Loomio
Wed 22 Jun 2016 1:21AM

Provide a paper map and signs/flags for breakout groups to use to claim space

EH Ethan Heppner Public Seen by 335

@christopherwhitake and I have noticed that new people often have trouble finding the rooms where the breakout groups they are interested in are meeting. What do you all think of:

  1. Printing out a map of the Braintree space open to us before each hack night and having breakout groups write in where they plan to meet.
  2. Providing breakout groups with signs/flags so people can confirm that they're in the right place when they go to where the breakout group meets.

Note that there are some concerns that group leaders have shared about how onboarding new people in the middle of a working session can cause tension, which we should discuss in a separate thread. So solving for this may or may not be a priority, but I thought I'd put it out here before I forget! :)

DE

Derek Eder Wed 13 Jul 2016 2:26AM

I'm generally not in favor of this and it has come up several times before. It's a big logistical challenge, and would require someone running around and keeping tabs on who is where.

Is this addressed in the breakout group descriptions?

ES

Eric Sherman Wed 10 Aug 2016 4:22AM

This could potentially be addressed using our breakout groups issues in the future. Thinking:

  • Labels that correspond to group names.

  • Use a version of the map of rooms and have groups be able to click a room to grab it for the night.

EH

Ethan Heppner Mon 15 Aug 2016 4:05AM

I like this idea Eric, and wish I had the coding skills to help you (or someone else) build such a thing :) We'll have to catch up on Tuesday about how the new skin for GitHub issues is going, I'm really excited to see what we can make of it.

In case we're not able to do this right away, Derek and I chatted the other week about having a paper map in the main room that the breakout groups would mark using stickes or other (moveable) markers. If we were to design an online map of available rooms, maybe we would still consider doing the paper map for the first couple of weeks and distributing the stickies as a physical reminder to breakout groups to mark their location as I could see it as something people could otherwise easily forget to do.

If we start designing a way of virtually claiming rooms in Braintree's space though, I wonder if they would fork it for their own purposes... that would be pretty cool.