Hi, everyone. After attending a handful of Bike!Bike! conferences and putting on a regional one, it seems to me that folks are looking for opportunities to:
- tell their own bike shop stories,
- have those stories be heard, and
- get to know other shops with stories that resonate with them.
I think facilitating some of that up front will make workshops move along faster and go deeper, and it would help us find that magical person we needed to talk to about whatever nagging issue's been bothering us.
At BBSE we did a conference-wide go-around of introductions and then we broke out into pairs to share bike shop stories, which seemed to go really well. I think we could take it a few steps farther if folks are into it:
- It might be nice to have info booths or tables for all of the shops if
there's a big common area available at the conference. Then you could move about, see photos or slide shows, put faces to names, and show off what you're proud of at your shop. We did this at an community arts gathering in Atlanta a few weeks ago, and it was pretty great. It might lend to developing a few ad hoc workshops or post-conference partnerships. 2. And it might be nice to have a big map and push pins to get a visual geographic depiction of who's present.
Anyway, just putting some ideas out there so we can get the most out of sharing a short period of with each other.
Looking forward to it!
Rachael