Media Sandbox final event report
May 9, 2008 – 5:17 pm
This is a brief event report from the Media Sandbox final event on Tuesday 6 May, in Watershed, Bristol.
While we were designing the launch event for the Media Sandbox project (November 2007) we had the end event in mind (seeing the project as a Community of Practice with a clear lifecycle), so there was a clear logic to the event design from the beginning. This took into account group work done at the launch event, during the project itself, and all the potential future outcomes from the project.
In the bigger picture, I would call this blended facilitation: seeing the project as a whole as a group knowledge transformation opportunity, using different tools and techniques to suit the purpose and context, and using both on and offline worlds to get things done. Thus the final event was complimentary to the launch event, and all related activity in between.
Our main goal was to provide as many learning and sharing opportunities between the projects and community members in as many different ways as possible. In this way, the different nuances could emerge, and people’s communication preferences could be afforded.
Thus, as well as asking the projects to do short presentations to a panel, we offered them exhibition space for one to one conversations, introduced a knowledge cafe to afford group exploration of the challenges encountered during the projects, and encouraged event attendees to actually play one of the games invented, and try out the applications wherever possible.
A key part of the day was a group of external judges onsite to award one of the projects further funding. In this vein, we also invited anyone else to pitch for some separate micro-investment in a Pecha Kucha style; although this time the judges were the projects themselves.
It was a fascinatingly different event to the launch event, and a lot less noisy; in its reflective nature, it offered the group some form of closure, a sense of knowledge transformation, a network maturing and reflecting on its work and shared experience, and asking itself questions for the future.
The Agenda:
- Welcome, introduction, background and refresh
- Judges panel: projects showcase
- Nuts and bolts knowledge cafe
- Tea, exhibition, game play
- Open pitching
- Drinks and final announcements
- Exhibition
Welcome, introduction, background and refresh
We had a lot to do, so the temptation was to dive straight into action, but this had to be resisted! It was vital to allow attendees a bit of time to catch up with previous work, set the context, and provide a grounding for the ensuing conversations.
After a project introduction and welcome from Clare Reddington, I ran everyone through the agenda, and then asked Dan Dixon and Peter Ferne to talk about the Pervasive Media domain mindmap (.pdf) we had co-created with their help at the launch event. Following this, I ran everyone through the selection criteria we had also co-created at the launch event. Hopefully, this whirlwind update brought everyone’s attention back to the domain in question, and the community at large.
Judges panel: projects showcase
This was the traditional, formal method for communicating (broadcasting) the work done by the projects along with potential benefits for the future. Although the projects have been collaborating admirably during the last six months, only one gets further funding, so the showcase (to a panel of external judges) added a fringe of competitive-ness to the whole affair. The balance of collaboration/competition is very interesting, and an invaluable asset for motivating action, but that’s another blog post.
Each project presented for six minutes and had three minutes question time from the judges (Simon Ingleby, Dan Sutch, Paul Appleby). All the presentations were unique and stimulating, and the judges produced some sticky questions to keep them on their toes. After the presentations, the judges stepped out to talk among themselves while we took a short break and introduced the knowledge cafe
Nuts and Bolts Knowledge Cafe
The term and technique ‘Knowledge cafe‘ was coined by Knowledge networker and all round good guy David Gurteen, who was fed up of ‘chalk and talk’ gatherings where one person stood and told all the others how things were. David’s intention with the knowledge cafe model was to help all participants reach a deeper understanding of a subject through intimate conversation rather than other forms of learning. In this model, all participants are equal and can reach a shared understanding of a subject very effectively.
We chose this technique to compliment the previous presentation model with a conversational approach in order to offer the participants a chance to get upfront and personal with the projects and really explore the issues they confronted. The projects spread themselves around all the tables in order for all the participants to have projects at their tables, and we discussed the following question for 30 minutes:
“What challenges did the projects’ encounter during their R&D, and how did they go about resolving them?”
(knowledge cafe-ing in action)
In true peer to peer style (ie no managers around to get in the way of honest discusions) there were no judges at the tables, but we didn’t think it would have hurt to have th judges on the tables, as this would have offered them another lens through which to observe the projects.
After a surprised silence (I think everyone was expecting me to boss them around more (I mean direct them)), people just got on with it, and had thirty minutes of good honest conversation. Following that, we opened the conversation up to the whole floor and found that there were a number of shared themes at different tables, and issues that surfaced.
Tea, exhibition, gameplay
(I just put this slide here as I like the photo but do have a clearly viewable agenda at all times)
The exhibition was a chance for the projects to have one to one conversations with attendees, and explore their questions directly. All of the projects manned their stalls effectively and politely. One of the projects, Swarm, was a game, which is quite hard to explain, so they ran a short version of it outside during the break. Likewise, the Happy Packages crew felt that people needed to actually try their product rather than discuss it, so they ran their products for people to try out.
The events team laid on some fantastic grub for us too; in true English style, we had a selection of teas, finger sandwiches and cake. Best event food I’ve had for ages.
Open pitching
As part of the Media Sandbox project was to open as much opportunity to as wide a range of people as possible, the Media Sandbox team openly invited anyone to pitch for some micro-investment and network support. Three pitches were selected for the ‘final’ showcase at the event: Adam Nieman, Vicky Brophy, Ben Gannaway.
In order to mix up the community roles and make the most of the practical learning the Media Sandbox projects had experienced, we asked them to the be the judges, and sat them at different tables with the other participants so that they could discuss the pitches with the participants in order to influence their decisions.
In Pecha Kucha style, the pitches were given 6 minutes 40 seconds to present their ideas. Following their presentations, we encouraged discussions at the tables before some questions from the floor. It was poignant to note that the judges (Media Sandbox projects) had some really sticky questions (from experience), so I think we now have a ready made set of judges for next year.
The open pitches judges retreated to heatedly debate the winner, and the rest of us headed to the bar as all that was left was announcing the competition winners and doing the thank-yous.
Final announcements
To be honest, it was all a bit emotional actually. I know that, as a facilitator, one goes through some wild ups and downs with the ‘facilitatees’, and feels a strong emotional overdraft after a gig because of the energy one has to put into it (never trust a facilitator who says it’s no big deal; every word and gesture from all participants counts), but as the final announcements were made I felt all a bit choked up because it meant that the gig was coming to an end - the whole thing. Anyway.
Happy Packages won the projects competition, giving them a further £8,000 and office space and stuff.
SSTV (website to come soon I’m sure) won the open pitches competition with a proposal to build street sport communities around Bristol using CCTV and locative media.
Following this, Clare Reddington and Mark Lever from SouthwestScreen said their dues, flowers for Clare appeared in true arty style, and the projects manned their exhibition stands over wine and beer until 8pm when we moved on to Start the bus, where it became more casual…
