WeekNotes for July 24th, 2020


Rethinking a Festival

Finished a series of four workshops to help the Institute for Economic Justice adjust the Rethinking Economics for Africa Festival online. We created stakeholder journeys – mapping out the experience before, during and after the virtual Festival. We then established the various roles and guides that would be needed to support those journeys. We also ran a Zoom Skillshare, to help staff understand the intricacies of the breakout groups and the ever-increasingly complicated settings.

Rethinking a Canvas

Did further work on the Session Design Canvas, which has grown out of running the (Virtual) Session Design Lab. Work I was doing with Mor Rubinstein at 360Giving on creating a Data Strategy Canvas inspired me to think of having all relevant information for designing a session right in front of you. I distributed a draft outline for feedback a few weeks back to Lab participants and clients like ECNL. I was slightly overwhelmed by requests to include additional considerations and examples. I realise that as much as I have been resistant to the idea, I will need to fork it into Virtual and Face to Face versions. Now reconsidering the Canvas frame and might employ the QAFs (Question to Ask Frequently) framework, or perhaps some sort of hybrid. I also realise that I might need to engage another consultant to help me continue the work as I’ve got quite a bit of work demands as it is.

Supporting Session Organisers Rethinking RightsCon

Working with the RightsCon and TechChange Teams, we ran five Online Coaching Sessions for people who proposed sessions for a face-to-face RightsCon in Costa Rica but will now be delivering them online from July 27th to 31st. Questions have primarily focused on understanding how participants will navigate and get to sessions, along with being able to see who they are. Eight thousand people have registered (up from three thousand at last years live event in Tunis) and will use the RSVP system for sessions to get Zoom links and calendar entries. What will be interesting is that for some sessions, there is a limit of 25 participants – so while there isn’t a limit on who can RSVP, there will be a limit on who can participate and that will be determined on a first-come, first in basis.

Also +1

Rethinking Masks

So panic attacks at the supermarket have slowly subsided. I am finding myself wondering ‘where did I put my face mask?’ as I am now nervous that I may not have it on me the next time I enter a shop. Initially, I felt like masks made everyone look quite sinister. As new government guidelines have made them compulsory in stores, they’ve come to symbolise something very different now, and I’m finding them quite comforting. It means people are at least mindful and caring enough to wear them.

Rethinking My Instagram Addiction

Social media in the pandemic has laid out a whole different set of quagmires. I managed to ween myself off of FaceBook sometime ago in the face of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, but Instagram has been harder. I realise that using Instagram is as much of a prop up to Facebook as using FaceBook directly, but I had resigned myself that it was a necessary evil to get through COVID-19 and keep in touch with friends and family. But then I read these two Guardian articles over the weekend: