How might we develop the habit of sharing our learnings with each other more frequently?
Hypothesis
If we share short videos with each other five days a week for two weeks, then we will find sharing with each other easier and more compelling.
Design
Each person will make a video on WhatsApp of their learnings once a week.
Monday: Eugene
Tuesday: Jodie
Wednesday: Alison
Thursday: Mark
Friday: Elissa
Eugene will set up an automated email reminder to you on the day you are supposed to share the video.
Metrics
Between April 7 - May 7, how many times do people in E3 spontaneously share learnings with each other, outside of another facilitated gathering?
Minimum: At least one person chooses to share a thought (without prompting) with the group on what they’re learning
Target: At least two people choose to share a thought (without prompting) with the group on what they’re learning
Epic: Everyone chooses to share a thought (without prompting) with the group on what they’re learning
Learnings
Technically, we hit minimum success. However:
We ran into technical roadblocks that made it hard
The email notifications helped some of us
Even if we hadn't, once a week for two weeks isn't long enough to establish a habit
Decisions
Make sure everyone has resolved their technical problems. (Already resolved for 2/3 people.)
Instead of repeating the Kardashians experiment, Eugene wants to do a "The Martian" experiment (which someone had proposed as the original name for this experiment), where he does a video wrap-up of what he's thinking about once a day for five days. Wants to see if others are inspired to do the same (or at least to share their thinking) without pre-committing to an experiment.
We have not yet tested a version of this experiment where we broadcast videos publicly (or at least with a larger audience). Something to think about for a future iteration.
In Week 1, everyone tried to share a video, but only two were able to successfully, with one emailing an audio recording as a proxy.
In Week 2, two of us shared a video on our designated date, one sent one later, and two skipped.
As of today (almost three weeks after the experiment ended), only I have shared an extra video (a Kardashians wrap-up on the Monday after the experiment ended). We defined minimum success as at least one person sharing a video unprompted, so technically, this experiment succeeded.
We took a quick survey to gather some data on how the Kardashians experiment went. Four out of five of us filled it out. Here are the results:
Off the top of your head, what themes or lessons came up in the videos that have stuck with you? (Please don’t re-watch the videos to answer this.)
How much this was a reflection on experiments. Eugene started us off with the Um experiment and then Elissa closed with provocative questions about privilege and experiments. I added in some via text about questions re the rigid frame of experiments and privilege although I was coming at it with a race frame. This makes me want to relisten to Mark’s audio because I remember that as moving me even though I can’t reproduce the content.
Intersection of experimentation and equity. How this weekly reflection (even just the two times that I did it) along with the reflections of others, sparked other kinds of creative thinking for me.
Mark on equity. Elissa on privilege.
I removed the app a couple of times during the process to deal with my technical difficulties and lost the content in the process so didn’t get to watch or listen to them all.
Any final thoughts?
Thanks for trying this form and getting the dashboard up and generally being a solid A on this experiment, Eugene. The conversation here has prompted me to actually start an outline and put some words on paper for a blog on experimentation!!!
I would like to try it again so I can more fully participate.
Final tally: 6 umms in the morning, 3 in the afternoon (along with this encouraging message from Mark!):
Simply doing the experiment (and probably the group accountability) made me more conscious of my, “umms,” even without the feedback. The feedback itself definitely helped, and it was fun!
Here’s a brief video (as part of the #kardashians experiment) explaining what I did and what I learned:
