[Lab] Open Workshops. The Fall and beyond . . .

[Darcy Whyte]

Wohoo!

I think the workshops are a great way to facilitate sharing and stimulate
people to start and finish projects. One thing to consider is to
occasionally have "lightning talks". Rather than one speaker for the
evening, organize 6 ten minute presentations. That's an hour of stuff so
there could be a pre-social, break and post-social to facilitate even more
connectivity and sharing between people. And that could fit in two hours.
This is the format of DemoCamp (I go to these in Ottawa and Toronto). They
are very successful at stimulating the software and startup community and I
think this format would be fun to try sometimes.

This might harvest out more speakers that just want to demo a project or
share a problem or give a tip. I'm sure there will be a good supply of
people that can do a full hour or two (I can do quite a few subject areas
myself and will if there is interest).

Just a thought.

I think the web site is pretty close. It just needs to have all the base
"use cases" listed and tested to see where the issues are. I know there are
a few that don't work well.  The template has some usability issues that can
impact a couple of use cases. For instance, one use-case is to contact the
organization. This is what the site looks like on my main computer:

http://mambohead.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Screenshotartengine.png

Those links at the top right are very far from the focus of the screen (and
separate from the rest of the links). Even if you do think to look there,
white on pink is really a bad choice for usability.

Just 2 cents worth...




On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 3:27 PM, Ryan Stec <ryanstec at artengine.ca> wrote:

> Hello Everyone,
>
> The Open Workshop series has been a great success, and I want to thank
> Emily for all her hard work to get the momentum going! An even bigger thanks
> to everyone who has donated their time thus far. I think this is a great
> start and we had lots of idea shared in the lab!
>
> We want to continue the process, and I working on the schedule for the fall
> and beyond. What we are going to do is schedule the workshops for the 2nd
> and 4th Thursday of every month. This will allow us to do a bit more
> promotion, and allow people to remember when something is on. The odd month
> it will be on the same week as the Lab, but I don't think this will be too
> much of a problem.
>
> I will be building the schedule to start in August, and will contact people
> directly about ideas they might have had (Theremin Workshop!!!). If you have
> any ideas please feel free to email me directly, and if you have any
> suggestions for something you would like to see new or again please feel
> free to post to the list!.
>
> We are also going to work on some improvements to the Artengine website
> over the summer so that the Workshop and Resource areas are better served.
> Ideas on this are of course more than welcome.
> ____________________________________________________________________
>
> Ryan Stec
> Artistic Director
> Artengine
> 2 Daly Ave.            Ottawa, ON
> K1N 6E2                613.686.1941
>
> Try your luck with Adrian Göllner at http://artengine.ca/shapeofluck
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>
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