planning Archives

December Community Call Recap – Reflecting, connecting, and looking ahead at our annual community potluck!

On Friday, 15 December 2023 we convened our last community call of 2023 – a community potluck for members of our community of practice to take a moment to look back on the highs and lows of 2023, and think a little about what’s coming up next year.

This was our fourth annual community potluck, and this year’s gathering was as kind and generative as always. A big thank you to everyone who came and shared a dish (which took the form of a reflection or a learning)! In this blog post, you’ll find a taste of what we talked about – including some suggestions for your own end-of-year reflection.

A screenshot of the gallery view in Zoom, where everyone is smiling and some people have added visual effects to their video so they have festive hats or accessories. — *A screenshot of some of the potluckiest STEM community managers around! Image credit: CSCCE*

March’s community call recap – Sharing our collective learnings from a year of running and attending virtual events

For our March call we flipped the script, and instead of hosting presentations we made space for discussion on the broad topic of “virtual and hybrid events.” With so many members of our community of practice involved in convening events large and small over the last year, we had a hunch that by bringing us all together and carving out 90 minutes to talk, we could all learn a lot. And we weren’t disappointed!

In this blog post, we summarize the key takeaways from the four parallel discussions that took place in breakout groups. The conversations included a valuable mix of lessons learned, ideas for supporting virtual and hybrid events in the future, and suggested resources. A big thank you to everyone who contributed, and especially our discussion moderators: Amber Budden, Emily Lescak, Chiara Bertipaglia, and Megan Carter.

CSCCE Tools Trial 2.0: Preparing for, and reacting to, Zoom bombing

After a year of working online and meeting virtually for many, we’ve grown accustomed to Zoom norms and etiquette. We all know to mute our microphones when we’re not talking, use the “raise hand” function to ask a question, and use the chat to easily share links and resources.

Unfortunately, we’ve also grown accustomed to the threat of “Zoom bombing,” that awful situation when an outsider breaks into your virtual space, disrupts your meeting, and causes distress to your participants. While always a risk, there are steps you can take to protect yourself from such an eventuality. And, with practice, you can quickly kick a troublemaker out of your meeting, prevent them rejoining, and carry on with your event.

Interested in finding out more? Join us on 25 March 2021 at 10am US EDT for our next CSCCE Community Tools Trial, and read on for more details.

First Birthday Series: The future of CSCCE’s community of practice

For our “First Birthday Series” of blog posts, we took some time to reflect on CSCCE’s community of practice, which turned one year old on 21 October 2020. In this final post in the series, jointly authored by Communications Director, Katie Pratt and Center Director, Lou Woodley, we look back on CSCCE’s seed funding, how the Center is supported now, and our plans for a financially sustainable future.

Previous posts in this series outlined the community “by the numbers,” delved a little deeper into our programming offerings, discussed our resources and the importance of co-creating together, and summarized how our working groups and special interest groups operate and further our mission. Together, these five blog posts celebrate year one of CSCCE’s community of practice, and look ahead to the future of the Center.

July Community Call Recap: Organizing inclusive, accessible, and successful virtual events

This month, our content and programming focused on organizing and implementing virtual events. With the global COVID-19 pandemic, virtual meetings, conferences, and other events have become part of everyday life for many people, and the task of planning, executing, and evaluating them in STEM often falls to community managers. So, for our July community call we invited three members of our community of practice to share their knowledge and start a conversation about best practices.

Watch the three presentations from July’s call in their entirety.

Presentations

“It’s Dangerous To Go Alone, Take This – Non-Player Characters & Prepping For Your Virtual Event” – Tom Quigley, ConservationXLabs (slides)
“It’s All About Access: Planning Meetings for Wider Audiences” – Rebecca Carpenter, Deaf and Hard of Hearing Virtual Academic Community (slides)
“Evaluating Virtual Events” – Emily Lescak, Code for Science and Society (slides)

July’s Community Call: Planning and evaluating accessible virtual events

On Wednesday, 22 July 2020 at 2pm we’re hosting our next monthly community call. This month’s call will focus on virtual events, a topic that is likely on the minds of many scientific community managers at the moment.

We’ll cover three key aspects of organizing virtual events: planning and preparation, access and accessibility, and evaluation, both before and after your event. With three experts from our community of practice presenting, and ample time for discussion and Q&A, this month’s call promises to provide actionable information for you and your colleagues, so we hope to see you there!