I think an ongoing challenge for EAGxes is figuring out who and what they’re optimising for. The talks can be interesting, but in practice very few of them have practical value.
As far as I can tell, the format was approximately lifted from TED talks without much experimentation with alternatives. Also, the ‘connections’ metric seems to have been developed more in response to the existence of the format (measuring shallow, short term interactions rather than longer term effects or deeper developments of intra-community trust)
So I would suggest thinking more broadly about
who EAGxes are for
what those people need (if you want to develop careers)
what those people want (if you want to build a welcoming community)
what alternative approaches than ‘formal 1-hour talks, 30-min one-ones, generic social areas’ might be worth trying
how to measure whether those approaches are doing something valuable
Maybe you’ll find that the current format is the optimal approach. But I don’t feel like there’s currently sufficient evidence to justify that assumption, especially given this recent analysis.
I think an ongoing challenge for EAGxes is figuring out who and what they’re optimising for. The talks can be interesting, but in practice very few of them have practical value.
As far as I can tell, the format was approximately lifted from TED talks without much experimentation with alternatives. Also, the ‘connections’ metric seems to have been developed more in response to the existence of the format (measuring shallow, short term interactions rather than longer term effects or deeper developments of intra-community trust)
So I would suggest thinking more broadly about
who EAGxes are for
what those people need (if you want to develop careers)
what those people want (if you want to build a welcoming community)
what alternative approaches than ‘formal 1-hour talks, 30-min one-ones, generic social areas’ might be worth trying
how to measure whether those approaches are doing something valuable
Maybe you’ll find that the current format is the optimal approach. But I don’t feel like there’s currently sufficient evidence to justify that assumption, especially given this recent analysis.