Weeknotes for July 17th, 2020


This week we started a series of four workshop sessions with the Institute for Economic Justice to help them strategise on how to bring the Rethinking Economics for Africa Festival online. It’s bringing together several pieces of expertise that I’ve developed through self-funded projects like the Network-Centric Resources Project and mixing it with the curriculum for the (Virtual) Session Design Lab. The first workshop combined a deep dive on the Network-Centric Resources Lifecycle with the User Persona exercise. From the Virtual Session Design Lab, we explored different research on Adult Learning and settling on Malcom S. Knowles Androgogy. It’s important to stress that while this seems the best fit, not to take it as an end all and that we must continue our journeys.

Also, Sonia from IEJ first coined the term ‘The Fab Lab’ to describe The (Virtual) Session Design Lab – this might stick, I think.

Working with the RightsCon and TechChange Teams, we delivered coaching sessions for Session Organisers running Strategy and Community Labs, and those running Fireside Chats and Panels. The one common question is ‘how will people find and get to my session?’. The conference venue room designation replaced by a listing of sessions with Zoom URLs. TechChange has done a remarkable job of replicating the live conference experience into a virtual one.

BTW – the deadline to register for RightsCon is Monday, July 20th. Registration is free and highly recommended.