I haven’t made a formal statement thanking everyone for their participation at Movement Camp – it was quite a ride. Many people made the event possible and I count the event both successful and a learning experience. We’re still digesting all that happened and we’re trying to figure out how to improve upon it for future iterations. I have the deepest appreciation for all the participation, support and above all joy and patience I witnessed. Thank you, each and every one. I believe we are part of a real movement, and that Sunday was a “happening” – and we’ve done something important for the Coalition — we’ve moved beyond the relative safety of the Blog.

There’s room for improvement in the planning of the space and event activities, and there’s room for increased clarity in the social processes we want to us in that space. That’s not to say we would limit ourselves to one particular process, but rather we’d expect to use different methods as appropriate. But the important point to note is that we all come to this work from different backgrounds and expectations wrt to communication patterns, and for many who arrive – any newcomer to the space and tools – orientation is an important part of the process.

Of course I’d like us to maintain as much spontaneity as possible, but I do want us to be conscious about how we hold the space, how we outreach to others and invite them in, how we make them feel welcome and comfortable and oriented within the space and groups. Further, we want everyone involved to feel invited to a sense of stewardship of the spaces, tools, vessels, group, so that they can take part in the outreach, invitation, welcome, and orientation of others. These are the laws of hospitality for the Coalition and Movement Camp.

Allow me to address one more topic, briefly – the theme of inclusivity and the tools we use. We offered two primary modes of communication, a broadcast video/audio stream, and an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) mechanism. Initially I didn’t expect the video portion to be as large a portion of the day as it became. In my view I wanted the chat mechanism to have greater priority because we couldn’t easily “pass the microphone” – so to speak, and in IRC we’re all on the same playing field. (And we want you to have fun and engage.) More generally – as is obvious to most of you, the IRC is fairly lightweight and won’t hog bandwidth or machine resources in the way video does.

Still, the video experience has value and we expect to continue to use it in some form. We’d like to be able to more easily stream content (video) from multiple points of origin, in monologue, dialogue (and going beyond 2 simultaneous participants if possible.) We’d like to be able to take the content and make it available both as a live stream and for long term archive. We’d also like for there to be an option for audio-only streams (and archived content). We’d also prefer value aligned tools and platforms when feasible.

If any of you have expertise in these areas, please let us know.

Best Regards,

Michael Maranda

By Coalitionblog.org