The Digital Preservation Coalition may have been born in the UK, but we've grown global now. In those earlier years, our "flagship" event format was the Briefing Day. These would be in-person events, inviting speakers to present around a particular topic, and giving space for attendees to learn about that topic and explore the issues together.
In this cash-strapped, post-COVID world, this is no longer practical, even within the UK. For a global organisation, it makes no sense at all.
Our events are almost all online now, and we've been experimenting with online formats as we go. Our open-to-all #DPConnect events, sprung from the harsh soil of COVID isolation, have become a happy fixture in our calendars. Our special interest groups and our larger conference-style events have tried out a number of different approaches, and now work reasonably well.
But, given our global membership, not quite well enough.
As ever with digital preservation, the problem is time. In this case, that everywhere insists on having its everywhen! Which means no single event can treat everyone equally.
We have attempted to fill the gap by rotating meetings across time-zones, and by running "Watch Party" events (taking recordings from one event and replaying them for another region, adding a local speaker to the mix to try and keep it fresh). This has worked quite well, but we wanted to do more. Could we bring that Briefing Day feel to a global, online stage?
It was from these thoughts that our brand new Around The World events were born.
Four events per year. Four mini-conferences. Each focussing on a theme drawn from our annual member survey. Each one runs around the world over the course of a few days, with three half-day sessions: one for the Americas, one for Australasia/Asia Pacific, and one for European/African/West Asian time zones. Each regional session having its own programme, and wherever possible a regional co-chair to help build the programme and facilitate on the topic of the event.
These will be run as online conferences, with an open call for speakers on each theme. (Note speakers will not be charged to attend.)
This year's themes are Risk Management, Preserving Complex Objects, AI for Digital Preservation, and Preservation at Scale. The scheduled dates for these events are already available on the Around The World page, so you can block out your calendars straight away!
Better still, the detailed description, call for contributions and registration page for the first Risk Management event is already live at Around the World – Risk Management. Please check it out and join us if you can!
I'm both nervous and excited about these events... Nervous because there's a lot of fiddly organisation to get right, and a lot of open questions like whether we'll be able to fill the programme, and how we can tie the three sessions together so they feel like a coherent whole.
But excited because I think the DPC is at its best when it's bringing people together, and that this new format might provide a new way to find each other and build connections across and beyond our global membership.
See you there?