StoryMaker Camp Brainstorm¶

Here are the proposed sessions for the camp.

*Please put your comments on existing items in Italics with your name at the end of the comment. For new suggestions please put them as bullets with your name at the end.

Main Sessions

StoryMaker Camp Sessions (Draft)

• Training

  To establish a strong StoryMaker trainers network with trainers from across the project countries.

  To develop and refine existing curriculums for ToT´s and trainings for each country.

  To train trainers on story format modules and do a refresher

  Participants

• Development and technology

  Discuss the apps development: how far should we go with development? What needs to be improved?

  Challenges getting bugs from participants and troubleshooting

• Mentoring and Feedback

  What are the challenges

  How can we improve?

• Content

  What level of content are we getting with StoryMaker?

  What do we expect?

  How can we help users market their content?

  Internships with media outlets.

  Editors - How can StoryMaker benefit the newsroom best?

  Connecting StoryMaker trainees with media outlets to be published.

• Security

  Mobile and digital security,

  how to use StoryMaker as safe as possible

• StoryMaker and Community Engagement

  How can StoryMaker engage people and communities?

Closed Sessions

• Management

• M&E

Notes from Scrum Discussion | Oct 29th, 2013¶

Questions for StoryMaker Camp Brainstorm

• What would you want to get out of these (3 or 5) days? (should we use this time for actual development, for exchanging with users and trainers etc.?)

TRAINING SIDE

Lets produce some clips, and pieces with storymaker that have an immediate appeal. Show off what StoryMaker is capable of. What kinds of stories would we want to see. Different applications for StoryMaker we haven't seen yet.

What is web video going to look like? What can we do with the short format. What is the best length for a storymaker video?

Showcase what is it really able to do?

If we have a diverse group of people, we could put out a call for submissions. Put out a call for a different application of StoryMaker.

Zim was awesome because there were so many people using it and we had so many different people using it.

More diversity than just the news spots it's doing.

Nathan: When I was testing, an hour long radio show seemed appealing to me. Producing a whole show with stories produced on StoryMaker.

The high def stuff impresses people when I show StoryMaker. If you can produce something with a tripod and a mic, that's what is impressing people. "that looks just like real news" that's one thing this is being measured against.

I'm still thinking the audio is getting short. Bringing Mark Rendeiro who wrote the audio curriculum would be helpful, and some other audio reporters as well.

Brian: Really focused and testing of the app. Going to be hard if most people have already used the app.

Louis: The advantage of this is people are already invested in the app. So what can we do with their enthusiasm?

• Setup a Developer lab, and have people come and use StoryMaker to show the devs what they're doing and where things break for them, to get bugs documented and hopefully resolved.

• New Template session | What other templates would people want.

Louis: Getting people to produce something together as a group. Lets tell a great story here. The content matters a lot. Creatively stimulate people to produce something, and observe them doing it.

Create a This American Life style podcast at the StoryMaker camp. What made you want to become an activist? Journalism in the arab world. Where is the arab spring going?

Production quality, showing the rig for video. Show a good mic, and how to use it. What are the explicit tasks to achieve different levels of production.

A workshop on activities & teaching materials to use to help get people up to speed.

• What edits are necessary to the material.

• What training modules are missing.

• Trainee specific needs:

• Training specific needs:

If there are new people, we can provide the modules.

20 or 30 people who have never used StoryMaker before, having a small training run concurrently by trainers who have a refresher, perform a training, and than provide feedback on what they still need to be successful.

Training Success Stories from the Last Year
Two requests from trainers who have performed StoryMaker trainers. What's the best thing you've seen & what is the worst thing that should not happen again.

A monthly newsletter, or a podcast about the best stories there.

Highlight the content, a regular storymaker podcast show in the iTunes store. Setup a monthly mailing list of highlighting the content.

How do we make content with this that people want.

Can we define a benchmark.

What other allies to include? Who would be excited to be seeing this? ushahidi? GlobalLeaks?

What other orgs can we invite to learn to adopt the tool?

SECURITY
How do we use StoryMaker securely? Protecting yourself and your data. What is still missing from a security feature list.

DEV SIDE

A one or two day long bug crushing sprint, could be helpful.

Running a StoryMaker lab, where we're doing user testing, and geeking out to push the limits of StoryMaker.

Focus Groups. Josh would like to be in a room and see the way people are actually using it to help improve the UI workflows.

Creative process with a monitoring component, so participants are using it realistically but also Josh can observe actual use.

What would you want to get out of these (3 or 5) days? (should we use this time for actual development, for exchanging with users and trainers etc.?)

Get a presentation from the product team on a clear understanding of all the possibilities. A good clear users manual.

New feature development would be unproductive. Q&A, UI focus would help the dev team. a very focused sprint to squash bugs with a few people would be helpful.

Lesson loading via resources

See a collection of the best stories the app has made. Really understand the potential of the app.

The content is the best use case to get people excited.

• What would make it worth it for you to participate?

Exposure to people actually using it will really help the dev team.

Time to create and collaborate on new ways of using StoryMaker.

Having a lab, where people can come to give feedback.

Organized cross talk between the Project and the Product groups and their unique goals.

1. What are the non-negotiables of the app development? What should we strive for? What is ideal?

Bethel, can you explain more about this? We're not really sure what you meant here.

1. Can we develop a roadmap for the development for the next year?

The product team is actively working on this already, and the issues are actively informing it. As Steve puts together the outline for the secure publishing work, he'll be documenting the road map beyond that for a secure camera, improving the editing functionality, making a more robust audio recorder, adding a secure gallery, improvements requested for the lessons, and more. We're happy to have a session to present this and get feedback.