Review: People in Beta (session) @ Convention Camp 2012

Outcomes

We engaged with the Convention Camp visitors in 3 ways:

1. Provoking dialogue and filtering keywords. We aim to find out what things people are doing and thinking about.
2. Opening the discussion to all. We could find out what are the patterns, and from those patterns which ones are relevant to the Convention Camp audience.
3. Creating a story. We transformed those insights into two short films. Thus sharing a reflection about the Convention Camp at the end of the day.

During the discussion, a woman told us: “If I share, I lose!”. But this isn’t a fear of losing that what you share, rather a fear of losing control over what you share. Once you share something you can’t choose what other people might do with it.

The two stories develop through the session reveal two different perspectives on sharing

Story 1: Sharing is Caring (Link to movie)
This is the story of a maker. That person that sees a problem and makes a solution.  He feels that current platforms limit what he wants to say, so he creates the platform -sharing is caring- to have total control of what he shares, with who, when and how. This start-up shows how different people will benefit from more control over their -sharings-. The story illustrates a trend towards more control of the user over the data and how this will foster even more sharing.

Story 2: The limits of Control  (Link to movie)
This is the story of corporations. They also see the opportunities of sharing. Companies see how by creating spaces for employees to exchange, get to know each other and share insights they will improve their innovation. Many are open to trial those processes, however if this culture is not truly understand, they risk a shallow margin in their innovation culture, and quickly being copied by other companies.

We can see how some initiatives have understand well the boundaries of sharing and provide you (the user) with certain aspects of security so that you know that you can control it: AirBnB give you insurance so that you know your home is safe; betahaus makes sure you always have a place to work; google documents allow you to share your document with those who you want to work, or make it public.
Those initiatives, inspired by our needs, learned how they can foster sharing by giving the user control of certain parameters.

Reflection

Talks and presentations at conferences are not any more sharing something new. Most projects and presentations can be find online long before the conferences happen. Instead conferences are a great place where people go to meet other people. And is through the discussions that arise between them, that new ideas and concepts emerge.

People in beta (session) / Convention Camp 2012 from Nina gleich on Vimeo.

Our process was in beta, changing through the day to adapt to the challenges and opportunities of the event. While we are very excited about the results and possibilities of the process we know this is a prototype and where looking about what aspects could be improved:

• Engage a bigger audience: We want to design a better communication strategy to give the possibility to more people to participate
• Integrating the video team before: We need to better understand what they need to make the story understandable, and they need to understand our findings
• Release the video before. To have the biggest impact people have to know this video will be produced, and the video have to be shown in time for people to discuss it.

Nevertheless we still brought something new to the conference

• The opportunity for people to see how the process work live.
• We added a more collaborative, open and reflective dimension.

Our process was a real experience of what it means to be beta, something that most people might not see everyday and might have provoked them to think different.

You can read about the concept and team here

Post written by Pedro Pineda