We didn’t call MenderCon an Open Space, because we're not strictly following the rules for an event that bears that

description. There is a vibrant community that’s really passionate about Open Space events, and the people in that

community take pride in making sure that Open Space events are done right. During planning for MenderCon, we made a few decisions

about the schedule that don't fit the full spirit of an Open Space event, specifically,

kicking the event off with a keynote and having dedicated networking time. If we were to follow the Open Space format

strictly, then the keynote and networking time would be sessions like any others.

There is no CFP. If you want to speak, make sure you come to the “pitch session”. At the pitch session we’ll invite

anyone who wants to organize a session up onto the virtual stage. There, they’ll briefly announce their session title

along with a short description and the time that the session is scheduled to happen.

This depends on the kind of session that you want to run. On the simplest end, you can just prepare a topic or idea

that you’d like to explore. That would be perfect for a purely discussion format. On the more complicated end, you

can craft a slide deck and presentation or walk through a live coding demo. Those might work well if you plan on

doing most or all of the talking during the session. We predict that many sessions are going to mix some elements of

each of these approaches.

With the [platform](https://hopin.to/events/mendercon-2020) that we’re using, this is something that is decided when

the session is created. If the session’s organizer would like it to be recorded, then we leave that decision up to them.

We can imagine it may be useful to have conversations that are not being recorded. We do plan on recording and sharing

the keynote and the pitch session.

During each of the session rounds, there are going to be several different sessions going on at once, and it may be

difficult to decide which session is the best one for you. The Open Space community employs the “Rule of Two Feet” to

specify that you can leave a session at any time and join a session at any time. If you feel you’re in the wrong

session, then switch to a different one. Don’t feel obligated to stay in a session for the full time just because you

were there when it started. And similarly, don’t be afraid to join a session after it’s started.

The event will be hosted on [Hopin](https://hopin.to/events/mendercon-2020). We feel that it is built for exactly the

kind of event we want to have. It allows participants to easily create session, attend session, and move from one

session to another if they didn’t like the one they find themselves in. It also has support for virtual vendor booths

and randomized one-on-one networking sessions. This is our first time running an event using Hopin, and we're excited

to see how it goes!

We’ve had a lot of people reach out and ask how they can help. Please reach out to us at

[[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) if you're interested in helping.