Teams

Hello Team #,

Thanks for participating. We are now 130 individuals strong and ready to start brainstorming!

How are we going to be organized?

We’ll be in 13 teams of 10, somewhat randomly built.

How were the teams picked?

From the surveys, I ordered the list of respondents based on your stated enthusiasm level. From there, I assigned everyone a number in order 1-13 so there’s an equal level of enthusiasm in each team.

How will we communicate with each other?

Each team will have their own Slack chat, there will be one group chat as well. You should be receiving an email inviting you to the chat right after this one.

What are we doing?

Each team is brainstorming on the topic How might we use the internet and a global community of strangers to ____?

Or restated,

What are we doing? What does that look like?

Each team will produce at least one design brief. Please use this resource to inspire the creation of your design brief: Frame your design challenge (p.31-33)

How are we going to create our design briefs?

Each team is encouraged to devise their own methods of working based on who is in your group. Because each of us has a different background and differing expertise, it would be counterproductive for me to prescribe a working method we should each use. However, groups are strongly encouraged to use protocols which support the egalitarian nature of the list. Using inclusive language, limiting cross talk, and checking with everyone to make sure they have had a chance to be heard can be useful in supporting a positive and productive research/brainstorming environment.

In general, a team’s exercises should consist of brainstorming ideas, then researching potential contenders for the design briefs, then back to brainstorming. You are trying to discover interests and insight to drive your top ideas which make it into the design brief.

Here are some ideas for research activities: re-read Listserve emails, analyze our survey responses, text analysis of Listserve emails, social network analysis on The Listserve, research what’s our fascination with strangers, research what kind of cultural exchanges people are interested in, research why do people read The Listserve.

What are we going to do with our briefs?

On or around Jan 10th, each team will share their briefs with the group. After the presentations, each individual will have opportunity to pick one design brief that they would like to develop.

After we see how the group distributes itself among the ideas, we’ll choose which briefs to move forward with. As always, your thoughts are welcome about how to do that when we get there.

Then, we’ll jump into the first phase of design thinking - Empathize! (p.2)