Organizing A QS Show&Tell

Gary Wolf

We've been asked by fans of QS about organizing QS Show&Tell meetings in their own cities. (Along with the Bay Area QS Show&Tell, there is a thriving New York QS Show&Tell, and new Boston QS Show&Tell just getting going.) Below is a basic FAQ about organizing a meeting of your own. While much of it is no doubt familiar to you if you read this blog, or have been to a Show&Tell, it's posted here as the easiest way to make it generally available, and also to invite you to comment if you see anything that could be improved.

(Full document after the jump.)
What is a QS Show&Tell?

We are a users group for people interested in personal data and self-tracking. Topics include, but are not limited to: Behavior monitoring, Location tracking, Digitizing Body Info, Sharing Health Records, Psychological Self-Assesments, Medical Self-Diagnostics, Chemical Body Load Counts, Personal Genome Sequencing, Lifelogging, Self Experimentation. We take advantage of the show&tell format you learned as a child: stand up and present something of interest that you are doing for a few minutes, take a few questions, and sit down. It is usually very fun and interesting.

Do I need permission to organize my own meeting?

No permission needed. Please go right ahead. We'd appreciate your letting us know, as we like to track the spread of this meme.

What does a typical presentation involve?

A typical presentation is 5-10 minutes long. Informal. Personal. The story of your own self-tracking project and what you learned. A description of a new tool or technique. A request for help. You can use slides or not. The time allotted to each presentation depends on how many people want to present. With 8 presenters (and some time for switching gears between each one), everybody gets about 12 minutes. See "QS Show&Tell - Tips for Presenters."  
What is the typical schedule?

We typically have a social hour from 6-7 p.m., and presentations from 7-9. (We believe it has been helpful to us to start and end exactly on time.) Because there is usually more conversation to be had after the presentations are over, people tend to linger after the program. We sometimes nominate a local pub for continuing later.

How do people sign up to present?

They email the organizer, and, if there is time to allow spontaneous additions we put a sign out sheet out during the social hour. We take presenters in the order they requested to present, with a bias towards people who have not yet presented to this meeting. How do you organize the place, time, RSVPs? We use Meetup.com. It works extremely well. The organizer has to purchase a paid account for a small fee. We list the meeting under these categories on MeetUp: Science, New Technology, Education & Technology, Neuroscience, Quantified Self.) You will find us at this link: http://quantified-self.meetup.com/

How do you enforce your idea about what kinds of presentations are appropriate?

We don't really enforce anything, but we do advice people to talk about their own personal data project and say what's been learned. Of course, sometimes our advice is ignored. But since each presentation is only 10-15 minutes, the consequences are not serious.

Where do you hold the QS Show&Tell meetings?

We've had meetings at design studios, universities, a think tank, and at corporate research labs. Moving the meetings around allows people to sample the local culture of tech/innovation/science. It is part of the fun. How do you get people to come? We will also post news of your meeting on our Quantified Self blog, and tell people about it through the normal social media channels. MeetUp will automatically list it along with other meetings in its category. We suggest you give yourself at least 3 weeks between the time you create the group and the time you have your first Show&Tell, so that people can find you.

Does a new organizer owe you anything?

No, of course not. But you would make us happy if you followed a few naming conventions so that your Show&Tell (and the posts relating to it) can be easily found by our automatic meme-spreading robots. We are using the following terms: Quantified Self QS QS Show&Tell Twitter: #qs Delicious (for resource links): qsresource

How can I help?

We welcome your contributions to the QS blog. Email us at the address below to request permission to post. If you come across a good QS tool, please tag it in Delicious with qsresource, and add whatever additional tags or notes you want. We are going to pull these out into a large document when we have a chance.

Who started The Quantified Self?

Gary Wolf (aether.com) and Kevin Kelly (kk.org)

Where can I find more information?

Quantified Self Blog: http://www.quantifiedself.org
Meetup: http://quantified-self.meetup.com/

Who maintains this document?

Gary Wolf (gary@aether.com). Your questions and suggestions are welcome.