First Research Community Hackathon / Collabothon: 3rd June 2023

[rufuspollock]

Organize a research community hackathon in the next 3-4 months. Hackathons are a great pattern we could adopt as a way of crystallising activity and community.

A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest, datathon or codefest; a portmanteau of hacking and marathon) is an event where people engage in rapid and collaborative engineering over a relatively short period of time such as 24 or 48 hours

UPDATE 📣: 28 April: date chosen for the event Saturday and/or Sunday 3rd/4th of June.

Purpose and principles

Have a hackathon where a) existing team have work time together to ship something b) new people can get involved and connect

• In person at Bergerac and online
• Contributing to and aligned with the draft research program of the community

Outcome visioning

10+ people having a great time, 5 projects and we ship at least 3 published reading lists and have the infrastructure for doing more in ongoing collaborations.

📣 Suggestions wanted!

We're brainstorming around the following questions (and please add more**

• What (topics)?: 🚧 see brainstorm below 👇
• Who: all welcome!
• Facilitators: Rufus and Matt volunteered to co-organize. Others welcome.
• Where: online and at Bergerac Hub or nearby
• When: Sat/Sun 3rd and 4th June 2023 probably a weekend some time in next 3 months (i.e. may / june / july 2023)
• Naming: this isn't really a hackathon (we aren't coding and we aren't rushing to get somewhere!). Alternative names wanted!

Topic shortlist

Culled from suggestions below

• High-level knowledge map: An interactive knowledge map viz that ties together topics of focus within Life Itself.
  • Attempting to serve the Q: "What topics is Life Itself interested in?" and "What topics are adjacent or related to X?".
  • Inspiration: Life Itself research topical map / xiq's knowledge map
• Reading lists / learning resource curation: A framework for organising learning resources for newcomers to a particular topic, i.e. books, papers, videos, podcasts, thinkers, etc. This could also be integrated with a knowledge map.
  • Attempting to serve the Q: "How can I learn about topic X as a newcomer?". and "What are the canonical texts for topic X?"
  • Inspiration: user-generated reading lists / notion reading lists / roadmap.sh / healthygamer.gg
• how to analyze data (surveys, interviews before and after coliving experiences) quantitatively or qualitatively, e.g. some of the notebook example is here https://github.com/Liyubov/community/tree/master/research/notebooks we started to discuss it with Marc as well, as he has experience in quantiative measures, survey design etc.
• related to space of coliving, we started to also map coliving space e.g. here https://github.com/Liyubov/community/blob/master/research/README.md based on discussions we had with Penny Clark from CC (consious coliving), happy to invite her for this
• Inner development guide / directory could include library of papers, literature review, visualization of key streams of work
• Textual analysis of political manifestos to analyze their cultural worldview
• Write up of cultural values work by e.g. Schwartz, Inglehart et al
• Guide to conscious communities and coliving
• Directory of exemplar intentional communities
• Prototype research program about intentional communities and what makes them work or not

[Liyubov]

Hi @rufuspollock
Topic wise some of the more concrete questions I could bring are related to quantitative analysis of community living, e.g.

• how to analyze data (surveys, interviews before and after coliving experiences) quantitatively or qualitatively, e.g. some of the notebook example is here https://github.com/Liyubov/community/tree/master/research/notebooks we started to discuss it with Marc as well, as he has experience in quantiative measures, survey design etc.
• related to space of coliving, we started to also map coliving space e.g. here https://github.com/Liyubov/community/blob/master/research/README.md based on discussions we had with Penny Clark from CC (consious coliving), happy to invite her for this

[rufuspollock]

@Liyubov these are great suggestions - really like them.

And please do invite Penny Clark - who i know well!

[baouroux]

Ooops, I'm just catching up on this thread - from our last Friday call I had noted this as an action for me to post to the Forum, and created (with delay!) this thread this morning: https://github.com/orgs/life-itself/discussions/477
So a duplication.... I'll plan to copy my contribution to this thread and delete mine.

[rufuspollock]

Throwing out some ideas for topics:

• Inner development guide / directory could include library of papers, literature review, visualization of key streams of work
• Textual analysis of political manifestos to analyze their cultural worldview
• Write up of cultural values work by e.g. Schwartz, Inglehart et al
• Guide to conscious communities and coliving
• Directory of exemplar intentional communities
• Prototype research program about intentional communities and what makes them work or not

[mattosborn]

A couple more ideas around knowledge mapping that I'd be keen to explore. & would also be interesting to think about whether any of it could be done using collective approaches

• High-level knowledge map
  An interactive knowledge map viz that ties together topics of focus within Life Itself.
  Attempting to serve the Q: "What topics is Life Itself interested in?" and "What topics are adjacent or related to X?".
  Inspiration: Life Itself research topical map / xiq's knowledge map
• Reading lists / learning resource curation
  A framework for organising learning resources for newcomers to a particular topic, i.e. books, papers, videos, podcasts, thinkers, etc. This could also be integrated with a knowledge map.
  Attempting to serve the Q: "How can I learn about topic X as a newcomer?". and "What are the canonical texts for topic X?"
  Inspiration: user-generated reading lists / notion reading lists / roadmap.sh / healthygamer.gg

On dates, I'd say June or July so there's at least a month for people to seed ideas, group around them and do some preliminary work/planning. Reason being that hackdays can work a bit smoother when starting the day with a clearer plan/intention, otherwise there's a danger of the day getting swallowed up with brainstorming and discovery.

And a rough schedule for the day could look something like:

• 09:00 – Kick-off and intro from each team about their project/plan
• 10:00 – Hacking
• 13:15 – Quick check-in
• 13:30 – Lunch
• 14:30 – Hacking
• 18:00 – Project presentations, feedback, Qs, discussion
• 19:00 – End

[rufuspollock]

High-level knowledge map

Reading lists / learning resource curation

Both really great suggestions Matt. I like these are both more "introductory" and support others engaging with this.

And a rough schedule for the day could look something like:

Structure of day looks spot on.

[rufuspollock]

Following the research group meeting last Friday we are including towards Saturday and/or Sunday 3rd/4th of June.

[baouroux]

Great, sounds good! I'll be able to join you in Bergerac if there is an in-person option....
Also, very happy to offer for an in-person location near Toulouse our renovated farmhouse with 4 bedrooms (playroom could be a 5th room) and a large 75m2 open-space. We're 25min from Toulouse airport, 35min (without traffic) from Toulouse center.

[rufuspollock]

There will be an in person option so great to have you in person 🎉

[baouroux]

A couple of spin-offs and connections to follow-up on from the Hackathon:

@msantolini and @Liyubov

I've just gone through your amazing work during the hackathon, and followed a few of the related document links:

I'd love to 'stick my nose into' (!) your work on:

• Community maps Life Itself 2021 for editing
• Research and surveys for shared spaces: Bergerac/coliving

These both resonate closely to my past Sensemaking consulting work that I have now rebranded to www.collectivenavigator.com.

I've put this brand on hold as I go deeper into my art (www.tyler.world) and narrative video projects (www.interiortruth.com), and so my narrative software platform/hosting licences have since expired.

But I do see many opportunities to relaunch my larger-scale narratives work, and have been collaborating with the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab (PEAR) spin-off at https://gowyrd.org/research/ (for whom I've done some filming work), to draw up a funding proposal Wyrd Tech - Narratives Capture Proposal (perhaps for Templeton?) for collecting real time experiences of group contemplative experiences - for narrative correlation analysis with the PEAR Random Number Generator 'field effect' capture.

I mentioned to Marc the possible synchronisation with his concept of a "Documentation Station"...directed towards as close as possible to live entry.

I worked very closely with Jonathan Reams (who will be on the this Friday's Monthly Research Group call) on a number of narratives projects, and he has since ran with, and further developed the narratives software I developed...perhaps another possible collaborator, who can add a key 'developmental psychology' metrics lens to such work.