2020/West/Planning

Tentative Schedule
Once we can sign off on the tentative schedule move it to the appropriate page.

Should we plan on sessions being an hour each or giving them a bit more time with an hour and 15 minutes each? Or play it by ear based on the number of proposals?


 * hour long sessions
 * hour and a quarter sessions
 * +1
 * hour and a quarter sessions
 * +1

Brainstorming
The largest online IWC in scope was IWC Online 2019, which had 11 sessions and 20 active participants. This event attempted to adopt a multi-timezone schedule. This event will be centered in the Pacific timezone, but we have to be aware of how adjusting the schedule can be more inclusive to people who live in other timezones.

Session Planning
The biggest challenge of session planning for an online IWC is that the casual pre-event conversations that often prompt sessions later do not take place in this medium. We have tried traditional barcamp session planning, and advance session proposals. May suggest a mix this time. Goal can be that at least 50% of our sessions are proposed in advance.

Social Activities
Physical IWCs usually include a pre-event dinner the night before, shared breakfast/lunch at the event, and often dinner after the event. How can we add a social component to the event?
 * RPG room
 * Animal Crossing or Mariokart tournament?
 * Karaoke (we did it at OER20)

How about a Zoom lunch?
 * If so, be sure to schedule additional time so people can prep lunch in real time and then return for a live stream
 * Should there be a "topic" for lunch or multiple break out rooms with topics for this?

Demos
Split demo session...early and late...to cover different timezones (maybe EU and Americas), but not split session days.

Simultaneous Rooms
The online IWCs often have a single track, whereas in-person ones often have multiple rooms. What do we want to aim for in terms of this?


 * we have always planned for multiple track online but the demand wasn't there. Plan for multiple tracks but know you may go down to one.


 * Every session should ideally have
 * Facilitator
 * Host (sets up tech runs the room, should not be facilitator or scribe)
 * Scribe


 * We've discussed livestream from Zoom to YouTube so that latecomers can have quick access to see prior pieces if they need to play catch up. These can also be left up temporarily until the individual sessions can be downloaded and archived.
 * investigating
 * to write some copy to feature the functionality

Hallway Track

 * Do we want to try something like this?
 * How?
 * We could have a "Hallway" Zoom room. If you go there, it means you want to hang out and talk shop or socialize, but not in the context of the talks/discussions which are underway. It'd be like a live version of the IRC.

Zoom
The technology of choice recently for IWC has been Zoom. Assuming we continue in this way, do we want to take advantage of breakout rooms and other Zoom features? How do we adjust the way sessions work for this medium?

Thank you after
[message that was sent after the camp]

Dear IndieWebCampers:

Thank you for participating in IndieWebCamp West 2020 last weekend!

You Made IndieWebCamp West Awesome!

We heard inspiring keynotes from community members Cassie Evans, Ryan Barrett, and Jacky Alciné. You can rewatch their talks here: https://indieweb.org/2020/West/Schedule#Keynotes as well as all our breakout sessions.

You gave awesome lightning personal site demos that inspired us as a whole; facilitated and participated in lots of breakout session topics on Saturday; and demonstrated numerous personal site and indieweb community improvements on Sunday.

You should all be very proud of what you wrote, designed, built, coded, tested, and shipped in just two days!

If you have a moment, write a blog post summarizing your IndieWebCamp experience, and we'll add it to our growing list of stories and reflections:
 * https://indieweb.org/2020/West#Posts

We Did A Lot

We were originally planning our 10th annual IndieWebSummit this past weekend, and after we had to cancel that like all other in-person events, we decided to try organizing an online IndieWebCamp instead to see if we could make something summit-like happen for the community. Together (yes, including all of you!) we had:


 * 50+ participants over two days
 * 12+ hours of videos of talks, sessions, demos: https://indieweb.org/2020/West/Schedule#Saturday
 * 3 lightning keynotes: https://indieweb.org/2020/West/Schedule#Keynotes
 * 28 personal site intros: https://indieweb.org/2020/West/Intros
 * 9 breakout sessions: https://indieweb.org/2020/West/Schedule#Sessions
 * 20+ new sites, features, wiki pages demonstrated: https://indieweb.org/2020/West/Demos

What Next?

Excited from the weekend and want to keep the momentum going? Here are five things you can do to stay active and in touch:

1. Chat: https://chat.indieweb.org/ — there's folks active in our chat channels from around the world at all hours, pop in and say hi!

2. Meetups: https://events.indieweb.org/tag/hwc — every Wednesday evening we have a community hosted 90 minute informal meetup to chat, show, and tell all things IndieWeb. It's like a little informal IndieWebCamp session where all levels are welcome. Subscribe to the iCalendar (ICS) feed to get weekly reminders!

3. Newsletter: https://indieweb.org/this-week-in-the-indieweb — want to take a breather and get summaries once a week? Get This Week In The IndieWeb in your email inbox, or of course also in your social reader or feed reader as h-feed or RSS.

4. T-shirts? You might have noticed many participants wearing IndieWebCamp t-shirts throughout the weekend. We have some from last year's summit, and if you participated this weekend and don't have one, email your t-shirt size / fit preference / shipping address to us at west@indieweb.org and we'll see if we have one!

5. Blog! Last but not least, please post about your own IndieWeb hopes, dreams, aspirations, struggles, accomplishments, surprises, and whatever else comes to mind, using the #indieweb hashtag, and #indiewebcamp regarding anything camp-specific.

Thank You

Thanks to everyone who showed up and participated, facilitated, took notes, wikified, volunteered, and demonstrated! We especially want to thank our keynote speakers Cassie, Ryan, and Jacky for putting together inspiring, informative, and optimistic talks.

If you'd like to share your feelings about how camp, attendance, or experiences could be better, please email the organizers at west@indieweb.org. We're always looking for ways to improve our programs in the future. We can treat your feedback as anonymous if you prefer, just let us know.

The IndieWeb never sleeps. See you on chat, our meetups, stay tuned for an IndieWebCamp East in the fall, and maybe a few Pop-up Sessions until then!

Thank you!

Your camp organizers, volunteers, video archivers, and code of conduct contacts: Chris Aldrich, David Shanske, Aaron Parecki, Alex Kearney, and Tantek Çelik

P.S. If you'd like to help organize future camps or smaller events in your city or timezone, please let us know and we're happy to help you with resources and support to make that happen.