A couple of months ago I attended my first proper unconference (covered in these Weeknotes). I learned lots and learned more through chats with Harry Harrold (who is capital L lovely by the way and runs UK Charity Camp). Today Connected by Data delivered its first unconference, and I think it was a good one. Unconferences are inherently hard to judge because the principles of an unconference (some call them rules) state that whoever turns up are the right people, whatever happens was meant to happen, and whatever is discussed was the right thing to discuss. But the vibe felt good, lots of people turned up (over 70) and there seemed to be lots of good discussions - and connections happening outside the organised spaces too.
If you attended and didn’t get a chance to leave us a ‘give away’ card, please do email me with your thoughts on what we could improve.
One thing I’m proud of is our (at Connected by Data’s) intentional focus on care. We want to be as inclusive as possible and reach outwards to learn more about how we can do that. We covered travel costs for those that couldn’t attend otherwise (shout out to UKGovCamp for the grant towards that), welcomed a 10 month old child into the spaces (and really welcomed, she and I had some great ‘chatters’), offered vegan food (including nibbles) in addition to meeting dietary requirements (reducing carbon impact and making the food widely accessible to all) and provided a detailed ‘welcome pack’ for all attendees to give people the reassurance of knowing what to expect - including photos of the venue and rooms. We used seed based name badges (which hopefully everyone will plant after today) and bamboo lanyards. Interesting to note on the lanyards - we had two colours (consent to photos / don’t consent). We saw this as usual practice (and in fact someone had suggested it in a registration form) but our photographer reflected that they recommend not doing it, as it can feel very ‘othering’. Talking of ‘othering’ we encouraged everyone to add their pronouns to their name badges, showing allyship to attendees trans and non-binary attendees. We didn’t ask people to ‘pitch’ their session by standing at the front of the room and our sense is that this meant we got more pitches (almost too many to sort in the time we’d given ourselves, so note to me - add more time for session grid creation) and when in the sessions we ensured two chairs were reserved for those that were practicing the law of mobility but needed a chair when they moved between sessions. We didn’t ask for a show of hands of popularity for a session (which can feel like a popularity contest) and that did mean that a couple of times bigger groups were in smaller rooms and vice versa.
Connected by Data is a wonderful team to work with. Everyone (in our stylish turquoise sashes to identify us to anyone needing help or having a query) worked hard in sessions and outside to ensure all participants had a great time. We were setting up, staffing a help point, notetaking, clearing down and shifting furniture. On top of (for the others at least) engaging their brains in the content of the day.
We will be doing a retrospective (reflective learning practice) soon on the day and going through the giveaway feedback attendees left us. I look forward to improving for the next one that we plan to hold later this year. Watch this space.