Meet-and-greet in Debian conferences
Hi!
On Wed, Aug 08, 2018 at 10:23:00AM +0000, u wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Holger Levsen:
>
> > To the topic (of "new to DebConf" sessions) what worked nicely during the
> > "DebCamp" days of the miniDebconf in Hamburg were daily standup meetings
> > where everyone (who wanted) very briefly stated what they were working
> > on, which helped new and 'old' people alike to better connect to others.
> > I'm not sure this concept can be used at a bigger debcamp, but it surely
> > worked well with 30-40 people.
> >
> > Key points of this format are: everybody is standing (thus helping sure
> > it stays short and everybody pays attention) and forming a circle, where
> > everyone explains very briefly (1-2 sentences, sometimes just 2-3 words)
> > what they are doing or would like to do.
> >
> > Then, after the circle people can approach each other and say things
> > like: "you seem to work on foo, i'm also interested in foo..."
>
> This feels like you already need to be very much self aware and have a
> lot of self esteem, and hence I don't think this format is suitable - it
> might be too exclusive.
>
Thanks for bringing this up. I agree that some people would not feel
confortable to speak, so it might not be as effetive. But I still think
that having such a space in DebConf would be beneficial, and we would
have a challenge at hands, that is to create a welcoming environment for
all, making sure that people feel safe to speak.
> But! I like what they do at those IETF meetings, where everybody can
> write on their badge "Talk to me about…" And then all sorts of things,
> technical or non-technical can be filled in. I believe this lowers the
> barrier and I'd be very much in favor of such a thing.
>
This approach has the issue of one needing to get physically close to
someone else to be able to read their badge, and not everyone would be
comfortable with that either.
Another idea:
Maybe we could print a huge "map of Debian contributions", set it up
in a convenient place (not hidden in the corner) with enough space
for people to sign in their names beside the areas they work on, or that
they would like to talk to people about. This way people would at least
know who are the people they should talk too, and we could also have
some specific times that people would be encouraged to meet up close to
the map to chat with their peers.
Do you see any barrier with this approach?
Tassia.
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