What Will Actually Happen On The Day?

The clever-clever cop-out answer to this question is "Whatever you decide to do!"

but that's often a little too open-ended for people who are deciding whether to travel to Birmingham and spend their day in a room full of (mostly) strangers.

So, Lloyd, what will actually happen on the day?

We start in a circle

We sit in a circle to emphasise our equality as members of the group. That doesn't mean that everyone is the same, there will be a wide range of expertise in many subjects, but for the day, we start from the assumption that everyone in the group has equal value.

It's a bit like the Knights of the Round Table only I'm not King Arthur and you're not a bunch of argumentative Saxon barons who would get in a strop if we arranged it any other way (I hope so anyway).

I introduce the process and the principles

We're going to be using a technique called Open Space. If you've not come across it before and you want to know more about how it works, I suggest you start here. The process has been worked on and refined over many years through many wiser people than I. My experience is that it works well to help a group get to a deeper collective and individual understanding of any subject that is important to them and to get work done in a much easier and more effective way than traditional conferences..

Its the way I always work these days. This is what an Open Space Meeting can look like:

Hint: I'm towards the right hand side sitting up straight with my arms folded like a good boy

The principles we use are:

• Whoever Comes Is The Right People
• Whenever It Starts Is The Right Time
• When It's Over, It's Over
• Wherever It Happens Is The Right Place
• Whatever Happens Is The Only Thing That Could Have Happened

Note that the "It" referred to can apply to pretty much anything you like.

I'll be writing thoughts about these in more detail later.

These are suggested principles that help us work together. Mostly they help us remember that the best decisions we can make about what to do right now are probably made right now, rather than 4 weeks in advance. They're not laws, they're not rules, they are things to keep in your head and when things feel like they might be going wrong, see if one of these might apply, and ponder whether you might feel better if you chose to see it that way.

If, on the day, you think the whole damned thing is going wrong and it would be much better if we did it your way instead, before you launch a coup, I invite you to talk to me about whether your way fits with these principles.

There is one law. It's called the Law of Mobility (sometimes, the Law of Two Feet) which says that if you find yourself at any point either not contributing to the value of the conversation or not learning anything from being there, then you must move away and find somewhere else that you can be of more value.

This can be disconcerting for people who've called sessions. Don't be disconcerted if that's you, they're adding value to your session by going away, honestly.

We call sessions

So then, when we understand how we're going to work together, I will invite you to "call sessions". That means you will announce the thing(s) that you want to work on. They can be worded however you like, but I suggest that you find a snappy way of describing it. I expect we will have things like "How Rewards Really Work" or "What can we do about dTube videos not lasting forever?" or "How can I get more followers?" or "To Flag Or Not To Flag!?" or whatever.

You do not have to call a session and you can call as many sessions as you like.

The implication of you calling a session is that it's something that you want to work on. It may be that you have something to present and teach people or it might be that you just want to find answers to a question or perhaps you want to design a new piece of software that uses the blockchain, it can be anything, but if you take if too far away from the Steem blockchain, it's unlikely you'll get much interest.

Your only responsibility for calling a session is to write some sort of report on what happens. It needn't be long and detailed, but it can be. It should be something that you can post on the blockchain, but it doesn't have to be written, it can be audio or visual, it can just be a picture. The idea is that people who were there can continue to talk about it in the comments and people who weren't there can get an idea of what happened. It would be great if you could publish your report on your favourite Steem platform (at least simply) on the day or very soon afterwards.

You can call as many sessions as you want. We will put them all up on the wall in timeslots so that we have an agenda for the day. Different parts of the space will be given names so that you have places to gather.

We "open the marketplace"

Then we go to it. Once all the sessions are called, I stop telling anyone what to do (unless they're working against the principles!) and we organise ourselves into the groups to work on the subjects you've come up with. There will be tea and coffee and water and a suggested time for lunch, but it's entirely up to you when and whether you feed yourselves and/or others. Your self-care throughout the day is your own responsibility.

We come together in a final circle

We have the room until 5.30pm. At around 5 we will finish our sessions and come together in a circle again to check in with each other on anything that feels important: things we learned, new questions that have occurred to us, observations, whatever takes us up to the end.

What else happens outside of the day?

If you're staying over in Birmingham either the night before or the night after it would be good to maybe organise a dinner the night before (has to be curry in Birmingham really!) and/or choose a pub to go to straight afterwards. Some people will have found the day quite stimulating enough, others can keep talking till the cows come home. I'm generally in the first group, but I haven't decided yet when I'm going to be travelling (I live in Surrey).

"Lloyd, that hasn't explained it at all!"

If you need to know more, just ask!

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Photo Credit 1: [Paul Downey on Flickr](https://www.flickr.com/photos/psd) CC BY-SA 2.0 Photo Credit 2: [Devoted & Disgruntled](https://www.devotedanddisgruntled.com)