- From: Erik Anderson (BLOOMBERG/ 731 LEX) <eanderson20@bloomberg.net>
- Date: Fri, 13 May 2016 13:18:57 -0000
- To: public-blockchain-workshop@w3.org
- Message-ID: <5735D441021A00CC0039036D_0_50944@p057>
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