"From where I sit, with a foot in both the technological and the social sciences, it seems really clear to me that there is no general sense that there is such a field as the engineering of online society. Not their underlying technologies, but the use of technological deployment to instantiate social spaces, that bring about certain social realities."
-- https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1829989.html
So I was reading![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
siderea 's post "Up the Slope: On Mastodon and What Social Engineering Should Be [p/a/s, new media, Patreon]" and those two sentences reminded me of something we did at the first BECAUSE conference.
OK, something I did at the first BECAUSE conference, because this was a very particular piece of conference planning that I was thinking about and wanted to happen, so I made it happen. The conference was full of a lot of good things and was built by many people for many different good reasons and a whole array of good purposes, but this one thing was specifically mine, and I made sure it happened.
The best part of it all is that it worked.
The thing was a part of our closing ceremonies, the wishing circle and closing. At a certain point, I got everybody into a circle. This took a little arranging, as some of us use wheelchairs, rollators, or need a chair handy in case our body suddenly says SITTING DOWN NAO KTHX. I wanted people to be able to notice each other, to be aware of each other, while we did what we were about to do. That was important. That was an instantiation of particular social space, for a few important minutes.
Then I took my wand -- hey, of course I had a wand, a sparkly wand; they are useful as attention focus points, as talking sticks, as traffic direction tools, and so forth -- and went around the circle gently bopping anyone who waved or raised a hand or otherwise signaled that they wanted to be called on. And then they told us their wish for something for the bisexual community, for their own lives, for any of us who didn't have something that they needed. A lot of good wishes got made. "I wish we had ______" was the general format, and I didn't necessarily go round that circle in order or just once. There was repetition of opportunity, which is useful when giving people a chance to nerve themselves up to say something. There was also as little pressure as I could manage there to be, so nobody felt like they had to say something. Yet everyone was participating by being in the circle at all, and witnessing others' wishes. After all the wishing, I said something about how if they had heard a wish that meant a lot to them, they had an opportunity to notice and make connections with other people to whom it was also important, and they could maybe build something together. I told people that the converence had been wonderful but that it did not stop at three days. It went on in the work we carried forward.
Then I pointed to a huge heap of pre-cut ribbons in the center of the circle and said that these were for anybody and everybody to take home for people who had wanted to come to BECAUSE but had not been able to. (For reasons of money, time, closets, childcare, et cetera.) This was our way of connecting with them and bringing them into the circle too. So they did, and then we finished up closing ceremonies.
The arranging of a circle where people could see each other participating, the naming of wishes, the invocation of connections (by way of a tactile physical item, the ribbons) with people who couldn't attend but nonetheless cared about doing this stuff: those were the key physical elements that I hoped would help people make and keep connections, and feel encouraged to build things they/we all needed.
There were probably lots of other ways to do it, but that's how we did it, and that's how I built a thing into the structure, and it did in fact work, because people did go forth and connect and build new things we needed. Also, people kept showing me ribbons or telling me ribbon stories for years to come. In science fiction fandom, that's a timebinding thing.
Anyhow, I don't know why I suddenly just had to tell you all this, but there it is.
Did a moment with a group ever inspire you, widen your sense of possibilities, or connect you with other people that you wound up building community resources with?
-- https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1829989.html
So I was reading
siderea 's post "Up the Slope: On Mastodon and What Social Engineering Should Be [p/a/s, new media, Patreon]" and those two sentences reminded me of something we did at the first BECAUSE conference.OK, something I did at the first BECAUSE conference, because this was a very particular piece of conference planning that I was thinking about and wanted to happen, so I made it happen. The conference was full of a lot of good things and was built by many people for many different good reasons and a whole array of good purposes, but this one thing was specifically mine, and I made sure it happened.
The best part of it all is that it worked.
The thing was a part of our closing ceremonies, the wishing circle and closing. At a certain point, I got everybody into a circle. This took a little arranging, as some of us use wheelchairs, rollators, or need a chair handy in case our body suddenly says SITTING DOWN NAO KTHX. I wanted people to be able to notice each other, to be aware of each other, while we did what we were about to do. That was important. That was an instantiation of particular social space, for a few important minutes.
Then I took my wand -- hey, of course I had a wand, a sparkly wand; they are useful as attention focus points, as talking sticks, as traffic direction tools, and so forth -- and went around the circle gently bopping anyone who waved or raised a hand or otherwise signaled that they wanted to be called on. And then they told us their wish for something for the bisexual community, for their own lives, for any of us who didn't have something that they needed. A lot of good wishes got made. "I wish we had ______" was the general format, and I didn't necessarily go round that circle in order or just once. There was repetition of opportunity, which is useful when giving people a chance to nerve themselves up to say something. There was also as little pressure as I could manage there to be, so nobody felt like they had to say something. Yet everyone was participating by being in the circle at all, and witnessing others' wishes. After all the wishing, I said something about how if they had heard a wish that meant a lot to them, they had an opportunity to notice and make connections with other people to whom it was also important, and they could maybe build something together. I told people that the converence had been wonderful but that it did not stop at three days. It went on in the work we carried forward.
Then I pointed to a huge heap of pre-cut ribbons in the center of the circle and said that these were for anybody and everybody to take home for people who had wanted to come to BECAUSE but had not been able to. (For reasons of money, time, closets, childcare, et cetera.) This was our way of connecting with them and bringing them into the circle too. So they did, and then we finished up closing ceremonies.
The arranging of a circle where people could see each other participating, the naming of wishes, the invocation of connections (by way of a tactile physical item, the ribbons) with people who couldn't attend but nonetheless cared about doing this stuff: those were the key physical elements that I hoped would help people make and keep connections, and feel encouraged to build things they/we all needed.
There were probably lots of other ways to do it, but that's how we did it, and that's how I built a thing into the structure, and it did in fact work, because people did go forth and connect and build new things we needed. Also, people kept showing me ribbons or telling me ribbon stories for years to come. In science fiction fandom, that's a timebinding thing.
Anyhow, I don't know why I suddenly just had to tell you all this, but there it is.
Did a moment with a group ever inspire you, widen your sense of possibilities, or connect you with other people that you wound up building community resources with?
