[Events] how to approach disengaged attendees

[Akkana Peck]

Coral Sheldon-Hess writes:
> fwiw I always walk around the events where I'm a
> mentor and ask "How's it going?" of individuals or small groups, rather
> than "Do you need help?" It seems a little more neutral, a little less like
> I'm suggesting the person's having trouble.

I'm a big fan of walking around asking everybody how things are going.

If you wait for people to raise their hands, you'll miss a lot of
people who need help. You'll especially miss women: we've long ago
been socialized to realize that most of the time no one will noticed
our raised hands (lots of classroom studies support this) so we just
don't bother, or we're tentative about it.

Another problem with hand-raising is that it requires that the
student stop working and wait, watching the mentors to try to catch
one when they become available. So you have to guess at probabilities:
is the chance of catching someone's attention greater than the
chance I'll figure it out on my own if I keep working? As a student,
I usually decide the latter is a better bet, so I'll keep working
but occasionally glance around trying to catch someone's eye
(which almost never works).

One thing I want to try (and might in my PuCon workshop in April) is
some kind of prearranged signal, like an airplane call button. "Put
this red bean-bag on top of your monitor if you want help." Then the
student can continue with trying to figure things out, knowing that
they'll get help as soon as someone's available. And it's equally
noticeable for all students, so even people who are used to being
ignored (women, shy people, whoever) feel like they have a chance.

	...Akkana