How To Run A Jam: Difference between revisions

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__NOTOC__
Formerly under construction by [[User:Mchua|Mel]], now on the back burner because of a million other things to do... '''Please contribute and help clean up in the meantime - if I see activity happening here I'm much more likely to jump in and actually help to finish this! [[User:Mchua|Mchua]] 16:31, 13 February 2008 (EST)'''


{{draft}}
* background reading
:* what is olpc
* what is a jam?
* finding a coordinator
* locations
* food
* communicating with olpc - getting laptops etc
* judging


== What Jams need ==
== What this guide is ==
(below is contentdump to parse into guide)


This is a guide intended for anyone who's ever said "I want to run a [[Jams|Jam]] - what do I do to make it happen?" This guide will take you through the "I think a Jam sounds like a great idea" phase all the way through planning, getting resources for, running, and following-up on a Jam. The entire process takes between 3 weeks and 3 months to plan, depending on your timescale and the scope of your Jam. We've written this specifically OLPC-focused Jams, but it is probably an applicable resource to other kinds of open hackathons.
We need a couple things:


In the spirit of openness and collaboration, please hack this manual. Borrow it, modify it, steal it, edit it, and make it better in any way you can.
(a) Space. Do you know any schools, clubs/associations, or companies with
buildings or offices they might be willing to let us use for the
Curriculum Jam (first weekend of October)? We'll set up and clean up
ourselves, will operate entirely outside of the normal workweek, and bring
a good amount of positive publicity to them (see
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Game_Jam_Boston_June_2007/Press). We'd need 3-6
rooms with tables and chairs that we can move around, plus internet.


::''--Brian Jordan and Mel Chua, June 2008''
This is really important - we can't run the Jam without it! It's the most
immediate need.


== Who this guide is for ==
(b) Participants. If you know any teachers (or someone who would know
teachers, or people interested in education) in Manila who'd like to come
for the weekend and help us develop classroom activities, please let me
know! No experience required (curious parents and interested
high-school/college students are invited as well).


== Table of contents ==
It's a great way to learn about and get involved in the OLPC project
(http://www.laptop.org) and also to learn about open content, which is a
great way to get free, high-quality learning resources for your students;
textbooks, lesson plans, educational games, you name it, it's out there.
If you're interested in coming or know someone who might be, just send me
an email.


You can choose to go through the materials in this guide in any of 3 different ways, though we suggest reading the ''Step by step'' guide first, then plotting out a ''Suggested timeline'' and following it while referring to ''Resources'' as needed.
I would *love* to have this Jam be mostly in Tagalog. If you know a great
teacher or older student who speaks both Tagalog and English who might
want to step up and be the local coordinator for the Jam, let me know!
(Cousins: would you like to learn how to run a conference? I'll help you,
and it's a *great* learning experience, very helpful for college and
jobs.)


=== Suggested timeline ===
(c) Judges. Is there some way to contact schools in the area (ICA/Xavier
mailing lists perhaps)? We'll need about 40-50 kids ages 7-15 on the
afternoon of October 7 to come and judge the event - test out the classes
we've developed and give feedback on how well they work and what should be
changed. Contact me for details.


For a time-based breakdown of tasks, see the resources in this section; this is where to go to find out what to do 1 month in advance, 2 weeks in advance, 2 days in advance, 1 day after, and so on.
(d) Food. We need some way of feeding ~40 people for 2.3 days (Friday
dinner to Sunday lunch) and some way of providing snacks for about 100
people (mostly kids) on Sunday afternoon. Know any places that might
donate food, or money for food?


* [[/Suggested timeline]]
(e) Publicity. Know any journalists or PR people who can help us reach
them? I've got a press release I'd like to send out about this (it's in
English, though - don't know if that's a problem).


=== Step by step ===
(f) Crash space. Would any of you folks still in the Philippines mind if I
slept on your couch for a week or so while I'm helping with the Jam? I'm
not an entirely terrible cook, and would be happy to fix computers while
I'm around, too. :)


This section covers everything in detail, but without a timeline. These are the various topics and subtopics you'll have to deal with when running a Jam.
Feel free to forward and spread the word to your coworkers, classmates,
and friends. (Actually, /please/ forward and spread the word to your
coworkers, classmates and friends). Let's make this happen!


* [[/Picking a focus]]
* [[/Getting space]]
* [[/Scheduling time]]
** [[/Matchmaking time]]
** [[/Making tutorials happen]]
** [[/Running open space sessions]]
** [[/Project work time]]
** [[/Free time]]
** [[/Judging]]
* [[/Getting people]]
** [[/Organizers]]
** [[/Participants]]
** [[/Judges]]
* [[/Getting resources]]
** [[/Food]]
** [[/Equipment]]
** [[/OLPC resources]]
** [[/Prizes]]
* [[/Following up]]
** [[/Thank you letters]]
** [[/Getting results used]]
** [[/Writing down your lessons learned]]
** [[/Sharing with the global community]]
* [[/Learning from past Jams]]


== Resources ==
== The 4 principles of a Jam ==


This is a quick reference to templates and resources used throughout this guide.


* [[/Jam kit]]
1) Make Something Real. Teams are expected to go from start to finish on a deliverable in less than 3 days - no loose ends to tie up, no obligations after you leave. People are busy; Jams respect their time.
* [[/Schedule templates]]
* [[/Invitation templates]]
* [[/Flyer and poster templates]]
* [[/Follow up templates]]
* [[/Lessons learned]]


2) Instant Feedback. You're making real things for real people - so those people will be coming in at the end to test the things you've made for them. Watching users interact with your creations is a profoundly rewarding (and enlightening and humbling) experience - especially when the creations were just glimmers in your mind less than 72 hours before. Plus it's an opportunity for creators to become teachers and mentors as well, and a chance to empower younger children, who rarely find their advice and judgment being sought by adults.


3) Newbie-friendly. You don't have to be a prior contributor to the project to join a Jam. In fact, a crucial part of Jams are the mini-tutorials, roving mentors, and getting-started sessions designed specifically to get new developers involved in your projects.

4) Make It Yours. When Jam attendees see a need, they fill it - from bringing coffee to giving rides to holding impromptu tutorials in the hall. They don't so much attend the event as help to run it. This emphasizes opportunity-seeking, initiative-taking, and independence.

== Proposal for tutorial ==

''The below is the text of a proposal we've submitted for a talk at Linux.conf.au.''

This tutorial is for everyone who's ever wanted to run a Free Culture event but never quite knew how to get started.

We believe in learning by doing, so during the course of this tutorial, you'll be planning and preparing for your own local Jam event, be it focused on Code, Content, or some other aspect of Free Culture entirely. There will be opportunities to collaborate with other Linux.conf attendees from your area, and you'll leave the session with a Jam of your own in motion.

Jams are intense 3-day creation events where teams converge among a common interest to Make Something Cool and Give It To People. They're a great way to jump-start local interest in a project and get new contributors involved. Aside from general conference logistics (how to schedule, publicize, find a location, recruit participants and volunteers, talk with sponsors...) we'll cover the Four Fundamental Principles of Jams in detail:

1) Make Something Real. Teams are expected to go from start to finish on a deliverable in less than 3 days - no loose ends to tie up, no obligations after you leave. People are busy; Jams respect their time. How do you make sure participants have the resources they need, that projects stay on track, that morale stays high, and that caffeine stays available? In short, how do you make sure Real Things actually get Done?

2) Instant Feedback. You're making real things for real people - so those people will be coming in at the end to test the things you've made for them. Watching users interact with your creations is a profoundly rewarding (and enlightening and humbling) experience - especially when the creations were just glimmers in your mind less than 72 hours before. How do you run a fruitful feedback session? How do you get participants and judges creating things together in a camaraderie-filled, productive way?

3) Newbie-friendly. You don't have to be a prior contributor to the project to join a Jam. In fact, a crucial part of Jams are the mini-tutorials, roving mentors, and getting-started sessions designed specifically to get new developers involved in your projects. How do you make sure your Jam is welcoming to newcomers?

4) Make It Yours. When Jam attendees see a need, they fill it - from bringing coffee to giving rides to holding impromptu tutorials in the hall. They don't so much attend the event as help to run it. How do you make all your attendees into participants, putting them in a "co-organizer" frame of mind... while still enabling them to concentrate on their work?

In addition, we'll cover issues such as internationalization, running Jams in parallel (collaboration between two simultaneous Jams in different locations - even different continents!), and any other questions participants may have. This tutorial is also relevant for unconferences, unclasses, and open space programs such as Barcamp.

There are no prerequisites. Attendance at a prior Free Culture event is helpful, but not required. (For those who want to get a firsthand taste, the OLPC Activity Jam Melbourne is the weekend immediately preceding Linux.conf.) We hope to see you there!

== Test coordinator ==

Another thing to do is to coordinate the testing itself. Basically, we're going to have lots of kids coming in on the last day to test, but exactly ''how'' they're going to test hasn't yet been defined, and someone's got to figure that out and manage that (or rather, figure out how the testing will run and recruit some teachers or parents to help manage the kids at the actual event).

Even more importantly, someone's got to teach the participants how to teach, since not all the team members coming to the Jam are going to have teaching experience, or be familiar with working with kids. You might have a group of brilliant coders or ace photographers who create fantastic things - but if they aren't comfortable working with kids to test it on the last day, they (and their projects and the kids) won't get as much out of the Jam experience as they could.

Most of the work would be done at the Jam itself, with a little planning by email beforehand; basically, instead of working on a project for the laptop, your project for the Jam would be getting the teams and kids ready for testing and judging.

== barcamp notes from rod begbie ==

BarCampBlock, Palo Alto, August 2007

===1. BarCamp scales. ===

Remember in March when we were worried about 250 people showing up for
BCB2? BarCampBlock had over 900 signups, and around 600 people showed
up on the first day. A straw poll showed that for most, it was their
first BarCamp.

There were around 20 "spaces" available for sessions, ranging from a
70-capacity auditorium, to meeting rooms with space for seven or
eight. The sessions got spread across the schedule fairly evenly, and
the wide array of choices meant that, while sometimes there was more
than one session you might want to attend, there was always at least
one.

The overall feeling I got from the crowd was one of momentum. The
organizers turned the key, but once they gave the crowd a little push,
the energy carried the event forward. Yes, when they said "Go fill
out the board!", there was a crush. But it was a polite crush that
negotiated the schedule well.


=== 2. Have a "Kids' Area" ===

There were a handful of kids at the event, and a small office was
set-up with legos, pens, chalk, and random other toys to entertain
them, with adults taking turns to monitor.

This allowed the parents to attend, gave the kids a chance to
socialize, and brought a blast of energy to the other attendees.


=== 3. Sponsorships: Small amounts, but many. ===

I remember Shimon at the BCB2 post-mortem dinner saying that he'd
prefer more sponsors with lower cash amount, to one big sugar-daddy.
BarCampBlock had a $300 limit on cash sponsorships, whether from
corporations or individuals, and in the end had around 100 sponsors.

They did have some larger "in kind" donations: For example, Google
ordered and paid for the pizza for Saturday's lunch. (They also had
the pizza delivered on a rolling-basis, every 15 minutes for an hour,
so there was always fresh hot pizza.)

In return for sponsorship, companies got their name listed on the
wiki, and in the map handout. No green t-shirts :)


=== 4. Schwag ===

The name badges were band passes, from bandpasses.com.

Much better than "My Name Is..." stickers, they had the URLs for the
wiki, backchannel and social networking site
(http://barcampblock.crowdvine.com/), plus space for three "tags", so
you could get a sense of people's interests and icebreak with ease.
(Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/barcamp/tags/barcampattendee/)
Lovely and collectible.

The first 500 attendees got a bandpass, a water bottle
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/1184601899/) and a couple
of BarCampBlock stickers and buttons. The water bottle was a nice
touch, as it reduced the dependence on bottled-water, meaning less
waste.

There was also a table set-aside for people to drop off their own
schwag (pens, stickers, t-shirts etc.), which folks could rifle
through.

== Notes from Mike Fletcher ==

If you are intending to license the results, remember to get agreement up front on the licenses (which didn't turn out to be a problem here), but just as importantly (maybe more so), get full names and contact information for everyone! Having "Bob" listed in your copyright notice probably won't pass muster anywhere.


[[Category:HowTo]]
[[Category:HowTo]]
[[Category:Jam]]

Latest revision as of 00:41, 15 August 2008



Pencil.png NOTE: The contents of this page are not set in stone, and are subject to change!

This page is a draft in active flux ...
Please leave suggestions on the talk page.

Pencil.png

What this guide is

This is a guide intended for anyone who's ever said "I want to run a Jam - what do I do to make it happen?" This guide will take you through the "I think a Jam sounds like a great idea" phase all the way through planning, getting resources for, running, and following-up on a Jam. The entire process takes between 3 weeks and 3 months to plan, depending on your timescale and the scope of your Jam. We've written this specifically OLPC-focused Jams, but it is probably an applicable resource to other kinds of open hackathons.

In the spirit of openness and collaboration, please hack this manual. Borrow it, modify it, steal it, edit it, and make it better in any way you can.

--Brian Jordan and Mel Chua, June 2008

Who this guide is for

Table of contents

You can choose to go through the materials in this guide in any of 3 different ways, though we suggest reading the Step by step guide first, then plotting out a Suggested timeline and following it while referring to Resources as needed.

Suggested timeline

For a time-based breakdown of tasks, see the resources in this section; this is where to go to find out what to do 1 month in advance, 2 weeks in advance, 2 days in advance, 1 day after, and so on.

Step by step

This section covers everything in detail, but without a timeline. These are the various topics and subtopics you'll have to deal with when running a Jam.

Resources

This is a quick reference to templates and resources used throughout this guide.

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