Thank you very much for your thoughts and suggestions Lea! I'll be sure to pass them on to the rest of the team.

Personally, I think the strength of the Techstorm is its very personal approach: this is where the Techstorm actually differs from a 'normal' hackathon. I am afraid this will not work in an online environment and would rather wait an extra few months to be able to organize it again as a physical event.
I think the one thing we all are learning from COVID is to practise patience: for some things there simply is no good online substitute.

But I am not the only person on the team, and this surely needs to be discussed in a broader way.
WMNL is having an online Wiki Saturday this Saturday for all interested volunteers about the activities in the annual plan, and this surely will be a talking point.

Vriendelijke groet,
Ciell


Op ma 8 feb. 2021 om 23:04 schreef Leila Zia <lzia@wikimedia.org>:
Hi Ciell,

I did a pass over your report and I want to share a few thoughts with
you and the rest of the team.

* First: Thank you so much for organizing another Techstorm in 2019
and writing/sharing this report. Increasing the diversity of those who
choose to participate in the Wikimedia projects is important and your
knowledge sharing is immensely helpful.

* 63 participants is a really good number. Congratulations! I also
appreciate that you set a high bar for the target distribution of
attendees. Ambitious (but not over-ambitious) targets can help us grow
and learn. One thing we learned (in 2020) when organizing Wiki
Workshop [1] was that when there is no fee for registration, we get
twice the actual number of participants registering. Something you can
consider is to allow for more registrations than what you can
physically accommodate (to a limit), with the understanding that there
will always be some no-shows/cancellations.

* I have a suggestion for how you conduct the survey: consider doing
it during the event and dedicating 15-min time to it. I understand
some people may prefer to take their time and do it later, but by
asking people to do it right there, you may get a higher response
rate. (Chasing folks after the event for surveys is not fun for either
side.;)

* Core organizing team size: Looking at the 2019 team, I totally agree
with you. A few more volunteers at the core level will be very
helpful. They also can make it more fun as you can bounce ideas
back-and-forth with them and collaborate. :)

* For 2021: consider a virtual event if a physical one is not possible
and if you have bandwidth to work on it. A lot of people are isolated
because of the pandemic and they look forward to finding ways to
connect with others, learn new skills, etc.

I want to close this email by thanking you all again. I also want to
thank you personally, Ciell, for the spirit of collaboration and fun
you bring to the projects you get involved in, and your dedication to
community building. What you all are doing is not easy, especially as
numbers won't do justice to the impact of the work. Thank you for
keeping up and organizing this event.

If there is something I can do to support you, please reach out.

Best,
Leila


[1] https://wikiworkshop.org/

--
Leila Zia
Head of Research
Wikimedia Foundation

On Mon, Feb 8, 2021 at 7:56 AM Ciell Wikipedia
<ciell.wikipedia@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> It gives me great pleasure to (finally) share with you the evaluation report of the Techstorm* 2019. Though the Techstorm was organized in November 2019, other priorities came to play for the organisational team due to the global pandemic, but over the past festive season and after, we finally found the time to finish up our evaluation report.
>
> Please go to the pdf-file on Commons to read more about the vision behind the Techstorm, the goals of the event, our metrics and, last but not least, our lessons learned.
>
> A new Techstorm 2021 is in the Dutch chapters' annual plan, but if Covid regulations will not permit these gatherings we will ask WMNL to include a Techstorm in the annual plan 2022.
>
> Keep techstorming every one!
>
> Vriendelijke groet,
> Ciell
>
> * Techstorming is like brainstorming in a technical environment. The Wiki Techstorm 2019 was held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on the 22nd & 23rd of November 2019.
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