You can just turn up (in the Sociology Kitchen, Bowland North B14 and\/or at the links below) 14th September 8am-10am<\/strong><\/p>\n If you have time to register: Help us plan by registering here<\/a><\/p>\n As part of a collaboration with colleagues at RMIT we are inviting you to a Breakfast (they will be having dinner). This will be a Virtual|Real event.<\/p>\n We’ll all be really here and there (in Lancaster’s Sociology Kitchen and in RMIT’s Digital Ethnography Lab) and really eating breakfast\/dinner together. We’ll also be in virtual spaces to support some social interaction and research.<\/p>\n The research focus of this experiment\u00a0is on on reimagining one of the most embodied, and materially dependent practices of attending a conference \u2013 the collective meal. We are\u00a0attempting to take one of the less formal, difficult to digitally replicate, and potentially overlooked, but essential part of conferencing, and seeing how it can be practiced remotely.<\/p>\n Part of the\u00a0event will take place on the Google Hangouts.<\/p>\n We will provide iPads where this is loaded, but you could also bring your own device (Links to the rooms are at the bottom).<\/p>\n Instructions to prepare in brief:<\/strong><\/p>\n As a bare minimum, please follow this brief to do list:<\/p>\n Download the following apps onto the device you will be bringing to the breakfast\u00a0(e.g. smartphone or tablet):<\/p>\n More detailed description of the plan:<\/p>\n In Google Hangouts, we have a \u2018Main Room\u2019, where the main interactions will take place between all participants. Certain activities will require participants to split\u00a0off into breakout \u2018rooms\u2019 for smaller group tasks. In this case, they will exit the main room and join a nominated \u2018Breakout Room\u2019, and conduct their group tasks in a different \u2018virtual room\u2019.<\/p>\n Both RMIT and Lancaster participants will all be in the same room at their respective locations with some video conferencing facilities available.<\/p>\n The event will begin with an introduction from Andrew, and an ice-breaking activity where we ask all participants to share a photo they took on their way to work that day. We wanted to have this type of activity to remind ourselves of the \u2018locality of virtuality\u2019 \u2013 that although we are meeting in a virtual space, and therefore transcending physical space in some sense, we are still embedded in our local area and time.<\/p>\n After this introduction, the event will consist of two main activities:<\/p>\n Participants will recall and discuss memorable conferences \/ events they attended in the past that lent themselves toward facilitating collaboration. This will take place in a series of smaller discussion group (2\/3 people), where RMIT & Lancaster people will pair up with a remote colleague in one of the Hangout \u2018Breakout Rooms\u2019. In each breakout group, participants will conduct mini interviews with each other for 10 mins each about memorable collaboration experiences at conferences, meetings, or other events.<\/p>\n These mini interviews will follow a semi-structured interview format, with the following guiding questions:<\/p>\n After these mini-interviews in breakout groups, groups return to the main Hangouts and RMIT participants will report back on their findings to everyone. The result will be a series of vignettes about how memorable collaboration has taken place in our experience, and therefore what might be required for virtual collaborative endeavours. These will be captured via audio at RMIT.<\/p>\n This activity will be an attempt to have a conference meal virtually, attempting to replicate what is probably the least likely to be replicated part of a conference. Here we are experimenting with the intimacy of eating (casual, everyday practice) in a formal setting (video conference, meeting) that may lead to new ways of thinking about these types of interactions.<\/p>\n Both RMIT and Lancaster will have food arranged at this point \u2013 for Lancaster, breakfast \/ brunch, for RMIT, dinner.<\/p>\n The point of this activity is to \u2018perform\u2019 the conference meal, and see what limitations or opportunities are afforded by it\u2019s co-locatedness. The aim is for participants to socialize just as one would at the \u2018informal\u2019 part of a conference, since this is repeatedly cited as one of the most valuable parts of attending a conference.<\/p>\n For this event, Lancaster participants can remain in the \u2018Main Room\u2019 or engage in interactions in any of the \u2018Breakout Rooms\u2019 we have set up.<\/p>\n Conversations will then be established with RMIT participants, but the devices can be passed around the room to converse with different people. This goes some way to mimicking the multiple one-to-one conversations that take place during conference dinners, rather than a centralized group conversation.<\/p>\n Participants will be encouraged to converse and act as though they were in a conference dinner or breakout space.<\/p>\n Following the conclusion of the breakfast\/dinner, participants will reflect on the activity & dinner experience with a short series of questions. This will help us to think about future remote collaboration events, and what we might like to do differently next time.<\/p>\n Please upload your reflections here:\u00a0https:\/\/docs.google.com\/document\/d\/1lxstvgcASHrDkTRcmwNg4hyS3qluTwPVhgPV2i49FXo\/edit?usp=sharing<\/a><\/p>\n Example reflection questions:<\/p>\n Reflections will be used in possible outputs we might consider co-writing as a group (e.g. a group auto-ethnography of the virtual meal). Details of this output will be discussed in the final discussion.<\/p>\n We will have a dedicated ethnographic observer \/ recorder for this event, noting how the event unfolds and capturing observations. They will be capturing the event on camera, so we can produce a visual record of the event. Please let us know if you would prefer not to be on camera for this.<\/p>\n\n
Activity 1: Remembering Conferences<\/h2>\n
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Activity 2 \u2013 The Conference Meal<\/h2>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n
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Other Notes<\/h2>\n