J

JanaKiara

Operations Associate @ EV Ops
59 karmaJoined Jul 2020Working (0-5 years)

Bio

Participation
3

Background experience in several areas, ranging from UX, software design and development to event organisation, community building and politics.

See my LinkedIn.

You can best reach me at jana@ev.org 

All views are my own.

Comments
3

many others work jobs for which they can't easily take time off for our event

 

Potential counter-argument(s): 
- some EA organisations count this as work-time anyway, so it might not matter; 
- in general, some organisations have a self-development time-budget where people are allowed/supposed to take up to X days a year for conferences and workshops (usually 5, I think), so might be worth looking into;

I think this kind of post is so important and should get highlighted on the front page every time shortly before an EAG. Just so people get reminded that this is a thing.

For a more personal addition:
I found EAG and now the days afterwards really difficult to navigate. It was my first (I've been to one EAGx before). I knew I was supposed to schedule 1:1s, but didn't, because I didn't really have a goal for EAG. I have a job that I like and want to keep doing for a bit. There was no particular question I had for anyone. I just wanted to be there, see a few talks, see some friends again, that's about it. 

At the same time, I felt so much pressure to "make the most of it". There's so much talk about what "the perfect amount of 1:1s" is, that "EAG is an incredible opportunity", almost like it's a "once-in-a-lifetime"-thing. I even got mocked by a few people for not scheduling more 1:1s. And it's just... really anxiety-inducing.

Really liked the idea of having a space where people are explicitly invited to sit with a stranger (and think this should be improved upon in the future), because it's a nice addition if you don't have a talk to attend but also didn't schedule something else in. 

So my takeaway is: It's okay that people have wildly different experiences at EAG. It's okay to not know what exactly you want to get out of the conference. And it's okay to just have a chill time there.