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MozillaFoundation / mozfest-program-2016

Mozilla Festival proposals for 2016
https://mozillafestival.org
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Poetry for programmers: How arts and culture will save your life and improve your code #654

Open mozfest-bot opened 8 years ago

mozfest-bot commented 8 years ago

[ ID ] 49048fe7-1dcc-43c6-9d8d-58e2e41a069c

[ Submitter's Name ] John Burn-Murdoch [ Submitter's Affiliated Organisation ] Financial Times [ Submitter's Twitter ] @jburnmurdoch

[ Space ] journalism [ Secondary Space ] digital

[ Format ] learning-lab

Description

Coding in a newsroom is awesome, but it can also be hard work. Whether you're cleaning and analysing data or creating an intricate graphic, programming requires intense focus and can often leave you feeling drained. What's more, there's always the temptation to stay a little longer and make your project that much better. So how can we counteract those pressures? We're going to present a solution that provides both a much-needed break from technical work, and inspiration for future projects! (a riff on Physics for Poets: https://www.amazon.com/Physics-Poets-Robert-March/dp/0072472170)

Agenda

We'll be talking about the importance for technical journalists of maintaining an interest in non-technical subjects. We (John and Christine) will present examples from our own experience. Then, we will discuss as a group how we find passions in fictional literature, music, theatre and sports that allow us to counterbalance the effects of several hours spent at the command line. We'll also share how these outside interests have fed back into our work, and how this fits into the growing trend of data- and visual journalism projects on the arts.

Participants

The discussion phases will be group work, so with few participants we would simply form one group, and more participants would mean more groups. If numbers are particularly low, we will spend longer on the closing section where we look at the growth of quantitative reporting on arts/culture, and talk about other areas that are ripe for this kind of approach.

Outcome

Participants will go away with lists of books, music and other activities recommended by others either as a means of de-stressing, a source of professional inspiration or of new perspectives on the work they do. Going forward, these recommendations will continue to be added to via a mailing list or Slack channel, allowing the cultural exchange to continue ad infinitum!

ryanpitts commented 8 years ago

Verifying one thing about facilitators here...

ryanpitts commented 8 years ago

Journalism accepting this session.

ryanpitts commented 8 years ago

Cofacilitator here is Christine Zhang.