At the Geek Retreat, everyone is encouraged to participate in facilitating a session/talking in the 'talking heads' sessions.
These are the core themes:
- Innovation: How we're stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship on the SA web and looking at opportunities for collaboration.
- Principles: What kinds of principles are defining the way we do business and development on the SA web and where we should be moving (openness, transparency, diversity etc)?
- Projects: What kinds of collaborative, community-oriented projects are there out there that help to grow diversity, openness and transparency on the SA web and are there opportunities for more of these?
These are the session types:
- Brainstorm: you have an idea for a new collaborative community-driven project and want to get peoples' input - use this time to get input from your peers (all positive, adding to the idea, then some time for criticism and risk analysis)
- Analysis: you have some ideas on an issue - what the status of affairs is, where the problems lie, where there has been success, what might be the solutions (i.e. focus on in-depth analysis and critique rather than problem-solving)
- Debate: 2/3/4 of you take different sides of the same topic, you each get a chance to say your piece, there is audience questions/comments, you make your final conclusion and it's a wrap :)
The great thing about the retreat is that we have people whose expertise lies in all 3 themes. We have those who are working on projects to stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship in the SA technology space, we have people who work on the intersection between principles and policy, and those who are looking to develop community-oriented projects that benefit the entire industry rather than any specific company/s.
Remember that, because this is based on the Open Grid approach, if you don't put your name beside a topic or make sure that something happens, then it won't :) So, if you're very keen to see specific outcomes at the event, you have to make sure you facilitate that process in the run-up, during and after the event. The great thing is that if you put it out there, people will help you, but it won't happen (and no one is going to make it happen) if you don't take this on yourself.
