[OSCTC-planning] feedback from U-Victoria event

[Shauna Gordon-McKeon]

I just had a great convo with Emma Irwin, who did a stellar job running our
Open Source Comes to UVic event a few weeks ago.  I wanted to summarize
some of the takeaways and ideas I got from here/while talking with her:

*1)  Responsibilities could be clearer*

Emma pointed out that she missed some conversations that I had had with
other planners, and as such she was a little confused about what her role
was.  Another downside of this was that there was stuff she, as an
experienced event organizers, could've taken off my hands, allowing me to
focus on working with students who'd never run events before.

*Action Items*:  We're already planning to improve our infrastructure and
this feedback just reaffirms the necessity.  The more I hear about
Discourse, the more I like it.  We may also want to think about what the
best format for tasks is - Discourse threads?  Trello cards?  Github issues?

*2)  OpenHatch could have more of a presence at events*

Emma suggested having a brief, optional introduction from a remote
OpenHatch person, such as myself, talking about the event, what's going to
be covered, and some basic cultural stuff like, "It's okay to ask for help"
and "open source can be hard and doesn't function like a classroom" and
general friendly positivity.  This is also an opportunity to remind people
of the Code of Conduct.

*Action Items*:  Come up with "talking points" for the introduction and
come up with a list of people, beyond Shauna and Asheesh, who feel
comfortable giving this remote presentation.

*3)  Having mechanisms for getting feedback from students*

Yeaaaah, this is an ongoing issue.  :/  The Software Carpentry sticky notes
method works pretty well (if we remember to get the sticky notes!) but
doesn't teach feedback as a skill.  I'd love to focus on feedback as a key
element of open source contribution that we're teaching, but I'm not quite
sure how to do that yet, and if there's a way to tie that to a formalized
way of getting feedback from students and volunteers.

*Action Items:  *None yet.

*

Thank you to Emma for your feedback, and of course, I'm always happy to
hear what others have to say on these issues.

best
Shauna
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.openhatch.org/pipermail/osctc-planning/attachments/20141031/47d794da/attachment.html>