Fantastic preparations, @how! I’ll add my first 2 cts…
I have added some entries to Scaling Up Cooperation - #6 by system and added the link to the pad.
Besides discussions here on the forum and elaboring on the pad, I have the Codeberg organization Fediverse and I can create teams there with organizers of the event. Then in one or more repo’s we can do the slides preparation and such, create project board / milestones, etc and everyone can PR + file issues. Let me know if you are interested in that.
This is wonderful. But it also represents an important test: How well do we understand the needs of the EC representatives?
Objective
Without going into too much detail I’d say the goal of the 3-part meetup might be phrased in the slogan:
"From Interest, to Excitement, to Action!"
With that as the strategy we can take care that each meetup builds seamlessly on the previous one. Ideating a bit:
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Webinar 1: Brief intro (AS/AP/Fedi 101, Current landscape) → Bold vision (opportunities) → Strategy (realizing vision)
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Webinar 2: Topic: Vision to reality / Strategy to operation, Brief tech overview + weak spots → Important research areas
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Workshop: Prepare for action / launch activity track. Organization. Address questions & open issues → practical follow-up
Webinar 1 - Projects
Strong recommendation: Don’t have Projects be the main focus of the presentation (but introduce along the way)!
For the initial presentation, besides it being necessarily high-level given the short time available, I feel its nature should be:
- Visionary
- Strategic
If you look at DG DIGIT this is also how they are positioned. We can find handholds in their Plans and reports, their FOSS vision, etc. and build upon those, to be as relevant as possible.
Visionary
The EC representatives may have heard a bit about Fediverse already. But in this presentation we should outline a Bold Vision - our Moonshot - of what the Fediverse can be.
I’ve worked in many tech roles, among others as Product Owner, and from that perspective I’ve been passionately advocating a number of talking points. They all go beyond the overly technical focus that exist in this community. Here are the main ones:
Note: All these talking points are part of Fediverse Futures that intends to broaden the scope of this community:
- Towards considering and brainstorming applications that target new business domains
- To stimulate people with a bigger variety of skill sets and tech roles to join the community.
While not necessarily the ones above, I think that we should mention Projects gradually during the presentation, and always in relation to a particularly Visionary concept.
Strategic
I’ve been arguing in multiple topics (e.g. here) that fediverse is still weak and fragile, and that our strong points - decentralization and grassroots organization - also work to inhibit and slow down our evolution.
That we need focal points - such as SocialCG, SocialHub, and maybe a Foundation - to coordinate and collaborate together, and grow the community strength. Healthy growth is the focus, but achieving it requires people actively investing significant amounts of time and effort.
And here I see an opportunity in this EC / AP initiative, namely:
Opportunity: To turn our main weakness into one of our primary strengths.
With our different positionings, the AP / Fedi community vs. EU-affiliated tech initiatives can keep each other sharp. In no matter what ways fediverse will evolve, we will always have to comply to regulatory frameworks that exist. We must seek alignment.
We fedizens stand with our ‘boots in the mud’, in the ‘Wild West’ social media landscape as it is organically taking shape, and at SocialHub we are actively doing the shaping. In that we are field experts. The ones with invaluable practical expertise for regulators, policy makers and strategists that need to create the stable pillars of society.
And with their strategic mindset, regulatory powers, and - importantly - the willingness to bring real improvement to the tech landscape that exists in the EU, the EU have very much to offer in return.
We should highlight this point, imho. There is mutualism and synergy to be had:
Strategy: Embrace each other’s strengths, help mitigate each other’s weaknesses.
The aforementioned handholds we find on DG Digit and other EU sites can be our guide to weave in some enticing hints of how this embrace can be taken to practice, and which strategies are instrumental to follow then.
