Planning a WG mini summit

[jwflory]

Summary

Organize a mini-summit by and for the Design & UX Working Group

Background

In February and March 2022, we discussed the idea of planning an in-person get-together to make long-term plans for the Working Group, build and strengthen our community, and possibly invite other designers into a design clinic or workshop.

This issue is a place to begin tracking discussion and plans for this idea and what it might look like. Budget is available through Sustain but also with support from Sloan Foundation funding. We would need to create an event prospectus to summarize this event and its key objectives.

Details

We bounced between two ideas, basically running an event at one of two sizes.

Smaller team-focused summit

The first idea was to have a small summit for contributors to the Design & UX Working Group to come together for an in-person event. The main focus is to organize and sharpen the focus of the Working Group around projects or tasks we would like to work on over the next 1-2 years. The scope is small and the agenda is focused around our own sustainability and narrowing down the wide scope of things we do as a Working Group.

Beyond the work-focused tasks, it would also be an opportunity for hallway track and community bonding in whichever city/location we end up deciding as most effective for our summit.

We could also run this as a hybrid option, for working group members unable to travel but who wish to participate virtually.

Larger open workshop and community event

The second idea is to widen the scope of the event and run a small- to mid-sized event that serves as a multi-day workshop and design clinic for expert and newcomer designers in the Open Source world. The WG could help plan an agenda and programming for the summit, and we can invite designers from prominent open source projects and some kind of open process for people to receive travel funding to attend such a workshop event.

This has a bigger organizing burden, but @RichardLitt noted it may be easier to achieve funding for running an event that focuses on sharing out the impact of our work and what we do, by nature of hosting the event itself.

Outcome

Bring Sustain Design & UX community together and run a small-scale in-person event to strengthen our existing community to continue our work