Re: Keynote Speaker(s)?

Its more valuable to organize some ideas and substreams about:

1) Problems
2) Where interoperability is important (Dont call it standardization yet)
3) How this affects the web.

Here is a poor example from a hyperledger meeting at the DTCC.

https://github.com/hyperledger/hyperledger/wiki/Identity-WG---Potential-Substreams

I have been in the Bitcoin & Blockchain space as long as anyone else and I have lots of use cases, problems, features, capabilities, and such.

We should organizing ideas and content about 1-3 above. These should be product neutral implementations. We are not getting together to sell our product to each other. We need to find interoperability points so everyone can have a chance for success.

Erik

From: juan@benet.ai At: May 13 2016 04:09:41
To: baileyreutzel@gmail.com, schepers@w3.org
Cc: public-blockchain-workshop@w3.org, ryan@blockstack.com
Subject: Re: Keynote Speaker(s)?

I'm also against keynotes. Agree with many views expressed here.

I support Trent's idea for short (5-7min) lightning talks. ideally not about specific blockchains but about problems, needs for standardization, potential cohesion, etc.
On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 1:35 PM Bailey Reutzel <baileyreutzel@gmail.com> wrote:

Doug-- 

I still think you make a great point about having a speaker come in to get the conversation started, implant some interesting ideas, etc. Didn't someone suggest an academic? 

IMO, that would be better since they won't have stake in the game and there won't be a chance of them pushing a product, which is not what people want from this workshop.

-B


On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 11:23 AM, Doug Schepers <schepers@w3.org> wrote:

Hi, folks–

I'm hearing a fairly consistent sentiment against keynotes. (What else did I expect from a pack of Libertarians? :D) Assuming that y'all represent a meaningful segment of blockchain folks, I'm now leaning against having a keynote.

I made the case for having a keynote, but I'm not yet hearing any strong voices to reinforce the case for a keynote speaker.

So, if you do want a keynote speaker, speak now or forever hold your peace.

I don't know if folks like Stefan or Arvind will still be motivated to attend if they aren't giving a keynote, but let's hope.

Regards–
Doug

On 5/12/16 11:25 AM, Ryan Shea wrote:

I vote no on the keynote as well.

I'd be concerned about a bias or slant towards one particular technology
or platform like Ripple. Combine that with the fact that the industry is
so young and we're essentially all peers here.

On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 11:21 AM, Rick Dudley <afd@erisindustries.com
<mailto:afd@erisindustries.com>> wrote:

    I don't want a keynote. I want to make progress deploying
    decentralization technology into browsers. If he wants to have
    discussion about using standards bodies to develop technology,
    great. I don't want to hear about much else.

    Everyone who replied is on the blockchain side of things, I much
    rather have a keynote from someone who got some code into production
    browsers as an outsider.

    Maybe someone from Brave would be interested in joining us?

    -Rick

    On May 12, 2016 10:39 AM, "Neha Narula" <narula@csail.mit.edu
    <mailto:narula@csail.mit.edu>> wrote:

        I'm OK with no keynotes, but I'd like to throw out another,
        academic option.  Arvind Narayanan, a professor in computer
        science at Princeton:

        http://randomwalker.info/

        Arvind has done a ton of research in this space and actually
        wrote a textbook on Bitcoin.  I've heard him speak (most
        recently at the MIT Bitcoin expo, link
        here: https://youtu.be/UVuUZm4l-ss?t=14155) and he's an
        excellent speaker.  He can address high-level overviews and
        broader themes while still incorporating interesting technical
        content.

        On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 5:19 AM, Trent McConaghy
        <gtrent@gmail.com <mailto:gtrent@gmail.com>> wrote:

            Agree with Gavin, Chris and others - I prefer no keynotes as
            well. Better "participatory and collaborative atmosphere"..

            Lightning talks ok, but only if a fraction of the time, and
            if there are better scene-setting mechanisms, all the better.

            It would be helpful to have Stefan be part of the workshop
            though - he's good, and as Bailey mentioned is doing going
            through the W3C process with Interledger. Also his
            Interledger colleague, Evan Schwartz, is appropriate.

            On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 10:53 AM, Gavin Wood
            <gavin@ethcore.io <mailto:gavin@ethcore.io>> wrote:

                I'm also inclined to stay away from keynotes and the
                like. I feel that the chances of engendering
                a participatory and collaborative atmosphere can be
                maximised by avoiding the elevation of any
                particular participants, even for a well-meaning purpose
                such as "getting everyone on the same page". Rather I
                would look for means to structure and define the events
                content and aims well enough beforehand to render any
                kind of "scene setting" largely redundant.


                On Thursday, 12 May 2016, Doug Schepers <schepers@w3.org
                <mailto:schepers@w3.org>> wrote:

                    Hi, Christopher–

                    I hear you that your preference is for an entirely
                    participatory event.
                    I'm less convinced than you, at this point, that
                    everyone is on the same
                    page.

                    Having a thoughtful speaker can set a tone and
                    context, and raise great
                    questions that are discussed at the rest of the
                    workshop.

                    At W3C's recent Advisory Committee meeting, Bruce
                    Schneier spoke on
                    security and the "techno-social process" of
                    standards and law, and it
                    was the highlight of the event, prompting a lot of
                    useful discussion.

                    A good keynote speaker can also attract attendees,
                    who might feel more
                    incentive to attend for a chance to listen to and
                    interact with the
                    speakers.

                    More replies inline…

                    On 5/11/16 7:58 PM, Christopher Allen wrote:

                        There are a side variety of formats possible.
                        Just a few that I’ve
                        used:

                        * Open Space
                        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology


                    I'm open to looser agendas, but I am nervous about
                    having a productive
                    set of discussions if there's no general set of
                    topics or agenda; I can
                    see it descending quickly into rat-holing.

                    There are also people who won't attend open-agenda
                    workshops because
                    there is less assurance of some ROI outcome. If we
                    want to attract the
                    right people, do you think an open agenda will be
                    the best way to
                    accomplish that? This isn't a rhetorical question… I
                    don't know the
                    blockchain community well enough to judge.

                    (I've anecdotally heard from Asian colleagues that
                    agenda-less meetings
                    are sometimes not well-received in their cultures.)


                        * World Cafe http://www.theworldcafe.com/ or my
                        closely related
                        Braid (does more mixing)
                        http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2009/09/facilitating-small-gatherings-using-the-braid.html


                    This


                    sounds interesting, but also a bit complicated to
                    manage with a
                    large number of people.

                    My own thought was that we'd break out into
                    voluntary topic tables,
                    where people wander in and out unconference-style,
                    and as topic petered
                    out or built up, we'd discover which topics garnered
                    the most interest.


                        * Design Workshop (example of the last one I ran
                        https://github.com/WebOfTrustInfo/rebooting-the-web-of-trust/blob/master/event-documents/process/RebootingtheWebOfTrustProcess.pdf


                    )

                    This also seems a bit complicated and gamified, to
                    me. I'm somewhat
                    skeptical of "new system" meetings where everyone
                    has to learn the rules
                    on the fly, which seems to inhibit natural
                    conversation flows; they seem
                    to be more about the process than the discussion.
                    But I haven't
                    experienced this particular variation, and maybe
                    it's really effective.


                        * Lightning Talks (truly 5 minutes talk and 5
                        minutes Q&A) for a
                        half-day, then election from those for further
                        discussion for rest
                        of day. Repeat 2nd day.


                    This is more or less what I had in mind.


                        * Poster Sessions
                        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poster_session


                    No enough group conversation for my taste.


                        * and there any more…


                    Yes, many many more. I prefer to keep the rules
                    simple, and maximize the
                    group discussion opportunities.


                        Another option is that one of the best graphic
                        facilitators in the
                        world resides in Boston, and we could retain her
                        for $3500 and use
                        whatever process she recommends.


                    I like this idea, and I'd like to have the drawings
                    for later
                    documentation and spreading the word about the event.

                    It would work well for plenary sessions; I'm not
                    sure how it scales to
                    multiple parallel groups discussing different topics.

                    Also, we don't currently have the budget for this.
                    I'd be even more open
                    to it if we had more sponsors.


                        The key point is that the knowledge is in the
                        room, and parallel
                        processes with smaller groups are more likely to
                        emerge with choices
                        for the larger group to explore.


                    We agree there.


                        Sage on the stage and other serial processes
                        waste energy.


                    I'm not convinced that's universally true.

                    (I'm also skeptical of pithy slogans, like "sage on
                    the stage". :P)


                    But I don't want to dictate what format this
                    workshop uses… I am open to conversation about it,
                    making sure that we hear from a large number of
                    people on the PC what they think will be most
                    effective. I do want to settle on format fairly
                    quickly, because it's a topic that can balloon to
                    fill all available conversation time.

                    How should we decide on format, in an efficient way?

                    Regards–
                    Doug


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Received on Friday, 13 May 2016 13:20:14 UTC