Akademy/2024/BoFs

Akademy Hybrid BoFs: Best Practice

This guide assumes that your BoF aims to create a relatively natural conversation between in-person and online participants. See below for tips in a suboptimal acoustic situation.

BoF Organizing Tips:

Collect topics for discussion before the BoF. You can do this by chatting with people at the event or asking in the matrix/discuss/social media/etc in advance! Among other benefits, this will structure the conversation making it easier to follow if sound is suboptimal.

When doing activities, consider the following:

• How will online participants participate?
• Are materials, including anything written on a white board, visible to participants?

At the BoF

Before the BoF begins connect with or ask for a volunteer to be the Facilitator, if notes are needed also ask someone to volunteer to take notes.

• Work with the Facilitator to include the online participants in the group discussion. Ask your moderator to relay questions from the chat and call on people in the room.
• Speak clearly into the microphone, repeat questions into the mic before answering.

BoF Facilitating Tips:

You don't need to know about the topic to be a good BoF facilitator!

Facilitators make sure the online and in-person attendees are able to participate and engage in the conversation. If there are technical difficulties, reach out to the Tech Support volunteer.

• At the beginning of the BoF let the chat and the in-person participants know that you're the moderator and to contact you with questions.

Example text for the chat, to post at the very beginning and again after a presentation:

    "I will monitor the conversation here so if you have questions, please let me know or simply ask your question in the chat!"

At the end of the session, you can invite participants to continue the conversation with something like:

    "Thank you everyone. Feel free to contimue the conversation in the Matrix room <LINK> if you have additional comments/questions."

If in doubt, remember MOMS for Good BoFs:

Moderate: make sure only one participant speaks at a time

Observe: keep an eye on the chat for activity there

Mention: draw attention to online participants who want to speak

Share: make space for in-person and online participants to contribute

In Case Of Poor Acoustics

Same as above, but ...

• The facilitator(s) should sit next to the mic and repeat questions/comments slowly and clearly.
• When in-person participants have trouble hearing the online participants, the facilitator(s) can repeat questions/comments slowly and clearly.