What to bring to the Jam

Mostly, bring yourself, an open mind, and ability to build (and not talk)... but you will need the following.

Required (at least one of each item required per team)

• Laptop (Note: we will have 5 or 6 government-issued laptops on hand and will provide these to teams for the WiFi connection.. but if you have any fancy programs/apps you need access to in order to build prototypes, please bring them!) tablet, phone, flash drive, etc.
• Cords, cables and dongles for charging/uploading your work
• Camera for photos, video recording (a tripod, if you have one, is helpful, too)
• Pens, markers, sketch book or notebooks

Don’t forget!

• Water bottles, reusable mugs/cups (go green!)
• Business cards

Prototyping Materials

What is a Prototype? A prototype serves to provide specifications for a real, working system rather than a theoretical one. For example, a prototype can be a physical item (new device, adaptations of existing things); a recording of actors showing how a service might be executed; a clickable interface; a paper storyboard/sketch where test users can touch or indicate what they want to do.

So bring materials like...

• Old magazines and newspapers
• Legos, Play-Doh, Barbies (toys make great tools for prototyping!)
• Hats, glasses, wigs, clothes, and everyday items (also great tools for prototyping! Think about role play and acting out a user experience...)
• Aluminum foil, plastic wrap
• Popsicle sticks
• Cardboard boxes, box cutter, scissors
• Markers, pens, crayons (things for sketching and drawing)
• Containers of all shapes and sizes, any material
• Velcro tape, glue guns, wire, tie wraps, safety pins (things for attaching parts)
• Whatever you can think of - be creative!

Other things to do ASAP

Sign up for GovJam HQ!
If you haven't already, please create an account with the GovJam Headquarters. You will need to log into this site, join the Toronto Jam, and create project teams here. You'll also upload (early and often!) all your sketches, notes, photos, and other supporting documents/materials to this page.

Sign into GovJam's ideas platform & keep a tab open for it!
You should be sent  an invitation to join the site by tomorrow morning. Sign in and put in a brief description of your proposed solution to your challenge question, once you have it. (Tip: Use the Project Brief info to describe your solution - it should be complete by end of day tomorrow).

We'll use this site during the Jam, and after the Jam, to continue building on the prototypes teams come up with.

That's it! See you all again soon.

Get ready to Jam!

We're one week away 'til the first ever GovJam Toronto! My life is lists this week... organizers are caught up in confirming details and keeping track of lots of little things to get ready.

What can you, the participants, do to prepare?

• Read the GovJamTO Guidebook. It's not very long, and full of helpful information for the Jam. (Download it by clicking on "File" and then "Download.")
• Start tweeting about it. Follow the global hashtag, #GGovJam, and please also attach the #GovJamTO hashtag when talking specifically about Toronto's event.
• RSVP for the after-party. The after-party follows the last day of the Jam on Thursday, June 6. We need your RSVP to know where to have it (either a small, cozy corner of a pub, or bigger space in a pub... [rest assured, it will be a pub. :p]). So RSVP to the Tweetvite invitation, or email me to let me know you're planning to come.

Participants will have received an email from me earlier today (Tuesday), but if not, check your junk mail - I always forget that when including multiple links (and BCC:ing all for privacy), some email filters might pick up the email as spam.

That's it for now - look forward to meeting everyone!

Edited 05/29: Less acronyms & more to the point. And sorry for all the hashtags! 

Three weeks til the Jam!

We're just finalizing all the details for GovJam Toronto. Lots of little things to work out, but it will all come together in time for the event on June 4, 5 and 6.

Small venue update

• June 4: We're still set to meet at the Superior Room at Queen's Park, 900 Bay Street, for 5pm registration.
• June 5 & 6: We've added another room for days 2 and 3, since the room we initially booked won't fit all 60ish of you. So we'll be working out of the Windsor Room and the St. Catharines Room at 222 Jarvis, both located on the lower level. Note that we'll give all your names to the Security Desk, but you will have to check in before you enter.

GovJam Toronto is Sold Out!

We sold out a few weeks ago, but I just wanted to note that we've restricted the waiting list to 10 (which is also filled up). I'm so amazed by the response we got!

Edit: If you wanted to attend GovJam Toronto this year and couldn't get in, why not start your own Jam?? I've been sent a note from Adam at GovJam HQ, and he says great Jams have been planned in a few days! You don't need to have a big event... you can even do a mini-jam with a smaller group.

Visit the GovJam HQ site to learn how to host your own Jam, or contact me and I'll connect you to Adam.

Other small updates

We're meeting with our Facilitators this week to prepare them to lead the teams. We're also meeting with our Advisors, who will be around on days 2 and 3 to offer their expertise and feedback on your prototypes.

We'll have more updates in the coming weeks and will send an email through Eventbrite to participants. Watch the blog and your inboxes.

Who's Jamming with us?

Since we're nearly sold out of tickets for GovJam T.O., I figured I'd start a blog post for participants to use to introduce themselves, if they want to.

 So to make this a bit interesting, try to include:

• What's your work or school background, and/or mission in life? 
• What's one thing you'd like the government (any level) to change in the way it serves its publics?

My name is Melissa. I work for the Ontario Public Service as a Senior Advisor in the Centre for Innovation and Workplace Culture. My mission in life is to get the most meaning out of everything I do that's humanly possible, and let go of all the noise and meaningless clutter. My work mission is to introduce new ways of thinking and doing in any project or team I'm on to drive at more creative and innovative solutions.

One thing I'd like the government to change is the way it approaches problem solving. I think we shouldn't isolate ourselves and try to figure stuff out on our own, behind closed doors; we should build more nimble solutions openly alongside our peers as well as the people our services will impact the most and refine them constantly to meet users' needs.

So what are you all about? Hope to hear from some of you!

Venue confirmed for GovJam Toronto

Just a quick update - the event venues have been confirmed. We're kicking off the event in one location, and will Jam for two full days at another. 

• June 4: Meet at the Superior Room at Queen's Park, 900 Bay street, Toronto. Registration starts at 5:30pm and kick-off goes until 8pm.
• June 5 & 6: Check in at 222 Jarvis St., Toronto. Registration starts at 8:30am and the Jam goes until 5pm each day.

We'll be in touch with registrants soon - you should expect an email from me or one of my colleagues with some updates and information about the event. We've sold out tickets for public servants, and have only 10 left for non-public servants.

It's still fairly far away, but if your plans change, do let me know as soon as you can so we can get some wait-listed people into the room.

Thanks for your patience, and you'll be hearing from us soon!

Lots of stuff in the hopper

Just a quick update. We're looking into venues for the event to accommodate around 40-50 Jammers, and also working out details on the event flow. A preliminary schedule has been drafted, if you wanted to take a look.

We're currently recruiting Advisors from different levels of government and from the private sector/NGOs to be there for participants during the event to provide feedback/constructive advice. At Global Service Jam, we had access to someone who gave us some great feedback, which was very helpful in strengthening the case for the service we designed.

We're also developing some support materials for participants (a guidebook and some design thinking methods you can use during the Jam), and will have some promotional materials ready soon.

Keep following this blog for updates!

We participated in Global Service Jam this weekend!

Friday, 6pm. We met on the 9th floor of the old Toronto Star building at 1 Yonge street. The weekend began with a chill in the air. But just beyond the elevator doors was the headquarters for Global Service Jam Toronto, which emanated the subdued chatter and warmth of about 20-30 eager designers, students, professionals, and general keeners who want to change the world.

At 6:30, after introductions and getting to know each other, the global headquarters revealed the theme in an entertaining video. This year's theme was simply "grow." Brainstorming around this idea, the team I was on was drawn to the idea of introducing complex or real world problems to children. How can we start growing their minds to start solving the complex problems of tomorrow? And how do you do it in a way that helps them get on the path to their life's passion?

The process

What a rollercoaster ride... at first, our idea was a platform - a shared virtual space for kids and teachers to play with ideas around things they were learning in school. Then we realized we needed a service for Service Design Jam; the platform was great to prototype, but we were thinking too small.

We were inspired by a TED talk by Sugata Mitra, suggested by a girl in the room named Alex. We thought, "Why not introduce self-organized learning environments to the Ontario school boards?" and "What if we delivered it in a pop-up school that shows up randomly around Ontario and disrupts classrooms in the middle of the day to shake up their thinking?"

Evidently, we were now thinking too big. We did a little research by interviewing middle school teachers. I went home Saturday night for dinner with my family - my mom, a veteran, with 43 teaching years, and my brother, a relatively new teacher, currently supplying in a couple of different boards. The response was unanimous: leave teaching to teachers. Stop disrupting our teaching time. It's all been done before. (Just a summary of the barriers - my mom loved the idea, as long as it worked with curriculum objectives and as long as it was voluntary to those special teachers who could help champion and pilot the new way of learning.)

So we regrouped on Sunday, now with less than three hours to work out what, exactly, we were designing. We went back to the beginning, with one twist: our focus was on teachers instead of students. So we centered our service around them - we partner with teachers, develop what's inside the pop-up school with their curriculum objectives and expertise, and introduce design thinking and self-organized learning environments using teachers as facilitators.

Our service: TEaM with Teachers

The latest "T"echnology; safe spaces and inspiring "E"nvironments; support and new "M"ethods for Ontario teachers to help them pass their learning objectives with flying colours.

Why? We believe that by teaming up with teachers to introduce new ways of teaching and learning, we can inspire student’s curiosity re-ignite their sense of discovery, and help students develop a passion for learning and finding their life’s quest.

Tired & Contented

It's been both a very invigorating and exhausting weekend. It's going to take awhile to absorb everything we did, and the unique way we came to our final prototype, and consider whether this idea is something we can move forward in any way in the future.

In any case, I'm looking forward, more than ever, to GovJam Toronto now that I've experienced the process.  If I can do it, with no design background, anybody can. This is gonna be great!

How Google Glass was prototyped in one day

Here's a great lesson I had to share from TED-ed. Tom Chi explains how Google Glass was prototyped in one day. This rapid prototyping technique will be used at GovJam, no doubt!

Rapid prototyping Google Glass - Tom Chi

EDIT: We [haven't] added a hack-a-thon to the event

Update [03/28]: There was initially some talk about partnering with another group to do a hack-a-thon alongside the jam... we've since decided not to do this. But we'll keep you posted if there are any hacking opportunities out there!

-Melissa

...

It's still early days and we're still working out details, but I met today with a couple of people on the IT/tech side of the public service world, and we're combining forces. We are now planning to include a hack-a-thon as a side-by-side event during GovJam Toronto.

The Hack-a-thon will take place on the same dates and at the same venue, but might have a slightly different approach than the Jam. The hack-a-thon organizer will update me in the coming weeks, and we'll be working together on both events. Stay tuned!

"But what's the topic!?"

As I'm reaching out to people who I think might be interested in joining our jam, I keep getting the question: "What is the theme/topic?"

To clarify: I couldn't tell you even if I wanted to! The theme or topic for the day is given from the GovJam Headquarters on the day of the jam.

Previous Jams

To give you (and me) some idea of what we're in for, I did a little research. Last year's theme was "infectious connections".

• Check out this YouTube recap from GovJam Paris. 
• Check out ServiceJam Berlin's trailer. 
• And check out some of the projects that resulted from last year's Jam.

We're hosting a GovJam!

Have you heard about GovJam 2013?

A few weeks ago, my team and I met a couple of awesome people from the Australian Government. They turned us onto GovJam 2013 - an opportunity on June 4, 5, and 6 this year for anybody in the world to "rock the public sector."

I recently submitted a proposal to host GovJam Toronto 2013, and I'll be posting updates here! Stay tuned, and contact us if you'd like to get involved.