Fluidity Forum Annual Report, & 2024 Applications Open

Changes to food, venue, and more

The time has come to apply to Fluidity Forum’s second annual event! Here’s a big button for it:

Our dates will be Thursday, September 5, through Sunday, September 8. Yes, you read that right— we’ll have four days!

There’s just one change to the application form this year, which is a link to a volunteering page. More about that below.

I'm incredibly pleased with the first Fluidity Forum. One of the things I heard the most from attendees was that it seemed everyone there was "agentic", in the service of not only themselves, but each other. We had 30 attendees present, counting registrants plus organizers.

For 2024, we’ll repeat the practice that the first ten attendees to register and pay will get a rate of $220 for no lodging (in-town attendees) and $300 for lodging included. As before, the price will increase as more attendees register. We’ll design the rest of those increases in the next couple of weeks. The organizers plan to get the new registration and payment page finished while we meet at Fluidity Fest this month.

AV

So far, I've posted some of the videos of the sessions to our YouTube channel, and will post more. One bit of postmortem that I learned is that recording conference sessions is harder and more time-consuming than one thinks it will be, even after taking that into account. I have a plan to account for this, and will discuss it when the details are more firm.

Transportation

Having the Airbnbs within a mile of the session venue worked well. Everybody liked it, and frankly, more of them walked than took advantage of the shuttle van we provided.

Food

In the exit survey, attendees were clear about a dissatisfaction with the food. I supplemented the catering with pizza. I went to great lengths to get healthier things than I normally would during my Costco run. But it still wasn't healthy enough. Most of us are either low carb, gluten-free, vegetarian, lactose intolerant, or don't eat seed oils. I decided I wanted someone other than me to arrange it inexpensively. I’m happy that an attendee has stepped up to be involved in that.

One of the ways we want to address food is that we’ll hold the sessions in the house where we’re staying, and not have Fluidity Forum at The Congregation this year. We plan to have two full homes. In the home where we have our sessions, we’ll use the kitchen to make buffet-style meals (like tacos, salads, breakfast foods, and noodle bowls), for which each person assembles their own ingredients according to their dietary preferences.

Programming

The other thing that everyone commented on in the exit survey was that the schedule was exhausting. There was a lunch break and a dinner break scheduled. The suggestion was to spread them out over more days, or incentivize more people to contribute things that aren't talks. Both of which sound great. In particular, we really hoped to have an exhibit hall, but every person bringing an exhibit had to cancel for various reasons. In 2024 we’ll have four days, starting on Thursday, and I hope that will help.

But at a deeper level, I have a radical approach to FOMO which I’ve been discussing in our Discord, and which I’d like to talk about in a future newsletter.

Volunteering

There’s now a page listing the tasks that we need volunteers for. I kept working all weekend, and would have liked to see some of the talks, and have more interaction with attendees. Most of the conversations I did have were in the van on the way to run errands, when attendees said they wanted to talk to me, and I brought them along. Keep in mind, I’m not complaining! That’s something one has to accept when starting out. But we can spread out the work so much that it’s fine if we get distracted by a fascinating conversation.

There’s a lot more to say on various subjects, so expect more newsletters soon. Until then,

Matt A