Great post, and glad to see you find this approach fruitful.
Another example that highlights the distinction you emphasize may be the EA-conference formats and the EA Funconference formats, which are popular in the German community. EA conferences are mostly used to listen to talks and network in 1on1′s, which makes them very valuable. They resemble, to me, academic conferences. EA Funconferences are participant-driven events that set little in terms of agenda and resemble a summer camp more than any formal meetup. I found the German EA Funconferences highly valuable for the reasons you describe: participants were comfortable, actively contributed their own content regardless of the level of seniority, and bonded quite a bit.
Despite no formal focus on careers, networking, or current research, I found these events to be more helpful in terms of networking than EA-conferences, which always feel a bit forced and overly formal to me. That preference may be idiosyncratic, but my impression was that most participants loved the Funconferences I visited. I’d love if EA had more Funconferences to augment the more formal conferences.
I am unsure if other countries organize Funconferences, but if not, I’d highly encourage it. Carolin Basilowski has been involved with organizing them in Germany, and I imagine she’d be happy to share her experiences.
Actually, the seeds for a bunch of my current knowledge about and approach to community building were sown during various unconferences over the years.
The 2020 Unconference was my first in-person encounter with EA. After my first contact point with EA was reading a bunch of 80k articles which didn’t quite seem to have me as part of their target audience, I was very positively surprised by how warm and caring and non-elitist the community was.
I learned to get these things out of EAG(x)s as well. But, had the fancy professional events been my first contact with the community, I might well not be around anymore.
The unconference-format in EA evolved into several directions since its inception. For example, the AI Safety Europe retreat this year was an unconference with a framing that optimized for a clear personal/​professional separation. In my impression, it worked wonderfully in that. Not only in regards to combining the flat hierarchies of the format with a professional vibe, but also in regards to connections made. Meanwhile, the German unconferences evolved away from a professional focus, into funconferences into a no longer EA-affiliated summercamp that’s completely organized by volunteers and participant-funded.
I started drafting a follow-up to this post with practical suggestions today. Doing more unconferences is on the list.
Great post, and glad to see you find this approach fruitful.
Another example that highlights the distinction you emphasize may be the EA-conference formats and the EA Funconference formats, which are popular in the German community. EA conferences are mostly used to listen to talks and network in 1on1′s, which makes them very valuable. They resemble, to me, academic conferences. EA Funconferences are participant-driven events that set little in terms of agenda and resemble a summer camp more than any formal meetup. I found the German EA Funconferences highly valuable for the reasons you describe: participants were comfortable, actively contributed their own content regardless of the level of seniority, and bonded quite a bit.
Despite no formal focus on careers, networking, or current research, I found these events to be more helpful in terms of networking than EA-conferences, which always feel a bit forced and overly formal to me. That preference may be idiosyncratic, but my impression was that most participants loved the Funconferences I visited. I’d love if EA had more Funconferences to augment the more formal conferences.
I am unsure if other countries organize Funconferences, but if not, I’d highly encourage it. Carolin Basilowski has been involved with organizing them in Germany, and I imagine she’d be happy to share her experiences.
Strongly agree!
Actually, the seeds for a bunch of my current knowledge about and approach to community building were sown during various unconferences over the years.
The 2020 Unconference was my first in-person encounter with EA. After my first contact point with EA was reading a bunch of 80k articles which didn’t quite seem to have me as part of their target audience, I was very positively surprised by how warm and caring and non-elitist the community was.
I learned to get these things out of EAG(x)s as well. But, had the fancy professional events been my first contact with the community, I might well not be around anymore.
The unconference-format in EA evolved into several directions since its inception. For example, the AI Safety Europe retreat this year was an unconference with a framing that optimized for a clear personal/​professional separation. In my impression, it worked wonderfully in that. Not only in regards to combining the flat hierarchies of the format with a professional vibe, but also in regards to connections made. Meanwhile, the German unconferences evolved away from a professional focus, into funconferences into a no longer EA-affiliated summercamp that’s completely organized by volunteers and participant-funded.
I started drafting a follow-up to this post with practical suggestions today. Doing more unconferences is on the list.