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Mon 21 Dec 2015 6:07PM

Design Proposal

CKT Chong Kee Tan Public Seen by 229

Based on the last organizers' meeting, Rani Croager created this proposal for the structure of LNE 2016. This proposal was presented to the organizers' meeting on Thursday 12/17 and approved by those present.

CKT

Chong Kee Tan Mon 21 Dec 2015 6:09PM

Here is the proposal.

CKT

Chong Kee Tan Mon 21 Dec 2015 6:11PM

In plain text:

LNE 2016 Program Design Proposal

In our meeting in October 2015, the broader LNE team outlined three program design goals for the 2016 Convergence:

• Provide opportunities for participants to deeply engage on issues of greatest concern to them.
• Provide a space for people to meet other people around shared goals and opportunities.
• Create an opportunity for projects / initiatives to come out of the convergence and for participants and the broader community to engage with those projects / initiatives after the convergence.

In order to achieve these goals in alignment with the proposed vision, it is important that before, during and after the convergence, we engage a broad base of community organizations whose constituents represent the diversity of Oakland. In addition, we need to be mindful of the appropriate processes and technologies to engage different groups (e.g., mind the technology gaps).

Below is a proposal on different elements to help meet the program design goals for the 2016 Convergence:

Overall
We propose a three-day convergence of informative talks, interactive workshops, and a daylong “activation session” devoted to applying people’s passions toward new policy campaigns, movement building and social enterprise.

We suggest the three days take place over a Friday-Sunday as many of our participants work during the week. It is typically easier to take off a Friday than a few days during the middle of the week. Because many of our participants who will be taking off work may lose wages, we should consider looking into ways to offset the economic hardship.

Community Driven Content
To provide opportunities for our community to surface the issues of greatest concern to them, a majority of our talk and workshop content needs to be community driven. Some suggested ways of engaging the community:

• Open call for proposals in advance of the convergence: This is similar to SXSW and SOCAP. We can put in place a process for people to make a proposal on a session topic in alignment with the convergence themes / tracks. We can allow the crowd to decide the most attractive proposals. If we design an open proposal process, we will need to consider (1) technology as not everyone will have access to crowdsourcing platforms and we may need to do a series of community organization town halls to supplement the technology; (2) messaging around call for proposals; (3) time period for making proposals and voting process; and (4) how much time we dedicate to the open proposals during the convergence.

• Open space during the convergence: Provide a one or more blocks of time for participants to propose and lead open space talks / workshops in alignment with the convergence themes / tracks. If we design an open space process, we will need to consider (1) people’s level of comfort / security in proposing a topic onsite vs. in advance of the convergence; (2) messaging around the open space process to ensure it resonates with our participants; and (3) how much we dedicate to open space during the convergence.

Activation Session
One of the differentiators of LNE 2014 was the day and a half “hackathon” which allowed participants to bring their ideas, pitch them and form teams to work on them with the goal of having winners that received prizes (scholarship to Uptima Business Bootcamp, website hosting, co-working, Bay Bucks consulting and credits, Institute for Evolutionary Leadership bootcamp) to help them develop businesses out of their ideas. Both the grand prize and runner-up winners of the LNE 2014 “hackathon” utilized their prizes and are continuing to develop their businesses. As a result, we have some proof of concept that “hackathon” session has impact beyond the convergence.

We have an opportunity to extend this impact beyond business by turning the “hackathon” into a day-long “activation session” with three tracks: (1) new policy campaigns, (2) movement building and (3) social enterprise. The “activation session” could be facilitated by leaders in each of these three tracks. All registered participants could take part in the mentoring and idea cultivation aspects of the daylong session, but a select number of participants may also wish to team up into cohorts to hone their ideas into a presentable format. Cohorts will have the opportunity to present their ideas at the end of the day to a representative panel of judges who will select a winner in each of the three tracks. LNE could provide a one-year support package (e.g., one-year scholarship to Uptima Business Bootcamp for the social enterprise winner) to each of the three winners to further put their ideas into actionable plans.

Safe Space
If we steward LNE well, the event may trigger many people over many different issues. As part of the program design, we suggest have concurrent track running throughout the event for any participants who want to meet and speak / process what comes up for them. It could be facilitated in a safe space, container created in the manner of Theory U or restorative justice circle, or it may even be self-facilitated. This is so that everyone with contrary ideas and feelings can feel heard / valued, and everyone gets to sit with the discomfort with each other, and hopefully, something regenerative may emerge from that willingness to hear and be with the discomfort.