SETT16 | Here we go again - three days live - part 1

I’m probably one of the world’s worst bloggers. The same goes for social media. The best way to describe me when it comes to these things is probably as someone who works in bursts. Unfortunately it easily ends up at the bottom of the priority list, which is a shame since I actually think it’s quite fun. There just isn’t time for everything. But now it’s time again. SETT16.

And a bit of blogging. And with that, yet another small blog series about the journey from start to finish — from paper and ideas — to three days of live-broadcast shows. I’ll try to document this journey as best I can, so if you want to join along, feel free. After all, there are only two weeks left.

The second year with Årstaskolan’s Tänktanken at SETT

To give a little background on what we’re doing I’ll start with a short history lesson. Tänktanken began as a podcast at Årstaskolan in 2013. It was — and is — a way for us to document and vent some of the ‘coffee chats’ we have. As we write on tanktanken.se

“The podcast functions a bit like a think tank where not everything is completely thought through, but it’s an excellent therapeutic tool for summarizing and reflecting on our little school world. Think of it as you being the fly on the wall during our coffee break.”

In 2014 we got the idea to do a Talkshow — live in front of an audience and live-streamed on the internet. To take Tänktanken one step further and thereby give us the opportunity to get curious about even more people around and within the school world. So we invited a bunch of guests and an audience and ran it in the cafeteria on May 6 at Årstaskolan and it left us wanting more. In 2015 Lärarförbundet got in touch and asked if we wanted to do something in their booth and we didn’t hesitate to say yes. We thought we could take the Tänktanken Talkshow to the SETT fair. Of course we had a lot of other ideas, but lack of time meant we focused on doing about 4–5 talkshows per day. We ended up with 16 episodes and you can watch them on, among others, Kunskapshubben or on tanktanken.se.

On Kunskapshubben and Tänktanken’s website all previous episodes are available to watch and listen to

And that brings us to 2016. Lärarförbundet probably thought we did a pretty good job last time, because they contacted us again to ask if we’d like to run it again this year. Of course we did and planning got under way. And this is where the journey begins. How have we done it? Will we pull this off? Or will it be an empty booth? No audience and nobody who wants to watch?

Brainstorm, brainstorm, plan, think and brainstorm

We didn’t want to run a straight copy of last year. We always try out a few new concepts, because it’s sort of part of our culture. To push the boundaries a bit and not get too comfortable. To see if we can do something a little better than last time. Pick the good bits from the past and find new ones for the future. Since we’re not a production company and have a main business to run, we have very limited time for this (and most of that time comes out of our free time). But the advantage of limitations is that they also breed creativity. What drives us here is the opportunity to be curious about people and create chances for conversation, and to do something different and fun that still has to do with school. And to do that journey together with your colleagues (=friends).

Our mobile and extremely analog Trello used at our last meeting. Post-its. Fantastic tool.

Who’s the boss? How is it structured?

As I wrote, there isn’t much time for this, which means we have to have a nimble (agile) and initiative-taking organization around the event. No one really decides alone — everyone creates together. In this I act as a sort of communications hub as I handle much of the communication and administration. But we share the bossing around. All meeting formats have to be extremely efficient and they are also completely voluntary. Everything is also available completely transparently to those involved online. That also means we have to trust each other 100% that everything we’re responsible for gets done. A truly fantastic way to work, which also builds on the freedom to participate to whatever extent you want. The group has, in waves, met in person over a [insert your choice] fizzy drink and together come up with a main idea which we — as time has passed — have broken down to identify the smaller components and assigned responsibilities to each other.

What needs to be done?

Now we’re at the point where we’ve decided to have four different formats: micro-lecture, bar talk, the daily code challenge, and talk show. We’ve also nailed down 95% of our guests as well as who will be hosts and who will work on the actual broadcast, as we’ll be live-streaming everything online. In the next post tomorrow I’ll tell a bit more about how we’ve worked concretely and what’s needed to pull this all off. Facebook just pinged. One of our guests wants to chat a bit. Talk soon! If you have questions you’re welcome to post them in the comments, or via my other contact channels.

The whole series - SETT2016

Part 1 | Here we go again

Part 2 | A long day and communication

Part 3 | Both digital and analog work

Part 4 | Right up to the last minute

Part 5 | Chaos as usual

Part 6 | Thanks and a bow