Austin's unique "BE"

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Next Scene Lab Meeting on 12/08


Come join us for the next SceneLab on Wednesday, December 8th. We want to connect with you and hear how your scene stewardship, using the Austin Equation model, has been progressing.


SceneLabs are the gathering point and discussion area for people actively engaged in, or wishing to be actively engaged in, mapping and stewarding Austin's vibrant creative scenes applying the Austin Equation model (Experience + Community = Scene).


Agenda:
We will be speaking with
Charles Knickerbocker and Jon Lebkowsky, two people who have rich experience growing grassroots communities from scratch, locating stakeholders and encouraging participation. Specifically we will be talking with them about the "Community" part of the equation and the lessons they have learned.

As with previous SceneLabs, we will have the opportunity to discuss how and whether our emerging process of cultivating, documenting, and stewarding scenes "maps" onto their pragmatic experience of engaging individuals to form a community.


  • 5 - 5:15 Connect/meet/chat
  • 5:15 - 6:20 Intros and “Keynote” segment and group-wide discussion
  • 6:20 - 6:50 Scene steward status reports (mapping, convening, collaboration requests, etc.)
  • 6:50 - 7:00 Housekeeping & next steps
  • 7:00 Adjourn for follow-up social time at separate venue

Potluck beverages: We'll have a few drinks available, but please feel free to bring your favorite beer/wine/other and share.


Charles Knickerbocker has over 20 years of experience as a professional community organizer and political campaign staffer: campus strike leader in high school and college; Movement for Economic Justice; ACORN (at its beginning, when it was Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now); Consumers Congress; Industrial Areas Foundation; and city, state and national political campaigns.

Jon Lebkowsky managed Wireless Future, a year-long economic development project via the IC2 Institute at The University of Texas towards catalyzing the wireless business scene in Austin, bringing wireless companies and other stakeholders together and thereby actually creating a robust wireless scene. He was also an instigator with Rich MacKinnon of Austin Wireless City, a project to promote wifi in venues across Austin. Jon leveraged the synergies of the two projects in his scene-building activities. Currently, Jon is a web strategist, developer, and freelance project manager through Polycot Associates, Chief Digital Officer for the events company Plutopia Productions, and writes about culture and technology at his blog and various other publications. More information in Jon's longer bio and in the Jon Lebkowsky article at Wikipedia.