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Scheduling/Agenda

From dKosopedia

Category: YearlyKos

Put your suggestions for a schedule for the DKos National Convention here.

Contents

Themes

It is important that we establish the overall theme of this convention. Is it reationary? Is it charting a new path for the DNC or is it abandoning it? Is this a pure policy convention? Or is it a networking/activism convention? Or is is a bit of everything?


Unstable Isotope: I think it is all three of these things. I think it is important to show the "new" face of the Democratic party. The "new guard."

gina: I'd like to see us work on defining us. I think it is difficult to convey where we think the Dems should be if we can't articulate who we are.

plemeljr: I think a good overriding theme, in terms of placing which workshops go where, is to think of the convention as a segment of a ray. At the beginning is introspection and review and where the arrow is pointing is action. So that the beginning of the convention is geared toward introspection, historical review, and the like. As the convention progresses, the workshops should move toward action. Because you can't have action without a plan which needs good foundations.
Introspection----------------Action---------->

Unstable Isotope: Good ideas plemeljr. We definitely need an end point. I think we'll need help from the steering committee for this. My vision is at the end of the convention we'll have a vote on a "platform" or statement of principles for whatever it is we're forming. Perhaps some votes for officers? That would be a nice way to end.

Helpers

Agenda Committee Teleconference Availability (11/20 - 11/26)

Steering Committee member availability moved to the Steering Committee page. If you're on the Steering Team and I missed you, please feel free to move yourself.

How about Tuesday, 16 NOV 2004 @ 20:00 EST? --Kascade Kat 20:01, 15 Nov 2004 (PST)That works for me, but I'd like to get the Steering Committee conference set first. Could we give it 24 hours?

Unstable Isotope: Thurs. night is not good for me (Nov. 18).

Proposed Schedules

What will the convention provide that isn't adequeately provided by discussing stuff online?

What about organizing a documentary/film festival to run concurrently? The dKos Convention would be an exceedingly attractive venue for films and documentaries with political themes that don't have distributors.

Music groups/performers.

Art/photos/political cartoons.

Poetry/short stories/plays/performance are/stand-up comedy.

Films/documentaries.

Proposal 1

Each half day segment can have a different theme, thereby allowing several different topics at once. (feel free to edit--I don't know how to make it a list. fabooj - anika@anikascreations.com

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Discussion

--Kascade Kat 12:12, 12 Nov 2004 (PST)I'd like to see a proposal for a schedule like that to help me compare the two. My comfort level is much more in the "professional conference" space but I think that's because I haven't seen the alternatives. Forgive me if I'm stereotyping here, but I'm guessing that the sci fi con would also have a fair number of introverts attending the conference and that we may share that trait? How do they deal with that?</p>

--Elizdelphi 13:57, 12 Nov 2004 (PST) response to Kascade Kat: There are all sorts, and you're right that that is a similarity. I believe the shared affinity and shared culture (whether sci-fi or grassroots liberalism) is in itself the biggest part of making the introverts (I am one) feel comfortable and accepted--the sense of being among one's own people. Arguably community and shared metaphors are the meaning of a sci-fi con. Another part is the informality and appreciation of creative expression, so that each person seeks his or her own right way to participate. For those of us who aren't professional types, the thought of trying to fit into a "professional" or more formal setting is anxiety inducing. A format shifted slightly toward emphasis on community doesn't have to be anarchic, and to me it honors the nature of dKos: an organic community with a purpose and shared values (liberal?), as opposed to purposeful individuals coming together to do business (conservative?). I don't think the actual schedule outline above would be that atypical for a smaller sci-fi con--it's fine. But I (over-?)react to the businesslike purposes assigned to the mealtimes as going too far with the structure, and anything like catered sit-down meals as sounding costly and (don't take this the wrong way) elite. A more casual and communal approach to food has a larger significance for me about the nature of our relationship to each other, as friends rather than colleagues. Am I making sense? I guess this point is important to me.

--Kascade Kat 16:36, 12 Nov 2004 (PST)Thanks for responding. This was helpful to me. It sounds like it's the "feel" of the convention that's your concern, rather than the agenda. I'm imagining a place where people come as they are, meals are probably buffet-style with informal seating (but probably catered or prepared by a volunteer work crew since almost all of us will be travelers), the participants teach the workshops and create the entertainment, and there are lots of informal opportunities to just get to know each other. How does that sound to you? Or to anyone else?

fabooj - ElizabethD, thanks for clarifying. It seems we both are looking at a similar feel for this event. I was just suggesting it as a template for this event. As far as eating is concerned. personally I would prefer eating where I want to as opposed to a sit-down event. The agenda I listed is my typical set-up for events that I do, but I do breakout from the structure from time to time. For example, I would much more prefer to have the events at different venues and avoid hotels alltogether. I would also prefer that we, as attendees, are more visible to the inhabitants of the city and it's tourists.

Proposal 2

Summary

The Foursquare Plan - plemeljr
OK, so this proposal isn't that different from fabooj, but the devil is in the details. So I am calling for a 3 full day convention - I don't know how many people would take a day off, so it might just be a Thur/Fri/Sat/Sun convention with the hard core people coming in on thursday and friday morning more informally with the convention kicking off friday afternoon. This is all fungible. There would be 4 workshop sessions a day (2 morning/2 afternoon) and each workshop session should have multiple options. At most there should be 4-5 options per session (that is a max number). So we are looking at 36min, 60max different workshops/discussions plus 3 keynote addresses to put together. Bringing in other bloggers would help (Yglesias, Kos, Pandagon, myDD, et al should get roped into this). The workshops would start at 10am (because you know we will be up all night talking/partying) and each last an hour. Each day would have a keynote speech setting the theme for the next day. Of course, there would be stuff to do after the final afternoon workshops, but that is where most of the discussion happens anyway, so its best not to try to schedule that. Comments are welcome.

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Discussion

fabooj - I love the idea of a 4 day event and adore the keynote address for each day. I'm also gaga over the times you have set up, but I worry about how much can really be covered in 1/2 hour.

HappyMichBlogger - A four day event would great, but I think it depends on the venue and whether or not the extra day would be cost-prohibitive. If 90% don't show up until Friday, then spending the cash for what would be an early evening social mixer may not be the best use of resources. If we CAN get a four day event, then we could have a little extra time for informality and spend the bulk of Friday and Saturday on constructive effort (not that the social stuff isn't constructive!)

pastordan: I like either set-up. Four rounds of workshops a day might be a bit ambitious--people will want time to relax, socialize, etc. I've also thought it might be fun to include a few short "spotlights" around the keynotes. We could invite some current/former front-page people to give a rant, throw some red meat out to the attendees.

katydid: I hate the idea of 30 minute papers. All you can do is listen to a speaker; there is no time to discuss anything, or make any progress. We will get no farther than what all the speakers have prepared prior to the convention. It would be better to do 2-3 hour workshops, each one starting off with one or two speakers on a theme, then throwing it open to the participants to brainstorm and collect ideas on the topic. No more than 3 themes running simultaneously (depends on how many participants there are). You can have 40-60 people in a workshop in small groups, generating ideas, that get brought back together on a white board by getting everyone's input. You need people who are really good at that kind of thing (I happen to be). You get each group to fill out a paper with their version of the discussion, and later it gets summarized in a 'workshop document' that gets published here for additional comments. That is how you get somewhere. We need to make progress TOGETHER as a community.

plemeljr: The workshops could be 50 minute hours and then you get the time between to talk. I think it would be a mistake to think that every workshop/presentation would be alike. Some would have to be more informal - roundtable like (or small groups brain storming), while some things like history or some advocacy would be more 20-30 minute lecture with questions/discussion at end. Also, I think we could have some be panel discussion - 3-5 people discussing a topic and then throw it open to the full audience. Remember that in the workshops there might be as few as 20 or as many as 100 and numbers don't always signal success. There should be a variety of workshop type ranging from lecture to panel discussion to full on brainstorming/white boarding like katydid proposes. Variety is the spice of the convention, and not everyone likes group brainstorming.

Carl Nyberg -- I think it's a bad read of the community that people want to attend keynote address after keynote address. Methinks a big part of the Daily Kos' appeal is to allow people to express themselves. To the maximum extent reasonable the convention should allow members of the community to express themselves.

gina-agree w/ Carl Nyberg and katydid "We need to make progress TOGETHER as a community." I think keynote speakers followed by discussions would be an important part of our convention. We need to define ourselves first if we have any hope of reforming the democratic party into defining itself.

plemeljr: Keynote speakers could be bloggers. How about a change from keynote to theme of the day speaker? I think together discussions are good, but if we are planning for 500 (even if only 100 show up) getting everyone together in one group will be problemmatic. That and not everyone is interested (or skilled at) all topics. I think breaking down topics into smaller problems and then piecing it back together is easiest. That and we will be using the wiki to continually upload info and what is going on in each discussion. The sessions after the Theme Speech could (must?) relate back to that day's Theme Speech. Are we saying the same things but differently?

Unstable Isotope: I like Proposal 1 and 2. I'm not crazy about a keynote speaker in the middle of the afternoon. That's when I'm sleepiest. Having a dinner or pre-dinner speaker is effective. I think we should let dKosers organize some sessions themselves. At many conferences there are "poster sessions" as a way for less well-known people to give their work. How would we do this in this type of conference? A

gina: maybe we could recruit dKosers based on some themes. For example, JamesB3 is very vocal in support of gay issues. What if we asked him to put feelers out there to see if a number of people would like to meet and chat?

I don't know if there's a way to determine who a lot of people subscribe to. A, for example, Meet Pastor Dan mixer would be fun.

Unstable Isotope: I think we should use Kossacks as much as we can. I don't know our budget but I bet we can only afford one big-name speaker. I propose that we make one night a fun night. Perhaps we could have Kossack Awards? We could have fun categories like best username, best sig line, best rant, etc. A second proposal I have is that we have nightly "debates." I'm assuming we're going to be voting on a statement of principles or platform or something. We could choose some issues that the Democrats need to address, for example, Iraq: finish the job or leave now or something like that. We could have people volunteer to present each side to use it as a way to educate us on each side. I think this would be a really fun idea. What do you guys think?

Proposal 3

Summary

Ask questions; let community reflect on answers. Include medium that doesn't communicate well online.

For the full conference one needs to arrive Thursday by noon, but it’s designed so individuals can arrive any time Friday or later and join the event in progress.

Thursday

What are the choices before us? This day is dedicated to people articulating where we’ve been and what they see as the options for the future.

1200-1330 Democratic Party & progressive organizing outside the Democratic Party.

1345-1515 Media

1345-1515 Internet Communities

1530-1700 Daily Kos and the progressive Internet community

These would be the presentations with the big name people. But everybody "speaking" would be expected to present papers in advance that would be posted. So they'd each do short (two minutes or less) opening remarks and then open the discussion to questions (not speeches) from the floor.

The goal would be to ask questions to let the community wrestle with during the individual sessions.

1730-1900 hors d’oeuvres

1915-1945 poetry, short stories, performance art, music

1945-2200 play

Friday

0745-0845 early bird session

0745-1015 extra long session

0900-1015 first morning session

1030-1145 second morning session

1200-1330 lunches: general plus specific sub groups

1345-1515 first afternoon session

1530-1700 second afternoon session

1730-1930 “Taste of Chicago” style dinner

2030-2359 Bands punctuated by poetry, performance art, etc.

"Taste of Chicago" sytle means that diverse food will be available at multiple stations. This encourages more mingling and discussion than a sit-down meal.

Saturday

0745-0845 early bird session

0745-1015 extra long session

0900-1015 first morning session

1030-1145 second morning session

1200-1330 lunches: general plus specific sub groups

1345-1515 first afternoon session

1530-1700 second afternoon session

1800-2030 formal dinner. First speaker: ties the convention together; second speaker: gets people fired-up about participating in making society better.

2045-???? Room parties

Sunday

0900-1100 screen the film/documentary that was judged “best picture”

1100-1200 State brunches for Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio & Wisconsin

1230-1330 administrative meeting for organizers (if necessary)

1230-1430 Chicago metro area organizational meeting (other metro areas can get meetings if requested too)


The theory behind the state brunches is that people may want to organized their states and most of the people from the region can attend their state brunch and still drive home by a reasonable time.

Brunches and events should not overlap.

Discussion

plemeljr: I like the idea of regional/state/local meetings/lunches/brunches. But I think this should only happen once - because forcing people to an early morning schedule is not a great ideas (at least for me). Also, I think that "earlybird sessions" might not be a great idea - they happen anyway at conferences without forced scheduling, so why force it. I guess my biggest concern is people who can't get up early/don't function well early might feel like they lost out on things. That and a very heactic schedule burns people out.


Carl Nyberg -- The early sessions serve two purposes. It allows people to sked sessions that have a fair bit of video tape and still allow some discussion. The other purpose is that they provide some overflow. If someone misses the deadline but has a good idea for a session they can put it in the early bird sessions.

plemeljr: OK, I could buy the Overflow/Video typology for the earlybird session.


gina--

I think we are going about this all wrong...

Do you think Markos knew he was changing America when he started Daily Kos? Did anyone in the early days realize what an important thing the progressive political blog would become?

I think we have a most important job here and its time someone acknowledged it.

No one else in progressive America is trying to put something together like this. Whatever agenda we put together sets THE agenda for the progressive blogosphere. This is the first of its kind so it is important to set the ball rolling in the right direction.

Since we’re just jumping into this, perfection isn’t likely (understatement) but it doesn’t hurt to imagine what a perfect agenda would look like. We could then do our best to match that perfect agenda.

Imagine the perfect conference agenda…

Who’s there? What are they doing? What does it feel like? What experience will participants leave with? What are the tangible outcomes? How will it be viewed by outsiders (the media spin)?


Who’s there? Of course, Kosians…but who are the Kosians?

A perfect agenda would be meaningful to all those groups and address their issues in proper proportion to a developing progressive agenda. It would take into consideration the practical needs of the different groups (lunch and love time w/kids for parents, needs for social interaction, etc.)

What are they doing? They are doing more than following a schedule. They are…

What does it feel like?

What experience will the agend leave participants with?

What are the tangible outcomes of our agenda?

How will outsiders view it?

I think how outsiders view us may be one of the most important tasks of our Agenda setting. The titles we give to workshops alone will evoke frames (in the particpants as well), and we want those frames to be positive and productive toward developing a well articulated progressive agenda.

So, before we just make out a schedule and fill in the blanks, I think we should look at what we want the big picture of our agenda to be and what it will say and accomplish. That will give us a better picture of where we should go with this.

--Kascade Kat 11:02, 16 Nov 2004 (PST)This is awesome! I think some of the issues you raised need to go to the Steering Committee - would it be OK if I included you in the invitation list? What's your email?

--czawadzki This is right on. The event is much bigger than it may seem to us right now. We have a responsibilty to get it right and not sell it short. Gina you rock.

gina

gina dot yearlykos at gmail dot com

I just opened this account, but I have extra gmail invites at ginacooper dot ca at gmail dot com if anybody wants one.

fabooj: Thank you gina, I'm in total agreement with you. I maintain that we should have mutliple workshops/panel discussion at the same time, especially if streaming video will be made available. We definitely need to set a theme quickly to get this agenda (and therefore speakers and workshops) up and running. Each day should be dedicated to a major theme, such as:

Under these major themes, each workshop/panel/keynote can address education, healthcare, military, poverty, religion, etc. We can brainstorm program titles during the conf. call. I am on the speakers' committe also and sealing this will definitely help us get target our speakers. anika at anikascreations dot com

--czawadzki Why couldn't we do tracks? Instead of each day devoted to a specific theme, couldn't we have the themes spread evenly through out the 3 days. That way will get maximum attendance each day. There will always be something interesting going on. An entire day devoted to one subject could get boring. It might be more fun to mix it up. Tracks could include speakers and workshops.

Examples:

An example day would look like this:

Friday 10:00 Roundtable Discussion / Open Forum with some of todays speakers, Open Forum 10:30

Noon - Lunch 2:00

3:30 Main Conf Room - KeyNote Speaker - "Author George Lakoff - How Democrats can Win"

5:00 Lobby - Happy Hour, meet and greet


This is just a rough idea but I think with this approach - we could fit a more diverse amt of things into less days and appeal to a broader range of people. -cindy at urbancode dot com

Unstable Isotope: I like what gina's saying. We should definitely think about the "perfect" conference. However, we'll have to look at this a generation 1. I doubt we'll have money to do everything we want. We want it to be productive, we want it to be different and more fun than other types of political conventions. After all, we're mostly regular people who want to make a difference, not paid political operatives. Most of all, I think we want it to be interactive.


--czawadzki

If you expect little you'll get little. We should set our sights on the stars and see where we land.

We can get the money. Why not set up tables in the lobby. We will be the perfect demographic for some companies & authors. Why not charge the registration fees up front? Sell t-shirts up front? Technical Authors often do talks for free if it is for thier customer base and they have a chance to further thier career/book/ect - We should be able to attract some low fee/no fee speakers, that have draw. We might be regular people but just because we're not paid doesn't mean we aren't political operatives. This has unlimited potential. If we want to make a real difference, we have to take the kosvention seriously. If we want to hear ourselves talk and hang out. We'll be dismissed as internet geeks - and we are so much more than that. -cindy at urbancode dot com

Proposal Four

SheaBriana: Taking in everyone's conversations thus far, and Gina's excellent topic starter, this is what I have come up with. Notes at the bottom to explain.

Thursday

5pm- Registration and Meet and Greet

Dinner OYO

7:30pm- Roundtables- free flowing, two moderators per room, people free to go in and out -Progressive role in ensuring democracy -How to build the country from the ground up -Getting mainstream media to make blogs legitimate -etc

9:30pm- Hospitality Rooms

Friday

Breakfast OYO

9:30am-10:30am- Workshop Session 1 -7-12 Workshops on varying topics, based on interest of the dKos community. Members can propose their own workshop, and submit topics they’d like to see. The committee can then look for presenters for the topics that community members cannot facilitate.

11:00am- Panel Sessions -2 or three panel sessions on various topics.

12:00pm- Panel Sessions

Lunch Meal Plan or OYO

4:00pm- Workshop Session 2 - same set up

5:30pm- Dinner Meal Plan or OYO

7:30pm- Opening Session- Keynote Address

9:30pm- Entertainment

Saturday

9:00am- State breakfasts

10:30am-Workshop Session 2 Repeat

10:00am- Vendor/Activism Room open *all day

12:00pm- Networking Lunch

1:30pm- Roundtables Session 2- more organic, framing of issues, setting a direction, etc

3:30pm- Workshop Session 1 repeat

5:00pm- Dinner Meal Plan or OYO

7:30pm- General Session- Keynote Speaker

9:00pm- Free time/Entertainment

Sunday

9:00am- Optional worship services? Perhaps nondenominational or UU, or even several of different religions

10:00am- Outcomes session- Reviews of what we did, goals for the future, etc

12:00pm- Farewell Lunch Meal Plan

Explanations

First, the Hospitality rooms would be a place like Elizabeth described, comforting, run by volunteers, that provided a place for people to relax, talk and come together.

Second, the Roundtables are pretty self explanatory I think, but they provide that organic, grassroots ability for us to put brains together and come up with ideas. To me, that's where the magic happens.

Third, the workshop sessions are interactive and led by one or two people who propose the topic or are asked to present by the committee (via suggestions for topics from the community)

Fourth, the Panels are more debate type, issue driven exchanges. Not as much audience participation, but more of a chance to learn.

Fifth, Vendor/Activism room is where we would have displays, people trying to alert others to single issues, people trying to sell things or promote other organizations (like Wellstone) its a place for attendees to gather information and learn about things that interest them more, or to share their passion with the community.

Sixth, State breakfasts are a time where people from the same state can discuss more local issues. Afterall, we are a grassroots community, people should be able to leave with an idea of how they can have the greatest impact in their world.

Seventh, Networking lunch, a specific time for socializing without any other distractions. I'm thinking buffet type lunch, much like Elizabeth described, but provided by a caterer or donated. (people would be free to move around, encouraged to talk, etc)

Eighth, Meals- Every breakfast except the State breakfast is On Your Own. (we can provide a cart and sell things like coffee as a fundraiser perhaps) Thursday lunch is on your own. There will be two meals built into the convention cost- the state breakfast and the networking lunch. Both can be done cheaply wherever our location is.

Ninth, Meal Plan- Some people like to eat in restaurants, some like to be in the big group. Restaurants won't be able to accomodate our size, but not everyone wants to pay the cost of all the meals. My option is to have an optional meal plan. The way this would work is at the time they register for the convention, the attendee would decide whether or not they wanted the meal plan , which would cost extra and include the four meals remaining. Also, they could a la carte certain meals (as I'm anticipating that people will not be there for the whole convention due to work, travel time, etc). This makes it more affordable as well as convienent.

Tenth, What I tried to do here was take everyone's ideas and weave them together into something thats fun and sociable, yet diverse, issue driven, purposeful and community-based. I also tried to come up with something that would suite almost any venue we had. Hopefully it moves us somewhere closer!

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This page was last modified 19:40, 3 July 2006 by Chad Lupkes. Based on work by dKosopedia user(s) Czawadzki, Sheabriana, Unstable Isotope, Fabooj, Gina, KascadeKat, Yamaneko, Elizdelphi, Plemeljr, Philosopher, Carl Nyberg, Pastordan, Caseyhelbling, Katydid and HappyMichBlogger. Content is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.


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