Loomio
Tue 15 Nov 2016 7:16PM

Launching OuiShare Fest Paris 2017 on Cities

SR Samuel Roumeau Public Seen by 388

Dear fellow OuiSharers :-)

We owe you an update on the last achievements and decisions about next OuiShare Fest. As mentioned a few months ago, for the fifth edition we want to make some larger changes to key aspects of the event. We count on you to contribute and make it beautiful as usual!

Theme

Cities. As most of you know, we decided to focus on cities this year as it’s a topic that a lot of people have been showing an interest on, with some concrete projects (Sharitories, Sharing Lille, Gare Partagée, MEL…). Plus, it’s a very hot topic in terms of how the decisions are made at global stage (by creating a network of global cities) and how to ensure a resilient society for all (by increasing gap between mega-cities and other spaces, urban or rural).

Title

We first wanted to call the event “Cities of Tomorrow” but we think it sounds too neutral and too close to Smart City- like events. A consensus has emerged around “Cities for Citizens”, until we discovered it was the title of Smart City Expo in Barcelona… So, we definitely need to brainstorm on a potential title for this edition. Please add your ideas here!

Format

As OuiShare evolves, so does the Fest, in a more ambitious way. That’s why we want to deliver more content all year long and not only put our energy on a three day event. The new format we would like to try is a real program, and consists of :
* The OuiShare Urban 100 → it’s a list of the most influential, inspiring, and relevant thinkers and builders of cities. It doesn’t have to be exhaustive, it’s our point of view. We’ll build a network upon this group of people to produce content and action. Please help us make the list, we need you!
Research and content production → we don’t want to wait until the Fest to write articles, hand on studies, and produce reports. In France, we’ve created the Lab to explore the future of shared cities, with a partner called Chronos. We have several ongoing studies such as “Data and the city”, “Collaborative Cities and Territories”, and “Autonomous vehicles”. Research will be based on this Lab and beyond, with 100 interviews from our OuiShare 100. Please help us write some content, we need you!
* Cities challenge → having 4 companies giving money (around 15K), 4 cities as experimentation fields, and 4 startups to answer the challenges : that is the idea. This part of the whole program tends to be more concrete, as a complement to the intellectual side of the Fest. Please help us find a project manager, we need you!
* Training program → we believe that the change will happen thanks to a better understanding of collaborative and digital challenges from public officials and local businesses. That’s why we’re considering a training program of two days just before or after the Fest on “How collaborative and digital transformations impact our cities”. It could also be completed with a MOOC. Here again, we’re looking for a project leader!
* OuiShare Fest → the event itself will be lighter to avoid the exhausting previous weeks in the making. We’re considering a 2 ½ days event from Wednesday 2 pm to Friday night. The content will be very high level, based on the contribution from the OS 100 list. Scarcity is precious. At the same time, we want always more participative formats, artistic performances, and less frontal content.

* Satellite events pre-OS Fest → in order to stick to our content production, and due to our willingness to raise attention very regularly on urban challenges, we’ll organise several events on sub-topics. For instance, we already organized an event on FabCity in Paris on November 10th. Events are planned in Bordeaux, Barcelona, Brussels, and Marseille already. Please also organize your local event!

Venue & date

TBC. Regarding location, it is most likely the event will take place in Pantin, very close to Paris, in the building where we’ll have our new office next year. In terms of date, it will be later this year because of French presidential elections in May. Most certainly last week of June or first week of July.

Core team

Six of us have a clear role so far. Maiwenn on event production & team coordination, Taoufik on partnerships, Helene on communication, Francesca on the transmission from previous years, Justyna as artistic director, and myself on the program. Other team members are finding their right role on the way.

Program curators

Based on experience from this year, for 2016 we would like to have fewer curators as well as experiment with having members from external organizations as curators , taking care of curating 3 to 5 sessions each. Within our community so far, both Khushboo and Albert have shown a strong interest - and have the legitimacy - for doing the curation. As for external organizations, Re:publica and Civicwise have been contacted, and we’ll maybe work with Our Cities, Shareable, or C40. The proposed deal with such organizations is documented here.

Overall this seems like a good amount of curators to me, but if you are absolutely would also like to be a curator, please write a short text explaining why he/she wants to be involved in the curation team and what expertise you can bring.

Program tracks & vision

You can find a draft grid of analysis for the program and a brief vision (slides 3 & 4 in French, it’s a draft prez too). This has been challenged at some point, you can still add your opinion on it.

Call for proposals

Even though we have a list of 100 fantastic people, and a team of expert curators, which constitutes a solid base for the program, we still want to give the opportunity for people to contribute and propose sessions. The call will thus certainly be more selective and narrow than previous years.

Patrons

The cherry on the cake, this year we look for superstars to endorse our event, make it smarter and more impactful. We have Tomas Diez, Robin Chase, Amartya Sen and Saskia Sassen in mind. Tomas has already accepted to mentor us, we need to contact the others.

For those who read it until the end, congrats! We’re all open to your feedbacks, propositions, angers, manifestations of joy and enthusiasm, and so on :-) We tried to find the right balance between moving forward to show something tangible and enabling everyone to contribute, I hope it’s satisfying for all!

See you soon!

Sam & the OuiShare Fest team

Ps : as it seems that links are not working on Loomio, please find the Gdoc to find all the info : https://docs.google.com/document/d/11P5MXnmmrSkgS9kozWV4OwQ2F2KuRO5e7JjWBAvCgmY/edit.

AB

Alexandre Bigot-Verdier Tue 15 Nov 2016 8:17PM

thks for the update!

SC

Simone Cicero Wed 16 Nov 2016 9:54AM

Ciao Sam,
Thank you for this amazing update: now it's much more clearer to me where the OuiShare Fest is going, even if I had the chance to speak with Francesca about this.
I have mixed feelings about this pivotal change and the way it happened.

Let's start with the good part :)

I think you (and whoever worked on this concept) made a great job: it looks solid. I personally LOVE this idea of creating a community of urban 100 and actively facilitating a conversation between them, before and after the Fest. I was talking about this with Cristian Iaione today and he was very interested. I will ensure to add my suggestions. Where should we?

Also the idea to have external Curators sounds great and Albert and Khusboo will be great curators; one point I want to raise about this is: I think that people that actively worked on developing Sharitories in the last year or so should have the chance to be involved as much as possible in the curatorial process, at least as a sign of inclusion (thinking of Daniele, Angel, etc...). Also I think Lucia could be a great addition given the work she's doing on tourism.

City as a Platform
On my end I'm currently trying to fund a small research/content project around the topic of Cities as Platforms: "How can we design cities as contexts for networked value creation, evolution and performance improvement"?
I'm wondering if we see potential connections/opportunities to leverage on the Fest activities. What do you think? I'm still not clear on how to give a hand on the Kronos project, will reach out to Ghislain that is coordinating if I'm not wrong.

Training Program / Learning Days
I think it's finally a good idea to organize the "learning days" we've been talking about since years, and I talked with Francesca about co-designing it together. I'm not still clear on how focused on cities/civil servants - I suggest as low as needed/possible, also to make the program of the fest be a bit wider than the cities topic and to make the learning days interesting to many.

I've added a bucket on the OSFEST co-budget: I think this can work if we can have ideally 2 persons working to get this off the ground, make the design, contact the partner and design - together with the rest of OSFest team - the biz model.
I think this can end up being sustainable and generate revenues. I'm proposing a way to manage it in the bucket >> http://cobudget.co/#/buckets/859

Now a couple of issues:

I'm a bit concerned about transforming an event with a too much generalist focus in an event with a too narrow focus (IMHO). I understand this pivot was needed as I've heard that the energy and potential around the Fest was going down lately so I trust the team that worked on this first hand of having done the right choice. For sure I think this could be a radical departure from the original Fest spirit and concept and, somehow, the OuiShare Fest as we used to think about will not be there anymore so I think one important thing to consider will be ensuring continuity (if we're interested in it).

On a personal note: I had the feeling that I could have been more involved in this rethinking process and generally consulted/involved in the program design - given the four years experience on it. I understand that I've two major faults: (1) my approach to program co-creation has always been exaggeratedly participative :) (encouraging international participation and diversity of sources) + (2) I'm not in Paris :)

I know that the Fest team is more inclined to work with a closer team because of some hiccups in organization from last year - but this left me a bit disappointed. BTW having the possibility to work on the program for 4 years was a great chance and I'm very thankful to OS for this. Just felt this was important for me to share :)

Looking forward to see OSFest17 thrive and change cities FTW!

BJM

Bernie J Mitchell Thu 17 Nov 2016 9:22AM

Hi @samuelroumeau - @elenagiroli , Trevor and I are very keen to develop the OuiShare Radio podcast track in the lead up OSfest 2017 https://www.spreaker.com/show/ouishare-fest - we could start in Jan 2017 and there are clear methods to build buzz and sell tickets over the time!

ET

Esra Tat Thu 15 Dec 2016 6:53PM

Hi @samuelroumeau and the team!
Thanks for the detailed update, and all the work done so far!
The new format is pretty ambitious and that's great (especially given the desire/necessity to "reinvent" the Fest).
Regarding the training program, I do agree with @simonecicero There's a biz model to find, and why not extend it to a year-long "format", with "study/visit trips" to some innovative/advanced cities?
I absolutely love the idea of 100 urban experts/thinkers + Cities Challenge (do you already have any idea of the cities? potential partners? etc). On my 2 Fest experiences, I sometimes missed to see such "on-the-spot" experimentations. It looks like a huge value to me. And a way to get more interactions and com' around the Fest!
Looking forward to OSFest2017!