Affinity Groups

Truth emergency — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 01:16:21 GMT

Unlike most conferences which are largely podium or panel powered, the driving force and creative core of this gathering are the 8~9 member "affinity groups" to which ALL conference participants will be assigned during registration.

Affinity Group Purpose:

Serve as the primary brainstorming nexus for the conference.
Share and synthesize information from various theme breakout sessions since everyone can't attend every session.
Build collaborative working relationships.
Generate ideas for posting on the "Meta-narrative" and "Goals" walls (see Posting Walls below).
Be constructive and creative, and make sure everyone is heard.

Affinity Group Process:

Meet formally 4 times during the weekend (and informally as desired):

Friday evening (7:00-8:00 PM)
Saturday morning (11:00-12:00 PM)
Saturday afternoon (4:30-5:30 PM)
Sunday (10:45- 11:30 AM)

Assign roles each time they meet, changing people as appropriate in the roles each time:

Assign a note-taker / reporter to every breakout session to give 3-minute report-back to the group afterwards
Select a discussion leader, timekeeper, recorder, and wall-person for each affinity group meeting,.

Affinity group tasks:

Share 3-minute report-backs from each breakout session
Discuss report backs
Identify and list ideas for (1) meta-narratives and/or (2) high-level group goals, and post them to the walls.
On Sunday morning just before action planning, all affinity groups will review proposed goals together.

Affinity group agreements:

Be efficient.
Keep meetings congenial and have fun.
Be supportive of each other.
Follow through on agreements.

Group roles (detail):

Discussion leader - Makes sure everyone gets to talk.
Recorder - Summarizes everything everyone says on flip charts.
Time-keeper - Keeps the group aware of the time or serves the group in other timekeeping assignments.
Reporter - Prepares group requested reports.
Wall-person - Records/posts things the group wants placed on "Meta-narrative" and "Goals" walls (one posting per item)

Posting-Walls

Two centrally-located "posting walls" for collecting, displaying and organizing the following material generated by the affinity groups:

Meta-Narratives (to deepen, coordinate and harmonize messaging)
hemes, memes, stories that reveal the common denominators and interrelationships beneath and between the diverse issues attendees (and single issue groups) are concerned with
Material posted to the Meta-Narratives wall will be sorted and reviewed by the group for consolidation into a Port Huron-like vision statement to encourage deeper, more synergistic messaging in the independent media community as a whole.

Goals

Larger, overarching collaborative goals that participants would like to see this group accomplish as well as suggested actions and required resources to achieve respective goals. For example, one section of this wall might feature "Creation of a comprehensive and trustworthy non-corporate news source" and a listing of actions and requirements to realize that goal. Another section might feature "Building synergistic national/international networks among independent media sources" and technical and organizational ways to realize that goal.
Data posted to the Goals wall will be used in a "Reality Dialogue" on Sunday to help identify concepts that are supported by everyone present and can best serve as the basis for action planning and commitments from the group.

Theme Breakout Sessions

The conference will break into three tracks for breakout sessions:
Narrative / Messaging - Discovering the meta-narratives
News Source Development - Creating a trusted, influential non-corporate news source
Networking / Technology - How to collaborate and exploit technologies to distribute news

There are two sets of breakout sessions on Saturday afternoon, and one on Sunday morning.

Each affinity group will ensure that some members are present at each of the sessions to report back content to their respective group.

The Truthemergency Times

Affinity Groups