For about half-a-year, I've been thinking and preparing a webinar series on testing, with a few main motivations.
Since then, I've had chats on this with people. From someone running a lot of online content, I learned that webinars might be really dull way to deliver the contents. From another one running webinars I learned that the numbers on a scheduled session are surprisingly small. From our own technical trials, I learned that while it is possible, a lot of participants actually fade away during the webinar. For presenters, I learned that some people feel off talking all by themselves, and others find the talking to an invisible crowd comforting without the stress they get from live presentations. From discussions, I learned that videotaping may be a key to what I want to achieve - new content over repeating the same old stuff. And that while we have these conferences where we actually just listen to the presentations, people find the breaks and the face-to-face connections and the forced presence of being there to listen really good.
With the limited time available to organize something, all this talking is taking me to a conclusion different than the one I had half a year ago. I want to use my time slots on seeing people face to face, but videotaping the great contents to give others the chance of tapping into what we talk about. For the non-Finnish presenters, I want to help those who already have the webinars set up find the people and topics they should show.
Thus, I won't be organizing a series of webinars, but a series of events that happen in face-to-face settings, with a streaming possibility. And if anyone has contents they want to make available, I'm volunteering as happy to help to get that stuff out - in front of an audience or just a camera.
- Finland is not Helsinki. To do things with Finnish Association of Software Testing or Agile Finland, we can't do all sessions in Helsinki. Some of the most inspiring Finns I want to hang out with are located in Oulu, Tampere and Turku. And most likely there are inspiring people I haven't had a chance of meeting, since they just don't come to sessions in Helsinki.
- Finland is not Europe or the whole world. I have a strong feeling that we need to be more connected in Europe as well as internationally, and doing EuroStar made me realize how few of our field's big names are from Europe outside UK. Just looking around has taught me about several people I'd like to know better, but I lack the chance of traveling like a consultant. Thus the webinar series would give people like me access to people and ideas that are not otherwise available.
- Great people and great presentations are not online yet. Knowing from personal experiences of listening to a lot of presentations by Finnish colleagues, a lot of this stuff is not online. I can't give a link to listen to amazing presentations that others should hear, and I suspect my local community isn't only local community like this. Tapping into a wider range of presenters would be great. I'd love to show off my colleagues from Finland, and I'd love to see people I haven't seen before.
Since then, I've had chats on this with people. From someone running a lot of online content, I learned that webinars might be really dull way to deliver the contents. From another one running webinars I learned that the numbers on a scheduled session are surprisingly small. From our own technical trials, I learned that while it is possible, a lot of participants actually fade away during the webinar. For presenters, I learned that some people feel off talking all by themselves, and others find the talking to an invisible crowd comforting without the stress they get from live presentations. From discussions, I learned that videotaping may be a key to what I want to achieve - new content over repeating the same old stuff. And that while we have these conferences where we actually just listen to the presentations, people find the breaks and the face-to-face connections and the forced presence of being there to listen really good.
With the limited time available to organize something, all this talking is taking me to a conclusion different than the one I had half a year ago. I want to use my time slots on seeing people face to face, but videotaping the great contents to give others the chance of tapping into what we talk about. For the non-Finnish presenters, I want to help those who already have the webinars set up find the people and topics they should show.
Thus, I won't be organizing a series of webinars, but a series of events that happen in face-to-face settings, with a streaming possibility. And if anyone has contents they want to make available, I'm volunteering as happy to help to get that stuff out - in front of an audience or just a camera.
