Errant thought: it would be fun to have some kind of “demo day” for FoC. Everyone working on a project can give a two minute lightning talk about it, and then do live demos / slack or zoom discussions for another hour. Have people vote on their favorite project for a small prize.

That's a fun idea. If enough people are game, I'd be up to organize this. If anyone wants to volunteer to help out, LMK and we can divvy up responsibilities.

There's been one a while ago, right?

We did this about a year ago. I participated. The details are lost in the Slack memory hole. We each had a total of 2 minutes to present and answer questions, as I recall. There wasn't much opportunity for interaction with the audience. I didn't like the format.

Doug — if there had been more opportunity for Q&A, would that have been better? Care to brainstorm other things that would have made it more enjoyable?

Here's a previous conversation on this question that is still accessible: https://futureofcoding.slack.com/archives/CLYCGTCPL/p1579116473013100 Here's a blunt view on lightning talks, in text comic format. You think, "it'd be cool to see what everybody is working on." You say, "let's all do talks on our projects.." You think, "oh but I don't want to hear Kartik drone on about his lame-ass project for the umpteenth time." You say, "..but just $TOO_FEW minutes per person." Ok Kartik, if you're right, why does YC do demo day? They're pretty smart people, and their audience is smart people too. Demo day is intended to drive a certain kind of action. The audience is people who've honed their pattern recognition for a very specific format of yes/no decision. The emphasis is on the final decision rather than the road taken to get to it. And the organizers are aiming for a feeling of scarcity to pressure investors into quick decisions. Nothing wrong with any of that, but none of it feels relevant to this group, where the goal is thoughtful appreciation rather than rapid action. (Right?) I'm not sure what the answer is. Maybe we need something more like Science Fair? Put up your shingle for a predetermined hour, hack on your project if nobody shows up. If somebody shows up you give them your schtick. If it's someone who's already heard the schtick, maybe you answer their questions. Or maybe they don't have questions, they just wanna watch you hack. Or if your buddy shows up, you pair. Most importantly, anybody who doesn't care about your project knows what time to claim a prior engagement for.

That's a really interesting take. Your points resonate with me. To go from here, let me pick out a few things I like about the demo day idea (and I encourage others to do the same), so that we can try to design something that keeps the good parts. Things that I like about the demo day idea: • It's a singular event, which will garner more attention than a recurring thing • It's presentations (prepared) rather than conversations (improvised) • There's variety — maybe you won't come away thinking of every project, but each project will probably come away with someone new thinking about it • This feels like something distinct from #C0120A3L30R and the podcast. If we just do 2 minute presentations with a hard cutoff, that's just a live broadcast of #C0120A3L30R. If we just do 1 project per event, and make the events regularly occurring, that's just a live broadcast of the podcast.