We’re 19 days away from our 30th Internet Identity Workshop, by far the best Open Space unconference I know. (Okay, I’m biased, since I’m one of its parents.) For the first time since 2006, it won’t be happening at the Computer History Museum, which (as you might expect) is closed for awhile. C’est la quarantaine. Instead we’re doing it here…
…where nearly all meetings happen these days. (HT to @hughcards for that portrait of the Internet.)
We’re actually excited about that, because we get to pioneer at unconferencing online in meet space, much as we did with unconferencing offline in meat space.
Since you’ll ask, we’ll be doing this with QiqoChat, an online community, meeting and event platform that is integrated with Zoom, which has been in the news lately. As you probably know by now, much of that news has been bad. (Top item this morning: US Senate tells members not to use Zoom.)
I suppose I played a part in that, with Zoom needs to clean up its privacy act (which got huge traffic) and the three posts that followed: More on Zoom and Privacy, Helping Zoom, and Zoom’s new privacy policy.
After the last of those, I spoke with Erik Yuan, Zoom’s CEO, who had reached out and seemed very receptive to my recommendations. Mostly those were around getting rid of tracking on Zoom’s home pages. This is jive that marketing likes and the privacy policy can’t help but cover—which, optically speaking, makes it look like everything Zoom does involves tracking for marketing purposes. The company hasn’t acted on those recommendations yet, but I know it’s been busy. What I read here and here from the Citizen Lab is encouraging. So, we’ll see.
Let’s also remember that Zoom isn’t the only conferencing platform. (The Guardian lists a few among many options. One not mentioned but worth considering: Jitsi, which is open source.)
Back to IIW. As it says here,
- We will have an Opening Circle each day where we set the agenda
- People will propose and host sessions, and sessions will be held in breakout spaces
- After the end of sessions for the day, we’ll do a Closing Circle with Open Gifting ~ just like we always do
- We will still hold Demo Sessions and the Tech Sandbox Fair
- We will still publish the Book of Proceedings with notes from all the sessions
- And, since we can’t have a celebratory cake, we’re planning on a Commemorative T-shirt for everyone, that is included with registration
- We won’t have Rich, our favorite barista, or a snack table, but we will still have the same high-quality discussions and working sessions that make IIW a unique event
Also,
- If you’re already registered for IIW, then you’re set. The only thing to do is cancel any travel plans.
- If you haven’t registered yet, please do so at: https://iiw30.eventbrite.com
So help us make it happen for the first time, and better than ever thereafter.
And let’s hope this quarantine thing is over in time for our next IIW, which will be in both meat and meet space, next October, from the 20th to the 22nd.
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