In terms of community events in the Clojure ecosystem we mainly have local meetups and conferences. Meetups are easy to organize but fairly low value. Getting good talks is hit or miss, succesfully connecting with others in the community at a meetup is hit or miss as well.
Conferences can provide a lot of value, both in terms of content and in terms of interacting and connecting, but they are a lot of work to organize. They are too much work to organize for the fun of it, but running them for profit isn’t easy either, and can be a barrier to inclusivity.
As a result we have a handful of bigger conferences backed by profitable companies that do it mostly as community service, perhaps combined with a modest profit motive.
This is especially palpable in the US, where only the Conj is left, and people perceive a real need for more local and regional events. People want to make stuff happen, but organizing a full blown conference is too scary to contemplate.
Meetups and conferences are also both organized around talks, which is a sub-optimal format. It takes time away from the most important aspect of conferences: meeting others, and it’s a sub-optimal medium for learning and knowledge sharing.
While the Clojure community seems healthy and growing at a modest pace, it is also insular, and in several dimensions lacks diversity, including age, race, gender, and professional experience. This homogeneity is a real problem. It means we only have a narrow range of life experiences to draw from. It means fewer differing points of view to challenge our thinking and assumptions. It creates an environment where unconscious social bias is left unchecked.
It also means that those who don’t fit the mold will easily feel out of place, and self-select out, which reinforces the problem. A healthy community has to be a diverse community, and needs crossover with other communities.
For all of these reasons I propose a new kind of event, tentatively called a “Shoestring” event.
- easy to organize by keeping it small and simple
- easy to replicate by having a defined format, recipes, “cookie cutter”
- prevent gatekeeping by making it decentralized
- prevent burn-out by rotating organizing teams
- prevent fizzling out by making continuity built-in
Shoestring events are free community events happening in cities worldwide. They originated in the Clojure community, but are not exclusively about Clojure. We want to cross polinate, inspire and be inspired by other communities and technologies. The Shoestring principles are here to make sure events are easy to organize, and to ensure continuity and longevity through decentralization.
- you need nobody’s permission to run a Shoestring event
- shoestring events can be as small or as big as you like. When in doubt aim smaller. A good size for your first Shoestring is up to 20 people, but it could go up to a few hundred.
- typically a Shoestring is a one day event, but it can be as long as you have appetite for
- no money is charged for participating in a Shoestring event
- keep it simple, all you need to get started is a location with tables and wifi
- avoid the temptation to make things harder for yourself
- every participant volunteers, either before, during, or at the end of the event
- there is no central organization. Each Shoestring team runs its own Shoestring hub (a Shoestring hub is both your website to market your event, and the tool you use to coordinate. While we’re bootstrapping this will be a simple wiki)
- shoestrings are non-corporate and non-commercial. Only take the minimum amount of sponsorship you need to cover costs.
- prefer in-kind sponsorship, e.g. a venue sponsor, a lunch sponsor. Not needing a bank account makes things a lot easier.
- consider going out for meals or doing a potluck. Keep it simple.
- Shoestrings are events for people who make things. People are encouraged to create something tangible and share it with the world during and after the event.
- the shoestring community creates documentation and tools to make it easy to run an event
- shoestring events self-perpetuate. Each event sows the seeds for the next. Each group helps to further spread the format.
The name comes from the phrase “on a shoestring”, i.e. on a low budget, scrappy, emphasizing the low barrier to entry. The name deliberately does not include “Clojure”.
A shoestring is also one of these things that is super simple but that can have all kinds of uses.
A lot of things can happen at a Shoestring, it all depends on possibilities at the venue, the choices of the organizers, and the initiative of the participants.
Shoestring mainly consist of unconference style sessions. This works especially well if the venue has separated spaces like conference rooms. Sessions are organized by participants, they can be workshops, discussions, birds of a feather, or hacking on a specific project or issue.
Organizers may also block of parts of the day for a (non competitive) hackathon, or for Random Pairing, or allocate an open space where people can hang out, socialize, or collaborate spontaneously.
The main principle is active participation. Avoid conference style “sit and listen” talks. The only exceptions to this are presentations at the start and end of the day that provide an introduction or conclusion. These can be useful to share practical info and provide a sense of shared experience.
The organizers of a Shoestring will pick a theme and tagline, and set out the framework for the activities. They may also pre-seed the schedule by contacting people they know, but ideally most sessions come directly from participants.
The first Shoestring will happen in Berlin, in April 2020. We’ll aim for 20 to 30 participants.
The theme is encouraging grassroots activity in the global Clojure community, and developing the initial materials and tools for Shoestring.
The tagline is “Lacing up”.
tl;dr:
- venue & date
- recruit collaborators
- theme & tagline
- decide the format
- pay it forward
There are two roles involved in a Shoestring event: organizer and participant/volunteer. Remember that everyone volunteers, so there is no separate “crew” or “volunteers” role.
You need two to five organizers to pull together an event. Don’t run one alone, it’s not fun. Don’t go bigger than five, you’ll have a harder time making decisions and it will be less fun.
Next you’ll need a venue and a date. Don’t make further plans until you have a venue and a date set out.
The venue will determine how many people you can accommodate, and the overall format you can offer. Ideally there are separate spaces so people can break off into groups, but if you just have a single open space that’s fine too. Just because a venue has space for a certain amount of people doesn’t mean you need to go to that size. Feel free to cap the participation at a size you feel comfortable with.
Decide upon a theme and a tagline. These will form the focal point of your event. You’ll have a lot of individuals bringing something original to the table, the theme and tagline will provide some sense of direction in this (healthy) chaos.
Decide upon the overall shape of the program. This does not mean picking actual content, it just means allocating space that others will fill in. E.g. have time in the morning and afternoon for unsessions in the three rooms that are available, have a two hour lunch break, and have an open space that runs all day.
It’s fine to just let people put up their sessions on the day, or you can allow people to post their session ideas beforehand (a wiki page will do fine). If this is your first Shoestring and you’re worried no one will run sessions then you can pre-seed the program by asking people you know to run a session.
There are some things you do want to plan. Every shoestring should include a session that pays it forward to the global shoestring community. This can mean working on materials or tools, doing advocacy and promotion, or providing help to other groups.
There should also be a session whose purpose is to propagate your own Shoestring group. Here groups of two to five people can pitch their ideas for the next Shoestring in your area. A pitch consists of a location, date, theme and tagline. All participants have a right to put forward a pitch, and to vote on the proposals. A good date to aim for is six to nine months into the future. If there are a lot of people willing to organize in your area then you can go as low as having one event every one to three months.
Next you are going to need participants/volunteers. Eventually we want to manage all of that through your shoestring hub, but to bootstrap all you really need is a wiki page. Post the tasks you need help with it and the time slots, and let people fill in their names.
Things to consider: build-up, clean-up, reception/info booth. If you decide to offer food then you’ll need to find a food sponsor, deal with the caterer, etc.
It’s ok if you can’t think of everything that might come up. Remember, everyone is a volunteer. If something unexpected comes up then just grab the nearest people and ask them to help.
You may need to create a bit of buzz around your event. Start local: talk to your friends, present at your local meetup. You can also leverage your social media clout, share your events with online forum and chat communities, or ask other Shoestring groups to share the word.
These are some ideas of the kind of things you could do at your local Shoestring.
Teach people hands-on. The person giving the workshop should clearly indicate what the topic is, what level of experience is expected, and how many participants they can accommodate.
… flock together. People congregate around a shared interest to discuss and learn.
Tables, chairs, and wifi. A place where people can hang out, socialize, or hack outside of any session or format.
Use a mechanism to randomly split people into pairs, to go and pair program on open source. Pairs can determine together what they work on, or you can set out some suggestions based on the theme.
Provide a projector and sound system, people can come up and showcase their visual or auditory creations.
A hackathon in the shoestring context is a little different then what you may be used to. Shoestring hackathons are collaborative, not competitive. Rather then coming up with prototypes from scratch, shoestring hackathons are meant to rapidly make progress on community projects. Teams of two to five people each take on specific bugs or features that they decide to work on.
- show up or yield your spot
- volunteer
- read up on unconscious bias
- read the code of conduct
- make it fun for others
- participate actively
- clean up after yourself
- introduce a friend
Shoestrings are an open, decentralized format. There’s no central authority to tell you what (not) to do, so significant variation is possible and, in time, expected. This makes us adaptable and resilient. Just try to stay true to the spirit of Shoestring
- grassroots, bottom up
- decentralized, distributed
- based on active participation and volunteerism
- non-corporate, non-commercial
- encouraging diversity
- encouraging creating and learning
Some interesting possibilities for the future: Shoestring camp, a multi day event closer to nature, joint events where one shoestring group visits another, or where several groups collaborate to create a bigger event.
The people who run shoestring events in a certain city or region form a Shoestring group. This is an informal organization without a legal entity and without central leadership.
A group can be identified by its name and online presence, e.g. Shoestring Berlin.
At each event people can pitch their ideas for the next event. If they get a democratic mandate from the group to do the next event then they are the new organizers and have full freedom to organize it as they see fit.
An admin role is responsible for providing the new organizers with access to their Shoestring hub for the duration of their event.