Participants: Annemieke van der Hoek [NL], Megan Hoogenboom [NL], Michael Van Shaik [NL], Renee Olde Moonnikhof [NL]
Brief:"Design a creative, compelling poster or animation that delivers the compassionate message that the wearing of fur is cruel and unnecessary. We want the modern world to celebrate all animals and not victimize them by killing them to wear their skins - and we want you to help us make that happen." [Full brief here ]
Duration: 2hrs
Methodologies used: face to face moderated discussion, file sharing.
Collaborative tools used: None
Aims and Notes:
Aim of the workshop was to test the good and the bad aspects of a consensus based decision evaluating the necessity of having a moderator reflecting on the risks that such a figure implies.
time issue: Consensus based decision is the way to go in order to have people working on something that they all agree on, since they have a way to confront and to react to each other. The down side is that this kind of methodology is really time consuming and the 10 minutes scheduled for it weren't absolutely enough. The decision making process took way more time then the one scheduled and that's the reason why the participants didn't manage to produce a finished result.
ego issues:In a face to face discussion ego issues can emerge. The person with the biggest ego would probably be the one who speaks more and consequently the one who can drive the discussion, and the project, in the direction he or she retains more appropriate. It doesn't necessarily mean that he or she would try to push his or her work but he/she would be the most influential on the decision. In order to avaid this risk two solutions are possible:
- a face to face moderated discussion, a moderator would be present in the discussion making sure that everyone have the same chances to express his or her ideas.
- an unmoderated anonymous chat, people being anonymous would be freer to express them selves and the proposal would have to stand on their own without the influence of their author