Announcing: “Project Festivals”

You're probably working on at least one project; it's part of what's brought us to Projectkin. Now we have "Project Festivals," where you can talk it through and it becomes something you'll do!

A new kind of Projectkin event: A Festival!

In conversations with Projectkin over these many months, I’ve realized that we're all working—in one form or another—on one or more “projects” at any given time. They might be research topics or creative deliverables, but they’re typically projects to be shared with cousins, extended family, or the world. They’re all projects that tell family history stories. 

Here’s the thing: It’s hard!

As Projectkin, we know it’s hard to…

• turn a project into something that tells a story,

• to get projects to a state where they’re “done-done” or

• to turn an idea into something self-sustaining and supported.

So, let’s help each other.

The idea behind project festivals is to create an event with 3 or 4 10-minute talks in which Projectkin members can describe their projects. Each festival will include short discussion periods for each speaker to receive feedback, encouragement, and ideas. Your actual project could be a biography, short fiction piece, play, video, memory box, poetry — anything.

I’m referring to these as “lightning talks” because they’re not intended to be performances or pitches; instead, they’re an opportunity to tell fellow travelers what you’re working on. What you focus on is really up to you. What do you need feedback on?

It’s not the project, it’s ABOUT the project.

I’m proposing something that’s more operational in that it’ll describe the project you’re working on to get the story told rather than a telling of the story itself. If there’s an interest in live storytelling like our Members’ Corner, except Live, we can consider that too. That would be interesting, but more of a performance like the Moth Radio Hour.

This is different. It’s more like a mini-preview of a future “Project Recipe” event. It’s not the project, it’s ABOUT the project.

How it will work:

During each “festival” event, we’ll have three speakers and one alternate ready to give lightning talks about their projects.

• Each speaker will give a lightning talk lasting no more than 10 minutes, followed by a brief Q&A of about 5 minutes.

• We’ll then have a shared Q&A period of about 15 minutes at the end.

• After the hour, we’ll stop the recording. Anyone who wants to stay can engage in an “after-party” where speakers and our online audience can linger in casual conversation to share thoughts and feedback.

That’s it?

Ah, but there IS one tricky bit: SCHEDULING

Instead of forcing these events to fit into a monthly schedule, we’ll only schedule them WHEN we’ve mustered at least 3 speakers for an event.

Three speakers and one backup should be enough to make it happen.

Wait, how do we do THAT?

This is surprisingly easy. We’ll use a meeting poll to find a convenient time for all the folks ready to give their talks. Once we find a time, we’ll announce the date/time to the Projectkin community.¹ If you think you could be ready to give a talk within a couple of weeks, answer the question, “When?”

Our festival date poll offers six possible 90-minute slots each week, conveniently configured for your local time zone.

Think about your topic; when you have an idea, vote as many dates and times that could possibly work for you:

Remember, this is for presenters. Once we have a quorum of 3 confirmed speakers for any time slot date, I’ll publish it!

Initially, we’ll have just one of these Project Festivals each month.

This is easier than it might appear because we already limit events to Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays and just two slots per day (Atlantic or Pacific).

Depending on your longitude and time zone, there may only be three practical slots per week.

• “ATLANTIC” time is 10 AM PT, 1 PM ET, 6 PM BST, and the wee hours 😴 of the night in Asia/Pac.

• “PACIFIC” time is 4 PM PT, 7 PM ET, 9 AM AEST, 7 AM AWST, and late🌛night in the UK and Europe.²

To optimize our chances of finding times that work for at least three speakers, kindly “vote” for as many slots as you can reasonably make. I anticipate just one session each month, but I can be flexible.³

Once we have mustered 3 speakers for an event, I’ll allow one alternate, then remove the slot from voting and follow up with our speakers to:

• Confirm your interest and time slot.

• Get a simple description of your topic.

• Answer questions and sort through details.

• Confirm your Projectkin membership (I would like all speakers to be members so that conversations started at events can continue afterward.)

Event(s) posted once confirmed.

Once everyone’s confirmed, I’ll add the event to our calendar at Projectkin.org/events, including your name as one of our speakers. I’m open to considering pseudonyms if you’d like.

I want to ensure we have a two-week head-start before any event, so I’ll remove openings that are less than two weeks out. While the Atlantic/Pacific time windows are stable, I expect the available slots to be pretty fluid over the next few weeks. A time slot you selected may suddenly disappear if I need it to schedule a new Projectkin event. Currently, I can concurrently handle only one Projectkin event at a time. 😊

You can always see the current calendar at

Here’s why I think this will work.

Since we typically have one or two projects “cooking” at any given time, talking through a challenge with peers can be helpful. Sometimes, we’re looking for feedback about what makes a project interesting or ideas about how to tell a story. I hope our collective wisdom can help each other get these projects going.

I think there are a few essential elements to making this work.

Essential elements.

• These will be low-key, casual talks.

  • As a recovering startup founder, I know the stress of pitching investors and don’t wish that on anyone. The talks will be light, and our audience will be supportive.

• Short and snappy talk formats⁴ — we’ll keep it simple.

  • You don’t have to fuss with presentation slides (unless you want to)

  • There’s no project recipe or other deliverable.

  • It can be in the idea stage, something you’ve started, or even something you’ve iterated on a few times.

• It doesn’t even have to be an original idea:

  • You can build on an idea or form you saw somewhere else — including a project recipe. Tell us how you’re making it your own.

    • Creativity is crucial, and attribution supports others' creativity. So, be kind. If you build on someone else’s ideas, share your sources and inspire others!

    • Since this isn’t a published or completed work, full citations aren’t necessary. These are ideas and works in progress. They can be fluid. I don’t want formalities to get in the way.

• There’s no judging, ratings, or awards.

  • We’re keeping this simple, engaging, and fun.

• It can be a project to share a story about an ancestor or a living person.

  • You decide what and how much to share. Since the event will be recorded, we ask that you respect the privacy of living people by not mentioning their names or other identifiable information.⁵

Talk it through and turn it into something you'll do!

Like where this is headed? Join us!

One of the best things about this Substack platform is that it allows us to share ideas with members and reach out to non-members so they can see what we’re up to. If you’re lurking on the edges as a follower and want to join in on the fun, we’d love to have you!

This only works if you get involved.

When I first shared this idea in the Projectkin Member Chat, I was surprised by the enthusiastic support. I know it’s not perfect yet, but I expect it to improve as we play with it.

A business component of each “After Party,” will be a debrief about how it went and to solicit your feedback on improving the program.

Now, what about YOU?

I know I have your attention if you’ve read this far down. Will you consider it? Will you take the plunge and give it a try? Is something holding you back? I’d love to hear it. Drop me a message!

Was this forwarded to you, leaving you wondering about this whole

Projectkin Community Forum

? Come check us out!

Cover Photo: Unsplash.com for Freerangestock.com, Illustrations by Canva.com AI image generator. Prompts “Man/Woman working at a computer, alone at home. A family tree on the wall.”

1. This probably means we won’t have much runway to invite guests, but I’ll count on our speakers to encourage their friends to come. The program will be recorded, so it’s like a video podcast.

2. Those of you in Australia, Singapore, and points west realize that you’re a day ahead of us on Pacific time in California. Hence, 4 PM on Tuesday in California is 9 AM on Wednesday in Sydney, Australia.

3. As other events are scheduled, I’ll remove those slots from the calendar so we don’t have conflicts. Don’t worry, the tools do the heavy lifting for us.

4. As we get good at these, we’ll develop a simple template for the flow. If we just start with a format that follows function, we’ll be off to a good start. Think about What, Why, and For Whom as a start.

5. This is another reason why pseudonyms will be considered. To be clear, your name and Projectkin will be associated with your presentation, and we don’t want to be part of anything hateful or otherwise harmful to living people. (See our About page for our general policy toward content moderation.)