no more than psycho babble which has no more effect on your daily life than what Michelle Obama wore yesterday. 1. The protocols (like bylaw and trademark policies) themselves don't really matter. Every minute spent working on them is a sunk cost... because it take time and emotion away from improving the Sugar Platform. What matters is that we set them and move on to other things. 2. The effectiveness of the Sugar Labs did not just happen. Many people have worked to create and establish the community norms necessary to encourage effective communication and collaboration. I share David's disappointment with the quality of our in person meetings. We are not unique in this. I am in a class that studies School Reform this semester and the teacher spends huge amounts of time observing in schools. He says that 90% of teacher shared planning time and team meetings are like watching paint dry. Its hard to get people who are used to working alone to effectively collaborate in face-to-face groups. It doesn't just happen on its own. However, when it does happen the results and the coefficient on the effects on learning are quite large. I care that in two weeks the participants who make the effort to to attend SugarCamp Paris have the opportunity to spend useful time together. So schools are working on this problem with what they call Protocols. I'm not a huge fan of the name. But I am a huge fan of accepting the culture and language of our users and finding what in their existing culture can help us help them use Sugar better. We trying to go into schools and tell them to use Sugar change to constructivism, don't do things the way you have been doing them. That is not a huge recipe for long term success. I'd like to try whenever possible for us to also be learning from schools. In this case both Sugar Labs and Schools have a shared problem. We know our face-to-face group planning time is vital, but its expensive and we are dissatisfied with the results. 1. _Everyone_ involved in Sugar Labs knows more about their area of specialty then I do. 2. _Everyone_ involved in Sugar Labs is more passionate about their area of specialty than I am. 3. _Everyone_ involved in Sugar Labs is willing to spend more time solving problem in their area of interest than I am. If we accept the notion that the participants are the valuable assets in Sugar Labs, managements job is try to provide the participants with the resource they need to work effectively and then get out of the way. When participants arrive at SugarCamp they will already bring ideas of what they want learn about, talk about, and accomplish. The FudCon approach gives _control_ of the conference back to the participants. The participants set the agenda, the participants decide what sessions to attend, the participants decide what sessions are useful and which are not. There is no man (or mother-ship) setting the agenda and planing the priorities. If three smart passionate people go off and work on a problem, that is much more valuable than 30 bored and angry people fighting for 'airtime.' Three dedicated and motivated people are all that it takes to form a self-sustaining team around a project or feature. I am going to ask you to make a leap up faith and trust me on this one. If it doesn't work we can try something else next time. SugarCamps, like releases, don't need to be perfect, they just need to keep getting better. david ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
David, Given that we have a one-day event (assuming the OLPC France agenda is addressing a different constituency, how would be best build in the notion of period caucusing to revisit the agenda that occurs in the multi-day FUDCON meetings? -walter On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 1:34 PM, David Farning dfarn...@sugarlabs.org wrote: On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 7:05 AM, Caroline Meeks solutiongr...@gmail.com wrote: Hi David, I was extremely disappointed in our last two SugarCamps. Rather then coming together as a community with shared goals, I got the feeling that we were just a bunch of people gathered in a room; each trying to push their own agenda. The turning point for me was when a scheduled speaker said, 'God Damn It. This is my hour and now YOU have to listen to ME.' I think we are in violent agreement here. Please go back and reread your response to my suggestion that we use protocols and I'll walk you through my thinking. Actually, I believe we are in complete agreement. We just differ in implementation and enforcement:) First, I think its extraordinarily important that we appreciate what an effective organization we are. Especially in our distance communications. David really covers that well in his response to my protocols post. We are doing a lot of things right and getting good results. Releases, publicity and much positive interest and increasing attention. The rest is of the post is going to be a long meandering digression into community building, group dynamics and setting mutual goals. If you are not to such things, the following is no more than psycho babble which has no more effect on your daily life than what Michelle Obama wore yesterday. 1. The protocols (like bylaw and trademark policies) themselves don't really matter. Every minute spent working on them is a sunk cost... because it take time and emotion away from improving the Sugar Platform. What matters is that we set them and move on to other things. 2. The effectiveness of the Sugar Labs did not just happen. Many people have worked to create and establish the community norms necessary to encourage effective communication and collaboration. I share David's disappointment with the quality of our in person meetings. We are not unique in this. I am in a class that studies School Reform this semester and the teacher spends huge amounts of time observing in schools. He says that 90% of teacher shared planning time and team meetings are like watching paint dry. Its hard to get people who are used to working alone to effectively collaborate in face-to-face groups. It doesn't just happen on its own. However, when it does happen the results and the coefficient on the effects on learning are quite large. I care that in two weeks the participants who make the effort to to attend SugarCamp Paris have the opportunity to spend useful time together. So schools are working on this problem with what they call Protocols. I'm not a huge fan of the name. But I am a huge fan of accepting the culture and language of our users and finding what in their existing culture can help us help them use Sugar better. We trying to go into schools and tell them to use Sugar change to constructivism, don't do things the way you have been doing them. That is not a huge recipe for long term success. I'd like to try whenever possible for us to also be learning from schools. In this case both Sugar Labs and Schools have a shared problem. We know our face-to-face group planning time is vital, but its expensive and we are dissatisfied with the results. 1. _Everyone_ involved in Sugar Labs knows more about their area of specialty then I do. 2. _Everyone_ involved in Sugar Labs is more passionate about their area of specialty than I am. 3. _Everyone_ involved in Sugar Labs is willing to spend more time solving problem in their area of interest than I am. If we accept the notion that the participants are the valuable assets in Sugar Labs, managements job is try to provide the participants with the resource they need to work effectively and then get out of the way. When participants arrive at SugarCamp they will already bring ideas of what they want learn about, talk about, and accomplish. The FudCon approach gives _control_ of the conference back to the participants. The participants set the agenda, the participants decide what sessions to attend, the participants decide what sessions are useful and which are not. There is no man (or mother-ship) setting the agenda and planing the priorities. If three smart passionate people go off and work on a problem, that is much more valuable than 30 bored and angry people fighting for 'airtime.' Three dedicated and motivated people are all that it takes to form a self-sustaining team around a project or feature. I am going to ask you to make a leap up faith and trust me on this one. If it doesn't work we can try something
Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
My guess base on attendees currently listed. We will have sessions in a number of different, often over lapping, tracks: Developer Marketing Education Community Building Business models/funding Developers will break down into separate sessions such as: Options for supporting existing deployment. Goals for .86 API stability ... Marketing will include General marketing strategy Engaging developers ... And so forth... If we have two or three sessions at a time there will be 3 to 5 people per session. Since this is a single Day, I suggest we make it a marathon. -- Meet at 8am to plan sessions and have coffee. Start the sessions at 9am with each running an hour. Break for lunch. Go until 5 or 6 pm Break for dinner. Spend the evening informally talking over what we worked on and overall project goals and exchanging war stories. -- david On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 2:07 PM, Walter Bender walter.ben...@gmail.com wrote: David, Given that we have a one-day event (assuming the OLPC France agenda is addressing a different constituency, how would be best build in the notion of period caucusing to revisit the agenda that occurs in the multi-day FUDCON meetings? -walter On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 1:34 PM, David Farning dfarn...@sugarlabs.org wrote: On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 7:05 AM, Caroline Meeks solutiongr...@gmail.com wrote: Hi David, I was extremely disappointed in our last two SugarCamps. Rather then coming together as a community with shared goals, I got the feeling that we were just a bunch of people gathered in a room; each trying to push their own agenda. The turning point for me was when a scheduled speaker said, 'God Damn It. This is my hour and now YOU have to listen to ME.' I think we are in violent agreement here. Please go back and reread your response to my suggestion that we use protocols and I'll walk you through my thinking. Actually, I believe we are in complete agreement. We just differ in implementation and enforcement:) First, I think its extraordinarily important that we appreciate what an effective organization we are. Especially in our distance communications. David really covers that well in his response to my protocols post. We are doing a lot of things right and getting good results. Releases, publicity and much positive interest and increasing attention. The rest is of the post is going to be a long meandering digression into community building, group dynamics and setting mutual goals. If you are not to such things, the following is no more than psycho babble which has no more effect on your daily life than what Michelle Obama wore yesterday. 1. The protocols (like bylaw and trademark policies) themselves don't really matter. Every minute spent working on them is a sunk cost... because it take time and emotion away from improving the Sugar Platform. What matters is that we set them and move on to other things. 2. The effectiveness of the Sugar Labs did not just happen. Many people have worked to create and establish the community norms necessary to encourage effective communication and collaboration. I share David's disappointment with the quality of our in person meetings. We are not unique in this. I am in a class that studies School Reform this semester and the teacher spends huge amounts of time observing in schools. He says that 90% of teacher shared planning time and team meetings are like watching paint dry. Its hard to get people who are used to working alone to effectively collaborate in face-to-face groups. It doesn't just happen on its own. However, when it does happen the results and the coefficient on the effects on learning are quite large. I care that in two weeks the participants who make the effort to to attend SugarCamp Paris have the opportunity to spend useful time together. So schools are working on this problem with what they call Protocols. I'm not a huge fan of the name. But I am a huge fan of accepting the culture and language of our users and finding what in their existing culture can help us help them use Sugar better. We trying to go into schools and tell them to use Sugar change to constructivism, don't do things the way you have been doing them. That is not a huge recipe for long term success. I'd like to try whenever possible for us to also be learning from schools. In this case both Sugar Labs and Schools have a shared problem. We know our face-to-face group planning time is vital, but its expensive and we are dissatisfied with the results. 1. _Everyone_ involved in Sugar Labs knows more about their area of specialty then I do. 2. _Everyone_ involved in Sugar Labs is more passionate about their area of specialty than I am. 3. _Everyone_ involved in Sugar Labs is willing to spend more time solving problem in their area of interest than I am. If we accept the notion that the participants are the valuable assets in Sugar Labs, managements job is try to
Re: [IAEP] [Grassroots-l] Planning for Sugar Camp Paris
On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 4:15 PM, Christoph Derndorfer e0425...@student.tuwien.ac.at wrote: Dear all, with the beginning of Sugar Camp Paris only being 2 weeks away from us I thought it was time to get started on some planning. While the list of attendees (http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Marketing_Team/Events/MiniCamp_Paris_2009/Attendees) is basically a guarantee for an awesome meetup already I think we should discuss what kind of tracks we want to have, who is going to do workshops and talks, what formats we want to have for these sessions, how we can include remote collaborators such as Yama, etc. For the schedule, I would like to try something complete different than the normal sit in a room and listen to scheduled talks. Instead, I would like to handle the organization similarly to how FudCons are run. I also haven't been quite able to find out what the exact plans of OLPC France for Saturday are, we should definitely try to coordinate that as well. With regards to logistics I was wondering where we'll have the meetings, I assume the location that OLPC France is providing is only available on Saturday? Are there any hacker-spaces, apartments, whatever that we can occupy while we're there? Anyway, let me know what you think. Cheers, Christoph -- Christoph Derndorfer co-editor, olpcnews url: www.olpcnews.com e-mail: christ...@olpcnews.com ___ Grassroots mailing list grassro...@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/grassroots ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
