Voltaire Assistant (Swarm Sessions)

Problem

‌Project Catalyst needs a way to direct decentralized energies supplied by the community into achieving desirable outcomes.

Solution

‌Build capacity and systems that facilitate the community in conducting group sessions that focus on creating and achieving goals.

Total to date

This is the total amount allocated to Voltaire Assistant (Swarm Sessions).

$7,736

Total funds requested

Total votes cast

₳63.9M

Votes yes

₳61.5M

Votes no

About this idea

‌This proposal will focus on an initial phase. When successful we will propose further phases that will continue to the development of the system in future funding rounds.

‌As a Social UI/UX (user interface/user experience designer) I have thought over this problem of group design, or as I called it co-design, for a long time. I have been developing a system for many years and am in the process of pivoting my business in this direction by undertaking what I term as 'swam sessions' with my business clients. I wish to bring this system to the Project Catalyst ecosystem and develop specific practices, systems and guidelines for the community to be able to facilitate and participate in organized and purposeful co-designing. I believe Swarm Sessions will become a vital part of the processes to achieve distributed decision making at scale.

In order to achieve a meaningful short term result this initial proposal will fund a test case that also fills a gap. The gap we have identified for this phase is the development of the brand design of Project Catalyst itself.

Currently, there are no community generated brand principles in existence, and a brand story is much more than a logo. It is the fundamental building block of an entity and a strong set of brand principles are the architectural plans on which the foundation blocks can be laid. When you think of major brands they usually have a well crafted and understood personality. It is this personality that creates the understanding for developing the brand story of the entity, and I propose we co-design this together using the system I have developed.

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SESSION PREPARATION TIME

‌Creating the sand pit.

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To conduct a successful co-design session I will create the structures of success. These will include:

Writing of the Social Brand Design Challenge.
Set the principles of success.
Prepare worksheets and sub exercises.
Setup the format and structure of the co-design sessions.
Gather open innovation participators (voluntary).
Test Drive the session to work out any kinks and software restrictions.

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FACILITATION

‌Encourage learning and play.

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The best learning environments are fun, enjoyable and engaging for the participants. To achieve this interactivity and inclusion are instrumental. It is necessary therefore to have a focused and purposeful facilitator that can guide the process, keeping discussion directed when needed and allowing it to branch out at significant times. Another important function of a facilitator is creating time constraints. These add useful pressure on participants and encourage free flow thought when brainstorming or swarm sorting.

For this exercise I will take on the role of facilitator and undertake the following:

Ensure that people are at ease and they feel equal and respected.
Educate and inform participants of the processes and best practices.
Assist with the smooth operation of the collaboration software (Miro).
Facilitate the contribution of participants.
Set the tone of interactions between participants.
Keep participants focused and directed.
3/4 exercises guided by questions per session.
3 sessions of 60 minutes. (Discovery/Synthesis/Output). With 30 min pre/post discussion.

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OPEN INNOVATION

The sand castle

To fulfil the goal of meaningful output the sessions require a stated objective. In this case the objective is to create a proposal for visual designers to engage with the output in order to create the brand assets for compilation into a guide. This step is more complicated as it will form the next phase of the process. Something that is known as co-creation. Details will be provided in future funding proposals.

The final session will be the synthesis of the collected information in the previous swarm sessions. This is the vital final step of the co-design process - it is the opportunity for participants to fulfil the promise of the distributed decision making process. Once this has been fulfilled what is next?

What will this output be?‌

It is highly likely that the majority of participants in the initial phase will not be designers (an assumption that may prove to be wrong but only time will tell). It is my task then to take the synthesized output (the Catalyst's Brand Vision) of the sessions and create a brief that can be followed and distributed to create the brand assets (the Catalyst's Brand Challenge). This output will be generated by me and be presented as a booklet.

A working draft of the Catalyst Brand Challenge can be found https://nielskijf.com/download/8681/

This booklet forms a part of a co-creation design brief. This brief will be put into a Project Catalyst proposal in order to fulfill the desired outcome of creating the brand story and will be offered to the design oriented parts of the Project Catalyst community.

The following are the key deliverables of the booklet:

Co-creation Brand Design Brief (WIP)

The Brand Design Challenge
Co-design Incentive structure
How to run co-design sessions
Use the Brand Vision as guide
Assets Production list

Catalyst's Brand Vision (synthesized data)

Reason of Being
Character Canvas
Design principles
Emotional Spectrum

PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT FEE

This fee is being paid to Phil Khoo, an active member of the Project Catalyst community. It represents consultancy time he has spent with me developing this proposal into its current state. If you're interested in his proposal mentor/writing service please DM him on Catalyst Discord to discuss.

COLLABORATION TOOL COSTS

‌Miro 8 seats, 16$ each x 12 (billed annually) = $1536

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WHY ARE SWARM SESSIONS IMPORTANT?

Swarm sessions leverage human nature - the desire to communicate and cooperate. I have investigated and developed a system that will allow new ways of working to achieve meaningful participation and output utilizing swam sessions. They help achieve the contemporary ideas of distributed contribution in the form of co-design, co-creation and participatory design. Starting with a well defined Design Challenge and supported by exercises and workflows that I have developed, swarm sessions give the Project Catalyst community the unique opportunity to become aware of 'how' they work, while 'doing' the work. I will use the findings from these experimental sessions to help me further develop distributed decision making software I call Voltaire Assistant.

WHAT DOES SUCCESS LOOK LIKE?

Success of this phase would be the successful completion of the three working sessions and the production of the Catalyst Brand Vision and co-creation brand design brief (this may or may not form a part of the booklet) for the brand challenge of Project Catalyst.

‌KPI's