Archive:Board10/Debate

Candidates in attendance:
 * Parker Phinney
 * Kevin Driscoll
 * Adi Kamdar
 * Andrea Fassina 
 * Aditi Rajaram 

Missing:
 * Parker Higgins
 * Ben Moskowitz

Kevin Donovan helped moderate, which rocked. We got started ~15 mins late (hence the sort of rocky start). It was Mothers' day.

Log
okay, so i guess i'll just copypasta a question in to the channel: Where is SFC in May 2011? What are the discrete steps to get there? anyone want to start? hi pyrak --> kevindonovan (U2FsdGVkX1@batman.acm.jhu.edu) has joined #freeculture --> driscoll (~driscoll@cpe-76-168-253-168.socal.res.rr.com) has joined #freeculture driscoll is representing Central Sq. Cambridge, US and representing South Boston, US and da bomb. and eating veggie booty. tonyb486: hey. we're having the board debate. oh my, is that today tonyb486: apparently!  i think by may next year we should already have had a conferece, have some rough idea of how many members there actually are and found some funding for a permanent staff ahoy avast apologies for the delay. it's earlier in LA and i was in mucho traffics.  hey kevin driscoll: i just copy/pasted the first question from the wiki and Andrea_FCUY answered driscoll: hey, we've "started" and are answering the "Where is SFC in May 2011? What are the discrete steps to get there?" question yeah that  I think SFC should be further along in the process for 501c3 in addition to what andrea said  and id like more girls :) I basically agree with Andrea. I'm also thinking about what concrete progress we can make on the OU campaign, and I think it's this: what are the discrete steps to get there? <-- Beardedmick_ASU (~Beardedmi@149.169.213.9) has quit (Ping timeout: 260 seconds)  act and contact I'm imagining several blog posts from individual chapter members reporting back on their progress on various initiatives at their schools  big sibling skype dates might be fun too  partnering w/ a more "established" chapter Administratively: In May 2011, we'll be done with 501(c)3 because we will have filed all of the required paper work this summer. We will also have filed taxes for the first time and not been audited.  I think we should have some data as soon as possible of who actually is in the organization like active members and interested people I think one of the biggest issues is that SFC is kind of an amorphous entity. By May '11 I think we should get a bunch of logistical things out of the way: establishing why we exist, why we're centralized, and take advantage of the fact that there is a centralized board/base. This could happen at a conference, and I think one should/will definitely happen, but we should ultimately make it easy for chapters to (a) start up, (b) joi the conversation, and (c) contribute to the conversation.  but then you'd need qualifications of active members  which is kind of related to what adi is saying, to have a more structured approach to SFC  because we need feedback to grow I know that this deviates from the report card approach, but I think that focusing on helping schools improve might nicely complement the effort to tell them where they are currently oo7akbnd: msgs get cut off on irc after X characters. Your longest msg got cut off at "(b) joi" which I think means that you only lost one char? (b) join in the conversation, and (c) contribute to the conversation.*  pyrak do you mean like switching over to open source software at the uni level can everyone introduce themselves, too, if they have a non-obvious username? haha my bad... i wish i knew how to use IRC. I'm Adi Kamdar with Yale SFC. Is anyone here actually to ask questions? Campaign-wise: I hope that we will have developed and finished a prototype round of "report card" surveys. We will have generated some data to process (in person at the next conference?) and be on our way to updating the survey instrument. Andrea_FCUY: for example. or working on creating an OCW system or getting involved in conversations about email It looks to me like you are all nominees  with the exception of kevindonovan i think we all are.. ?def pyrak pyrak is Parker Phinney & madebyparker.com & a sophomore at Dartmouth & a former CC tech intern & will be an intern at OpenHatch.org, working with paulproteus & knows how to use jibot --> r3wj (~tuttle@pool-71-255-172-122.bstnma.east.verizon.net) has joined #freeculture in my experience, there was a trade-off b/w administrative activities like conf/501c3 and with report cards where should board direct attention?  i think definitely 501c3 =Kevin Driscoll, USC <Aditi_NYU> that's a huge step towards legitimacy <Aditi_NYU> which should be our primary goal -- not to say both activities shouldn't happen as concurrently as possible for the next year, i think the board should be primarily focused on administrative tasks What does that mean not focusing on <Andrea_FCUY> ok, I was thinking more on the terms: know how much your uni spends on licenesed software and propose an open source solution where students teach other non experienced students how to use open source software I think I agree with Aditi_NYU and driscoll, especially because once we get 501c3 and an employee, administrivia gets much easier <Andrea_FCUY> yes, the first step to get permanente staff? Asking for funding? <Aditi_NYU> andrew, i know that parker higgins and i were discussing trying to get open office on university computers, fcnyu is going to try to that next year, i believe <Aditi_NYU> andrea*** <Andrea_FCUY> or first find the right person, meaning create a desired and essential qualities Andrea_FCUY: I think that's awesome. And I think that's something that chapters should work on and then blog about on the national blog. or at least talk about on discuss I've done just a bit of that here at dartmouth (trying to get computing to support students running ubuntu), but didn't get very far in my recent experience on the board, admin tasks preclude almost all "issue-based" work -- which is why i was ultimately convinced that hiring a staff person was an important goal. i think this local activism is very important, and our advantage in a lot of ways <-- K`Tetch (~no@unaffiliated/ktetch) has quit (Ping timeout: 264 seconds) but i think the board should facilitate that as opposed to necessarily do it themselves I'd like to discuss the permanent staff issue, if we can. In my mind, there's a kind of chicken and egg problem. We seem amorphous: does getting a staff member help us give structure and shape to our organization, or should we sort that out before even bothering to take this to the next level and hire someone. I'm trying to turn the new computer science club here in to a ragtag group of free tech staff to implement and support free software solutions to campus problems. <Andrea_FCUY> to be honest I think that the only way for this to work is if other students can teach, it service doesnt have the resources to carry out that extensive of a training my ideal situation is what kevindonovan describes: board is encouraging + amplifying the work of local chapters. <Aditi_NYU> fcnyu is basically partnered with the other techy clubs, which really helps and i think the permanent employee can do a lot for that creating materials, etc so the board, as i see it, would make that happen in the next few months which will require approaching donors with a good pitch, having high level conversations, etc. <Andrea_FCUY> ok, what do you suggest to do first to make it happen (btw: i nominate kevindonovan to be the official mod fromnow on. he's impartial and will do a good job helping us focus.) <Aditi_NYU> pyrak agreed ook7akbnd: there is a surprisingly amount of day-to-day management stuff at the board level (e.g. keeping track of existing chapters, chatting w/ ppl starting new ones) pyrak +1 to kevindonovan moderating <Andrea_FCUY> agree :-) kevin moderating have to go afk for 1 minute. sorry. <Aditi_NYU> well we should assemble a list of people that we think we can potentially get money from <Aditi_NYU> re: funding for full time staff member driscoll: can you go into that a little, and be honest as to how much of that has happened? from talking to folks at the conference, it seems like not really. how actually 'day-to-day' is this? i think there is a TON of day-to-day stuff that could be done, but vagaries of student life get in the way that could take the form of walking through chapters, chekcing in with them ook7akbnd there is a steady stream of input via email and we deal with it in big sporadic chunks crafting statements and press releases as issues get hot updating the website to make it a destination for the community ook7akbnd which means that we often drop the ball on stuff that we really want to do like check in with chapter heads every semester that doesn't seem optimal, sporadic chunks got it +1 driscoll's comments --> K`Tetch (~no@unaffiliated/ktetch) has joined #freeculture (also, sorry for using jargon. afk = away from keyboard) ook7akbnd but we have responded to and kept records of over 30 new chapters this year tonyb486 definitely sub-optimal. we need more systems + structure to help smooth out the reality of student life (which is all about sporadic craziness, unfortunately!) <Andrea_FCUY> that's why a staff member is necessary, to avoid doing all in big chunks creating huge delays here's a plan that the current board has been working on to get towards a staff member and i'd love candidate's thoughts a fairly invisible project that i am very excited to be working on is establishing our financial foundation. i have been putting together a portfolio of information to make it much much easier to transition to another treasurer. as we do more and more little administrative/organizational things + add a staff member, we will become much more efficient+effective we're securing a faculty advisory board to formalize ties with intellectual leaders <Andrea_FCUY> great! <Aditi_NYU> cool we'd like to form a board of trustees who would help with fund raising anually yeah, that like rocks --> Roderick (~Roderick_@58.172.67.139) has joined #freeculture and then we'd like to get some introductions and meetings with foundations that's awesome <Andrea_FCUY> i think on the main website tehre should be a donate button can we just get like all of berkman? after having crafted 1 pagers and lengthier docs on why we matter do people think that skips any steps? and what is our pitch to foundations? <Andrea_FCUY> i think it has to be customized based on the foundation kevindonovan: at the very least we need to have our 501(c)3 situation nailed down before reaching out formally. <-- r3wj (~tuttle@pool-71-255-172-122.bstnma.east.verizon.net) has quit (Ping timeout: 245 seconds) <Aditi_NYU> i don't think that skips any steps, but i think there needs to be an easy 30 second pitch kevindonovan: 1 pagers and longer is a great idea. I also agree with Aditi. <Aditi_NYU> elevator pitch that allows us to get our point across -- and going back to what adi said, there's the issue of being a little amorphous which makes that hard to do would there be overlap between faculty board and trustees? could they perhaps be the same? is that crazy? pyrak: they can't/oughtn't be the same pyrak: the f.a.b. is more about intellectual leadership (FABulous!) <Aditi_NYU> conflict of interest trustees would have some more responsibilities / financial pyrak: FAB doesn't really have to DO anything but the trustees are expected to do a little more for us. do CC and EFF have boards of trustees? @pyrak, yep. they call them board of directors, i believe but obviously that is taken haha yes... other orgs seem to call them "board of directors" so what exactly is the difference between the board of directors and board of truetees? <Aditi_NYU> as i understand it, the money PPublic Knowledge has been very helpful with the way this is done in the non-profit sector and i plan to keep that relationship strong do we.. have a trust? <Andrea_FCUY> don't think so... <-- Roderick (~Roderick_@58.172.67.139) has quit (Ping timeout: 268 seconds) tonyb486 what SFC calls "board of directors" == group of elected students who are responsible for a variety of institutional tasks. Since we have a candidate from not in the USA, would it be useful to talk about internationalization? sure yeah, I think so I actually have mixed feelings about it <Aditi_NYU> why? And they are exactly what you might expect. <Andrea_FCUY> i think it is the time to contact organizations in europe Framing our issues in terms of the global climate is important such as and it's definitely true that we have some awesome allies overseas <Andrea_FCUY> i am in contact with wikimedia uk, univ. of birmingham and manchester but I also think we need to be careful about spreading our org too thin --> Roderick (~Roderick_@58.172.67.139) has joined #freeculture <Aditi_NYU> but don't you think it's an issue that is relevant to everyone, and a natural out growth of that is internationally? <Andrea_FCUY> that is so true, thats why i was saying we need some information on how deep free culture organization actually is <Aditi_NYU> i think in terms of spreading too thin, i don't see why europe would be anymore "work" than the states in terms of outreach to chapters, at least because we already have trouble acting in a timely manner on US stuff i believe that there are many "blind spots" in SFC that mirror similar gaps elsewhere in the free culture movement <Andrea_FCUY> what do you mean by blind spots kevin? (to be clear, saying I have "mixed feelings" isn't just pigeon-holing. I actually just haven't really figured out how I feel about it) for example, it is INSANE that we don't have chapters at the big state schools. U of M? Ohio State? in a big picture way, we need to example our own institutional culture. *example = examine. <Aditi_NYU> pyrak: true, but then we're making an explicit choice to be very us centric, which i fundamentally disagree with (I think i didn't use pigeonholing correctly) pyrak == totally. mixed feelings makes sense to me. andrea_fcuy by "blind spots", i mean that there are friendly orgs / connections we could be making that we are missing. i think this is true of many FC-related orgs and that students are in a unique position to change it. yeah, and there are like staffers at U-M that are really in to FC stuff I think ideally (= in terms of ideals), outreach to international schools/chapters is fine and dandy and easy (clearly we need to take all the faculty and staff that are in to free culture, and start a new uni) pyrak haha.. topic for a different meeting o__O <Andrea_FCUY> would outreaching to people in different streams of study be a step in reduing these blind spots? <Aditi_NYU> what do you mean by streams of study, sorry re: internationalization: maybe the best solution is to create a smaller meta-org that's like SFC global? That might backfire and just make conversations disconnected. Or it might make our international friends who are currently not that talkative feel more welcome as for blind spots, i think there are also topical ones. where are we on 'net freedom? that's important and lots of attn there pyrak - the "students for free culture" of today are the faculty and staff for free culture of tomorrow. :D kevindonovan: 'net freedom = neutrality? or like Software as a Service/computing in the cloud type stuff <Andrea_FCUY> that is very true, related articles are in the news on a daily basis <Aditi_NYU> kevindonovan: i think that woudl be something to be defined in sfc's goals <Andrea_FCUY> i intented as network neutrality 'net freedom = terrible buzzword for censorship issue i don't think that we will be able to define what it means to have a "global" org but i think it's important that we keep trying. <Aditi_NYU> i think some sort "we stand here on this" might be useful as an informational thing, though it does run the risk of alienating people? if we can really turn freeculture.org into a hub with which to publicize the work of local chapters, we might have visible disagreement. <Andrea_FCUY> yea i agree with aditi we should have a clear set beliefs <Andrea_FCUY> *of if a chapter in the US disagrees on an issue with a chapter outside of the US, it might actually be a very productive, useful conversation. driscoll: which is fine, i think... very few other orgs make internal disagreements public. but we're cooler than other orgs we've seen the ambiguity of "free culture" as a weakness and keep trying to define it -- but maybe it's a strength? <Andrea_FCUY> i concur with kevin, dirty clothes are washed inside i disagree i am just thinking out loud here.. this is not a position i am firm on. <Aditi_NYU> i think its a strength and a weakness - makes certain goals harder, but also makes it more relatable to more people i think this organization is a lot about awareness and exposing the complexity as well as facilitating the conversation; we have tendencies as a movement, but there's definitely a range of opinions <Andrea_FCUY> ok, in the sense that you would publicize an internal disagreement or that you want a public debate? <Andrea_FCUY> about internal issues as well? oo7akbnd aditi_nyu "exposing complexity" is politically difficult (no talking points) but, in terms of freedom, very important. (kevindonovan: maybe think about moving on to other questions on the wiki? or declaring a time/milestone for us to end on?) over the past year, the board has been asked to take positions for the org i've always felt we do not have the mandate to do so so, i've always signed things "the SFC Board of Directors" to make it clear we speak for ourselves, not SFC as a whole community that's what we need, i think oo7akbnd: what is? <Andrea_FCUY> yea i agree with you kevin <Andrea_FCUY> but does anyone speak for the community? i think there is a tremendous need to define this community <Aditi_NYU> i agree w you andrea what kevin was talking about.. 'set' positions without stifling the conversation <Aditi_NYU> i guess the best way to achieve that is voting? but making it clear we're open to discussion? one of my favorite things is when people bring up very specific examples and say, "hey. thing right here is what free culture looks like to me: ..." // easier to work from examples than ideology? @driscoll, i've found the same thing in my experience <Andrea_FCUY> i think kevin gave to our common though the best words i think the open university campaign is a major step toward defining positions <Andrea_FCUY> *thoughts <-- Roderick (~Roderick_@58.172.67.139) has quit (Ping timeout: 260 seconds) and all of those positions grew out of specific events/ examples. and the OU Campaign is key for what i think *needs* to be our comparative advantage: STUDENTS for free culture +1 kevindonovan this is what the pitch to foundations should be, i believe they know PK and EFF and CC we cultivate the next generation of tech policy folks <Andrea_FCUY> that we are students? the next gen of digital cultural explorers e.g., brian rowe found that seattle law REQUIRED windows - we were able to abstract a position from that : students should be free to use the software of their choice. kevindonovan: I think you said two different things there. Should our pitch be that we are the next generation, or that we are focused on fixing universities (and some high schools)? @pyrak 1 coin, 2 sides? yeah, not to separate things necessarily two* kevindonovan: I guess. I think the second appeal is more compelling. I do think they're pretty unrelated, but I agree that they're not at all exclusive You could imagine old people focused on schools, and you could imagine young/students who didn't care about schools. but anyway. <Andrea_FCUY> i think to change something you need to make the justigication evident in economic terms, otherwise with the low budgets it might be hard to get approved something that costs the uni more <Aditi_NYU> i think this discussion shows that we're desperately in need of some sort of focus, at the very least, though OU arguably provides that to some extent :) Yes, I mean FC itself is already quite broad we could have whole orgs for remix culture, free software, ocw, etc <Andrea_FCUY> yea true aditi, we must maximize the sharing of different(perhaps contrary) opinions but having some key issues better defines the movement aditi_nyu pyrak very true. :) i love these high-level conversations but when i think of SFC campaigns, i think of open university. that's where i think we can make the biggest impact. perhaps as an organization, we should focus on OU stuff, but that by no means says that chapters/discuss needs to solely focus on that, but should be encouraged to talk about the whole range of fc issues/topics i do actually think that we sometimes suffer because some people come to us with a passion for FLOSS and are driven away by talk about remix culture, and others (perhaps more commonly) the reverse but i of course also think that a lot of good is done by us existing as a group that brings all of these things together <Aditi_NYU> i think along with that, parker, is that we have to decide how to appeal to people (more on the layman side or techy side) i think OUC allows people to channel their energies to their passion and more often than not when i explain us to (usually) old men with beards at Linux User Group meetings, they appreciate that we're contextualizing FLOSS within FC in general aditi_nyu that's my biggest issue :) +1 +1 +1 = +3 <Andrea_FCUY> yea we need publicity kevindonovan: yeah, i think that's true. and i know that ouc and your work at georgetown inspired me to spend ~1 year focusing on ocw here, which has been really rewarding i think chapters should do whatever they want to do most. some chapters will be all FLOSS all the time... others are like, "alright. we want to do SOMETHING. where do we start?" which is where the OUC report cards could be HUGELY helpful as rallying tools. <Andrea_FCUY> perhpas linking fc to different topics ? <Aditi_NYU> here are ways to get involved, what appeals to you msot kind of thing would work FYI, friend of Berkman, Elena Kagan, is reportedly Obama's nominee for realz: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36967616/ns/politics-supreme_court/) ouc gives you fifty different issues you can work on, some of which are easier than others, allowing for chapters to kinda pick at them one by one kevindonovan: noice so we've been at this for a bit over an hour do people have specific questions for each other? want to clarify positions, etc? do people have questions for current board members to get a better idea of the job? benmoskowitz: do you wanna jump in here at all? well. what do you do? also, there are still a couple things on the wiki that we didnt address: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Board10/Nominations ben's doing ova stuff right now heh... some were mailed in on discuss, so I feel like we should at least try to attack them? yeah let's <Aditi_NYU> pyrak: sure, shoot full steam ahead. What organizations are key partners and how do you forge these? We already addressed this somewhat <Aditi_NYU> well nyc area has the free culture alliance I know that personally I've made friends at CC (from interning there), and have some looser connections at EFF I'm close with the PKers just through being in DC of course PK is huge but I've never interfaced with them. Hope donovan will get the next board in touch :) <Aditi_NYU> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_Alliance_NYC -- pretty solid network, at least within NYC area yep, they'd love to know the group at-large center for social media at american university <Andrea_FCUY> wikimedia uk, puirates party of course FSF is up there, and they're trying to do their own thing to engage students yale ISP and berkman from a more academic pov... <Andrea_FCUY> *pirates party oo7akbnd: yar. And there's the loosely-organized digital humanities department and the Institute for Security Technology and Society here they each address FC stuff part-time and often indirectly, but I've been nudging them :) andrea_fcuy to be honest, i'm fine keeping realtions with pirate party, at least the usa one, simply cordial... i agree with oo7akbnd <Andrea_FCUY> ok, are you saying we shouldnt ask them for help? a friend is trying to start a "download disobediance" compaign in boston, and i feel the same way --> Roderick (~Roderick_@58.172.67.139) has joined #freeculture <Aditi_NYU> i agree w pyrak and oo7akbnd .. little too sticky politically here i personally think it's important that /someone/ do that activism, but it'll ultimately turn people off from SFC if we get too close of course, the pirate party isn't all about abolishing copyright, so it's less of an extreme <Andrea_FCUY> pyrak what do you mean too close? Andrea_FCUY: send the message that we support everything that they do. that would be too close. as an extreme. i think that slightly more indirectly suggesting that we support everything that they do would still be "too close" i don't think it's advantage for SFC to make very many broad endorsements. chapters can jump on and we can help with specific campaigns. *advantageous <Andrea_FCUY> no that's not how i mean it. what i had in mind was to bring them in the discussion as well, considering that they are the only istitutionalized and represented group which at least talks about issues similar to ours (in europe) (i'm assuming..) <Andrea_FCUY> (correct assumption) (another parenthetical) next question: Do you plan on holding a job during your tenure? <Aditi_NYU> does being a student count as a job? (then I think there's just one more that we haven't addressed yet) <Aditi_NYU> it should in some ways :) but straight answer no i'm going to be taking classes summer through spring <Andrea_FCUY> lol also, i'll have two 10-hour/week jobs during the summer, then just one for fall through spring <Andrea_FCUY> im working brazil 2 months sept october Year 2 of PhD for me. Research + TAing + classes. Reasonable punctuated with insanity. i also occasionally do stuff for icommons.org, but that's a very small time commitment. my boss there rocks and is super understanding <Aditi_NYU> ah i may be continuing with my summer job like 20/hrs a week this fall, but uncertain @andrea - Brazil? sweet. lots of fc-related stuff to do down there so jeal i'm working all day at berkman this summer, and though i don't have a job, i'm pretty busy during the school year. however, since one of the things i'm busy with is yale sfc stuff anyways, this won't be much of an addition. i hope. okay, last question (feel free to keep addressing the job one): How do you plan to capitalize on the SFC member/alum network (particularly with their projects, eg., Open Video Alliance, Participatory Culture Foundation, etc.)? really good question!! <-- K`Tetch (~no@unaffiliated/ktetch) has quit (Ping timeout: 240 seconds) pyrak: don't forget alex leavitt's questions (also, re: job stuff: to be clear, I don't anticipate that my schedule will be too full for SFC board stuff) oo7akbnd: oh, thought they had been wikified want to copypasta them then? (also, not to be a douche, but he's not a student. so his questions are only important if they're good questions. or something.) pyrak: oh wait, they were copypastad (by which i mean: just consider the fact that he's not going to be voting) okay, cool <Andrea_FCUY> yea kevin ill try to get in contact with them hey - as an alum, i'm surprised I haven't been asked for money yet! -*- pyrak mumbles something about technobrega aphid: are you volunteering? ;p <Aditi_NYU> well in terms of capitalizing, like i mentioned before lots of nyc area connections -- means that our events get a lot of publicity, and we have support for events we do aphid: we can has? no :( aphid should we start hitting up alums for $$? part time researcher part time lecturer = barely make rent :P yeah, i guess we already talked about this somewhat couldn't hurt, once a year or something very good me and adi have been keeping in touch with a really cool group of mostly FC alumns in boston who do web ecology stuff and roflcon (which we went to and it was awesome) another reason to do Andrea's "census" also, adi's going to be getting to know a lot of them better this summer while he works at berkman <Aditi_NYU> (re: roflcon the fcnyu member that went loved it) (a few of them are berkmanites) ilya!? he's so coool --> K`Tetch (~no@unaffiliated/ktetch) has joined #freeculture yeah, i registered ppl with him <-- Andrea_FCUY (U2FsdGVkX1@batman.acm.jhu.edu) has quit (Quit: CGI:IRC (EOF)) we're bffls <Aditi_NYU> yea ilya haha SFC annual census would be a great recurring tradition to start this fall. i actually was telling adi about my crazy idea to try to get board members to sort of tour around the us and visit schools <Aditi_NYU> annual cenus is a brilliant idea --> Andrea_FCUY (U2FsdGVkX1@batman.acm.jhu.edu) has joined #freeculture it would have to be limited, but like this is what nelson did with his free spring after finishing up his 5th year at swarthmore i wish i could have hung out longer at roflcon ! i was there on such a lightning visit. @pyrak, yeah, i think the staffer should have a travel budget he stopped at my high school, and that was pretty huge for me i think that even if we could get some board members to commit to visiting a couple schools during their spring breaks that would be really useful <Aditi_NYU> that would be kind of cool but also complemented by conference? (during the board members' spring breaks, not during the chapters' spring breaks. that would be silly) Aditi_NYU: yeah, totally <Andrea_FCUY> yes we are thinking of doing a conference in the uk i mean, you could imagine other little things like for next roflcon, getting SFC-ers to stick around the sunday after for a mini-sumit <Andrea_FCUY> what do you guys think about that? andrea_fcuy definitely looking fwd to talking more about it or one of the evenings of roflcon. or something. pyrak special hats? driscoll: sweatbands. let's do this. <Aditi_NYU> what about also (just throwing this idea out there) but a la roflthings, mini confs? gotta go away from keyboard again real quick. too much hydration :/ aditi_nyu regional meetups? colin and i have been talking about doing a southwest meet up aditi_nyu: something was put out there this summer of having mini free culture sessions back and forth between yale, new york, and boston... once a month that didn't work out, to say the least... but it could! <Andrea_FCUY> adi do you think that organization is our main problem then? <Aditi_NYU> yeah, regional meetups, i'd be down for figuring out a northeast one <Aditi_NYU> adi once or twice a semester seems more doable :) andrea, inertia is a bitch. the great thing about the people in charge of getting this stuff together is that they're great at pitching ideas and agreeing. nobody usually wants to take on the task of tackling logistics. *crickets* oh boy, we need a paid staffer.. alrighty folks, i have to run <Andrea_FCUY> see that's why i most agree with the paid staff, to do for example logistics this was good look forward to the next steps i motion to close ya! very enjoyable times <Andrea_FCUY> see you kev i'll copypasta the log and put it on the wiki <Andrea_FCUY> indeed people agree to close? <Andrea_FCUY> okely dokely <Aditi_NYU> yup surely pyrak awesome. thanks!