Awesome! Glad to hear that EAGx is still happening. I think it makes a lot of sense to pivot away from having many EAGx conferences of variable quality to a few high quality ones.
While we continue to think that this is an important function, CEA believes that, at least at the moment, our efforts to improve the world are bottlenecked by our ability to help promising people become fully engaged, rather than attracting new interest.
I’m curious what prompted this change—did organizers encounter a lot of difficult converting new conference attendees to more engaged EAs?
I’m also curious about what sort of support CEA will be providing to smaller, less-established local groups, given that fewer groups will receive support for EAGx.
I’m curious what prompted this change—did organizers encounter a lot of difficult converting new conference attendees to more engaged EAs?
They were often stretched so thin from making the main event happen that they didn’t have the capacity to ensure that their follow-up events were solid. We think part of the problem will be mitigated if the events themselves are smaller and more targeted towards groups with a specific level of EA understanding.
I’m also curious about what sort of support CEA will be providing to smaller, less-established local groups, given that fewer groups will receive support for EAGx.
Local groups can apply for funding through the EAGx funding application, as well as use the event-organizing resources we generated for EAGx. Depending on the size and nature of the event, they can receive individualized support from different CEA staff working on community development, such as Harri, Amy, Julia, and/or Larissa. If they’re running a career or rationality workshop they may be able to get 80,000 Hours’ or CFAR’s advice or direct support.
Depending on the size and nature of the event, they can receive individualized support from different CEA staff working on community development, such as Harri, Amy, Julia, and/or Larissa.
Could you say more about what kind of (smaller, local, non-EAGx) events CEA would like to see/would be interested in providing support for?
In brief, large speaker events and workshops, depending on the needs of a local group. Perhaps self-evidently, large speaker events are best for nascent chapters trying to attract interest; workshops for augmenting the engagement and/or skill of existing members. There’s some information about this in the Organizer FAQ, as well a prompts about this in the EAGx organizer application and on the “Get Involved’ tab of effectivealtruism.org.
did organizers encounter a lot of difficult converting new conference attendees to more engaged EAs?
I am curious about this too.
In particular it feels to me that post event follow at EAGxs I have been to was weak.
Does CEA think this is true of EAGxs to date?
If so there a plan to improve on this?
If there is not a plan can I offer my help to CEA to develop one?
Wonderful of you to offer! Follow-up hasn’t been weak across-the-board but it’s certainly a hard thing for organizers to juggle on top of everything else.
We have limited resources set up for this at the moment, such as: a) the ability to reach out to Harri for local group advice and funding, b) copies of Doing Good Better you can use for a book club, c) the chance to request EA Global tickets to raffle off, d) a series of follow-up emails to attendees, and e) brief advice for running a follow-up event (https://goo.gl/w9fkYS).
Happy to take suggestions for other things we might do.
Awesome! Glad to hear that EAGx is still happening. I think it makes a lot of sense to pivot away from having many EAGx conferences of variable quality to a few high quality ones.
I’m curious what prompted this change—did organizers encounter a lot of difficult converting new conference attendees to more engaged EAs?
I’m also curious about what sort of support CEA will be providing to smaller, less-established local groups, given that fewer groups will receive support for EAGx.
They were often stretched so thin from making the main event happen that they didn’t have the capacity to ensure that their follow-up events were solid. We think part of the problem will be mitigated if the events themselves are smaller and more targeted towards groups with a specific level of EA understanding.
Local groups can apply for funding through the EAGx funding application, as well as use the event-organizing resources we generated for EAGx. Depending on the size and nature of the event, they can receive individualized support from different CEA staff working on community development, such as Harri, Amy, Julia, and/or Larissa. If they’re running a career or rationality workshop they may be able to get 80,000 Hours’ or CFAR’s advice or direct support.
Here are the event-organizing resources, if you’d like to check them out: https://goo.gl/zw8AjW
Could you say more about what kind of (smaller, local, non-EAGx) events CEA would like to see/would be interested in providing support for?
In brief, large speaker events and workshops, depending on the needs of a local group. Perhaps self-evidently, large speaker events are best for nascent chapters trying to attract interest; workshops for augmenting the engagement and/or skill of existing members. There’s some information about this in the Organizer FAQ, as well a prompts about this in the EAGx organizer application and on the “Get Involved’ tab of effectivealtruism.org.
Thanks!
For future readers, I think here are a couple links Roxanne was referring to:
https://www.effectivealtruism.org/get-involved/run-a-local-ea-event/
https://www.effectivealtruism.org/get-involved/run-a-large-speaker-event/
Thanks! This makes sense.
I am curious about this too.
In particular it feels to me that post event follow at EAGxs I have been to was weak. Does CEA think this is true of EAGxs to date? If so there a plan to improve on this? If there is not a plan can I offer my help to CEA to develop one?
Wonderful of you to offer! Follow-up hasn’t been weak across-the-board but it’s certainly a hard thing for organizers to juggle on top of everything else.
We have limited resources set up for this at the moment, such as: a) the ability to reach out to Harri for local group advice and funding, b) copies of Doing Good Better you can use for a book club, c) the chance to request EA Global tickets to raffle off, d) a series of follow-up emails to attendees, and e) brief advice for running a follow-up event (https://goo.gl/w9fkYS).
Happy to take suggestions for other things we might do.