Talk:Chapters meeting 2010/Schedule

Strategy plan walkthrough / State of the chapters

There is something really strange in the way the time for this is planned. Last year's experience was very clear, 3 minutes for each chapter is complete utopia. All in all, the Wikimedia Foundation (one organisation) gets 1hr and 45 minutes, while around 25 others get 3 minutes each? In my opinion, there is something utterly broken here. While I believe that there definitely should be a session about the strategy plan and how the chapters are expected to participate/take part/be affected/whatever, I am also convinced that the state of the chapters is one of the most important moment of the whole chapters meeting. Last year it was a great occasion to (among others):

1. get to know each other (you get to identify who is who in what chapter)
2. introduce a fruitful exchange in best practices (you get to have an overview of who does what and can ask them later).

As is, I think that the state of the chapters is going to be either utterly useless, or will simply take the time it needs at the detriment of other topics. I would strongly advise to allow at least 5 minutes per chapter and cut short on the strategy plan. notafish }<';> 22:15, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

While I can sympathize with your concern somewhat, I'm not very much in favor of the us-vs-them-attitude inherent to your comment. The strategy initiative isn't just something one organization out of 26 cares about, as you characterize it. It is, after the Wikimedia projects, the most significant long-term undertaking the Wikimedia universe is engaged in at the moment. Thus, it deserves a strong presence in this conference. At the same time, I'm not sure if it's really the wisest choice to allocate a strict time limit to every chapter when, what every chapter wants to talk about, may be very different. So, how about we actually ask the chapters (1) whether they have something unique and interesting to share and (2) how much time (max. 5 minutes) they would need for that? In the end, that may very well result in the same schedule, just with time much more efficiently used. sebmol ^? 09:43, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I can feel with what you both are writing. No matter how long time one reserved in the schedule for the state of the chapters, it will never be enough, I realize that totally. At the same time, there will be little below 30 groups presenting themselves. When we are talking about this large number of groups, there are three possibilities to let everybody talk. 1) you can let everybody talk for a longer time span plenary, which has as a result that the sessions take very long, and that the attention of people will drop quickly. This was already the case strongly last year - and what use are presentations if nobody is really listening? 2) you could put these State of the Chapters into tracks as well - everybody can hear ~15 chapters presenting themselves. I was told by multiple people that this would be much more unfortunate than all the other possibilities because you would want to hear everybody. The third possibility is the one I chose in the end - limiting the amount of time for each chapter. Although this is not ideal because people will have to summarize themselves, and to limit what they want to tell exactly in a plenary way. But at the same time, people will be actually listening to what you have to say. After the SotC ends, there will be plenty of opportunity to go more in depth in certain topics during breaks and sessions.

Sebmol: although I can imagine that such a method sounds good in theory, I am afraid that in practice this would turn out to be a whole lot of extra work that gives little extra - because in the end, most chapters want to present longer, whatever the time frame will be. It would also make it much more complicated to moderate the session and to make sure we actually stay within time limits (which was kind of a problem last year, as you might recall :) ).

I do agree that the SotC and the Strategy Walkthrough should not be linked to each other, they are very different sessions, and mainly after each other because they both ideally happen at the begin of the day, not because they are so much alike. I hope this answers to your concerns. To be short, I agree this is not ideal, but I also think that this is the least unfortunate way of doing it. --Effeietsanders 10:45, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, let's put it this way. If the "Walkthrough through the strategic process" had been presented as "Walkthrough through the strategic process - 20 minutes" followed by "Questions and answers on Strategic process and how the chapters can help/take part/etc" - 1 hr 20 min., maybe my comment would not have looked so much "them vs us" or "us vs them". I thought I had made it clear, but let me make it clear again, that I find the strategic process extremely important and that it definitely has its place in the course of this chapters meeting. This said, the way it is stated here, this looks like a presentation, with no definite room for question, debate and exchange. Maybe my interpretation is rash, and then I'd be extremely happy to change my mind if it is clearer stated what this "presentation" is really all about. I still think that real life meetings shouldn't be about lectures and conferences, but should foster exchange as much as possible. Presenting the strategy planning for 20 minutes and letting debate ensue for an hour fosters exchange. Presenting the strategy meeting for 1 hr and 45 minutes, in my opinion, does not.

In any case, I still think 3 minutes per chapter is completely utopic. It was asked last year, and yes, it went overboard, and yes, people had enough. I do think that there should be at least five minutes. Now, if we really can't accomodate that, we need to do it differently. This can mean make the format extremely severe, ie.

• 3 slides max
• you'll be cut off after 5 minutes
• You need to have something ready in advance (the 3 slides and more, or answers to the questionnaire, or whatever, so that it's on paper and distributed the day before the talks)

Leaving the chapters to "3 minutes" just does not work. And if the cut comes before the lightning talk is over, then people are all frustrated because they haven't had time to say what they wanted, or because they haven't had time to hear what they wanted. A Q&A session (instead of making the time 5 minutes) at the end might help make this easier also.

Or actually, even better, go with Sebastian's proposal of asking the chapter if they have anything interesting to say. If not, then they can just take 30 seconds to introduce themselves as persons and be done with it (it's actually interesting to be able to put a face to a name and a chapter).

All I'm trying to do here is making sure that we have learned from last year's mistakes. notafish }<';> 15:03, 3 April 2010 (UTC) PS. Ah, and let me change the vs for a slash, so that it does not look like a us-vs-them attitude.

I think Sebastian's proposal is a good one—a hard three-minute cutoff does seem unreasonable to me, but at the same time I got the distinct impression last year that some chapters (especially the brand-new ones) felt like they needed to fill out their time, and do their best to prove that they were actually doing something. If we take that pressure away from them, I imagine we'll see a better quality of presentations. Austin 15:36, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Maybe the good idea is to let present new chapteres (all those which were not presented last year) and for old ones just to give 30 sec. to show their faces just by standing up a speak for a while from the audience area. IHMO even changing the presenter takes at least 15-30 sec, sometimes up to 1 min. if there are some technical dificulties (i.e. replacing laptop, amounting pendrive etc.), therefore 3 minuts slots are unpractical. Polimerek 11:02, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

There is not enough time to give each chapter 5 minutes (+ some more as Polimerek said) and give each of them the attention they deserve. If there are walls we can use, we could use posters in addition to the presentations. So chapters can indroduce themselves and the things they do on a poster and the audience can take a look at them whenever they want independant from the sotc-presentations. --Lyzzy 12:07, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks all for your comments. I agree with all that more time would be nice from the presentor point of view. However, I do not think that this extra quantity would contribute to the quality in this setup. Putting up a more flexible way of time deviding would be nice, and should perhaps be something to consider for next year - if not properly prepared, it will only come down to a lot of chapters wanting more time, instead of less time. That, plus the fact that some people will have the mouth to ask for more time, and others might not, while they have maybe more interesting things to say. Please remind that it is maybe not even the successes that are the most interesting here - for that I would recommand to post to the chapters reports list.

No matter how long the time would be, I agree with Delphine that there should be a cut off. I will definitely make sure that people stick to their time indeed, otherwise we only get that some people spend 15 minutes and others stick to the time they got.

@Polimerek: we will make sure that technical time will be limited as much as possible, thanks for reminding. We will use one laptop only, and collect all presentations on beforehand.

There are indeed walls that can be used to put posters on, and I would welcome such initiatives! Also, if everybody sticks to their time frame, there will be some time left at the end of the session, and we will have an opportunity to ask a few additional questions to shortly elaborate. That way the audience will have the chance to ask their most pressing questions, but of course also the 30 minute break after the session can be used for that! Effeietsanders 13:39, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Questions and thoughts

Ok, assuming I would come to the chapter's meeting (and since we dare to call ourselves world...). A very Indonesian questions.

Sightseeing --> who's going to be our guide? Does s/he came with a camera of their own or we need to provide ours? (just kidding)

Dinner --> what's for dinner?

15 minutes walk in? what no screening or metal detector?

Why do facilitators have 15 minutes and chapters only three? They better be five of them and talk very fast for their expectation (it's their expectation of the result, not ours, right?)

State of chapters I & II (no comment)

Wrap up developers (no comment, non technical, won't understand a word he's saying)

Lunch --> see above (I hope it makes up the dinner or vice versa *grin*)

Role in the movement (room one) --> who's talking? what movement? can you be more specific?

Outreach case study I (room two) --> see above

Professionalization - current status --> who? (got professionalized?) why is it interesting and have a class of it's own? the one who is far from being professional or not interested of being one can only skip to...

Chapter selected board seats -- eugh. lst year's result of this gone ga ga. I mean, WMID selected one, and then what? * sound of twilight zone playing * . If I recall correctly we don't even bother to participate this year. But again I'm not a board official, this is purely personal outburst.

Volunteer recruitment and support - ?

All the way to Sunday (?) <-- maybe I better wait until there is more information.

Thoughts

Now, if I have on going project and would like to share, who would be interested to listen? Indonesian project involves fund raising and internship. And where would I fall in the schedule?

If none, can I skip some uninteresting subjects and make an appointment to see CC director who (I understand) shared the same office? I forgot her name but I can find out.

If I have a five minutes video to play (re:fund raising <-- just incase the above answer is yes) , and I didn't bring my laptop (it hurt my back, too heavy) can I bring a flash drive only and will it work? (the room have a speaker good enough quality for the audience to hear?) 110.138.40.253 17:28, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi Siska, thanks for your comments. Most of your questions about the schedule will be answered soon or have already been answered at the schedule page. Just some remarks:

• If you promise not to bring your bazooka, we can leave out the metal detector.
• Facilitators are there for you, to help you have a useful meeting. It is not them that benifit from these fifteen minutes, it will be the attendees having a more productive meeting.
• There are, I think, several topics that would be of interest to you, but I will not tell you which to visit or not :) If you have specific suggestions for the Working groups, those would be welcome btw! (might be a good way to cover missing topics)
• I'm not sure when you want to play the video, but I'm confident there will be plenty of laptops around.

Effeietsanders 13:45, 7 April 2010 (UTC)