Loomio
Wed 5 Dec 2018 1:52PM

Open space session on the OAE from Open 2018 in London

DS Danyl Strype Public Seen by 111

Here's a video of the Open App Ecosystem open space session I tried to facilitate at Open2018 in London a few months ago.
https://invidio.us/watch?v=WJR7IHeLADo

I finally got around to watching a bit of this video. The session was scheduled at the end of a a long, hot day of conferencing. But what made this session really tricky, was that I'd envisioned it as a F2F for folks already active in (or at least aware of) this OAE group on Loomio, but got a much more diverse bunch of people, wanting to discuss all sorts of things. It ended up requiring much more active facilitation than I was prepared for, and the result was a bit all over the place ;-P

For me, it kinds of sums up the disconnect that can exist between the very well-intentioned people who a) develop software, b) deploy software to support community-building goals, and c) use that software in their communities. I'm convinced that hosting more conversations that include all three kinds of people could lead to improvements in the UX of ethical tech, to the point where it's much better than any of the datafarms. That's been my vision for the CTA (Collaborative Technology Alliance) and/or the OAE for some time, but I'm keen to know how that fits with what others are here for.

Apologies for the patchy sound quality. We had some really professional camera people covering the conference, who did a great job. But it was a hot day, and there is a lot of background noise from fans running and street noise outside the open door ;-)

BTW Does anyone happen to know if the Open 2018 videos were published on any non-corporate hosting sites? A PeerTube site, for example?

SG

Simon Grant Wed 5 Dec 2018 4:22PM

It's really useful that you're pointing clearly to the issue that is hard to solve. As (almost) always, the hard one is not a technical one, but a human one. Humans are so much more complex!

Sounds to me like a good general strategy. I might elaborate as something like:
1. identify the "disconnects"
2. try out ways of re-connecting -- as you do with "hosting more conversations" -- some are already practised, some may not be
3. get a sense of whether these helped, and in what way, so that we can come together in fruitful action
4. widely share the experiences, so that we can build up a positive culture, particularly including the tech folk

M

mike_hales Wed 5 Dec 2018 9:35PM

I was in Strypey's session, enjoyed it, recognise his difficulty when an unexpected combination of folks showed. I'm a 'critical user' of 20 years, including 90s in Computer Supported Cooperative Work. So yes

hosting more conversations that include all three kinds of people

seems vital to me. I was a bit rattled by the tech sensibility of a couple of participants, them seeming so nerdy close to code and so far from lives (= ¿use cases? !) of non-code hacker, non-server operator folks.A culture hacker myself ;-)

OS

Oli SB Mon 10 Dec 2018 11:26AM

agreed - more conversations like this, involving all interested parties, would be good. I think it might make sense to point out who it is for before hand, kind of like they do at MozFest, where they note which sessions are for 'expert's or are 'intros' etc... and to possibly have more of a clarified objective from the outset so people know what to expect...

(vids only on Youtube so far - feel free to copy them to somewhere less corporate!)

DS

Danyl Strype Tue 14 Nov 2023 12:33PM

Were you one of the people who was in this Open App Ecosystem discussion at Open 2018, or do you know anyone who was? If so, please get in touch! I'd like to organise some kind of follow-up, where we reflect on how this discussion looks from here and now.

@mike_hales @Mayel de Borniol @Oli SB