March 2022 Community Feedback Session

Published on Apr 29, 2022 by Laurie Merrell

March 2022 Community Feedback Session

As we have entered a new phase of the pandemic, with cases at a lower level and local governments lifting mask and vaccine requirements, Chi Hack Night held an in-person and online community feedback session on March 15 to gauge how the community is feeling about in-person and online programming and what the role of Chi Hack Night should look like in the coming months.

The event followed a format much like prior community feedback sessions (for example, our 2021 post-election session) with a set of four questions:

1. How are you feeling about the state of Chicago, America and the World right now? Where can Chi Hack Night and the broader civic tech community play a role in making it better?
2. How are you feeling about Chi Hack Night right now? What are we as an organization doing well? How can we improve?
3. How would you like to see Chi Hack Night balance in-person and remote programming in the next few months?
4. What speakers would you like to see at Chi Hack Night? What organizations do you think the Chi Hack Night community could benefit hearing from?

Event format

We broke into three in-person groups of 3-5 people and one online group of about 6 people, each with a facilitator, for a total of about 18 participants and 4 facilitators.

The in-person attendees physically moved around the room at TechNexus, responding to each prompt at a dedicated whiteboard and writing highlights from their conversations on the boards. The online group used a shared Miro board, where participants could add their own responses as they discussed.

All groups followed the same structure of spending about 10 minutes per question before moving on to the next question.

After all groups had rotated through the four questions, we wrapped up by having volunteers summarize the comments on each board, including the online responses.

After the event, a volunteer summarized comments from the in-person whiteboards on the digital whiteboard, so a combined set of responses is available.

Results

Similar to the results of our post-election feedback session last year, feedback contained a mix of optimism and anxiety about the future. Many comments centered on the challenges and opportunities of online, hybrid, and in-person events, with a variety of opinions expressed but seeming general consensus that Chi Hack Night should plan to continue with hybrid offerings.

Here are some selected responses to each individual prompt:

1. How are you feeling about the state of Chicago, America and the World right now? Where can Chi Hack Night and the broader civic tech community play a role in making it better?
   • The overall tone of responses was summed up well by one respondent who said they “lean more toward pessimism than optimism”; most responses referenced feelings of uncertainty and anxiety.
   • At the international scale, attendees expressed concern about the war and potential future escalation in Ukraine.
   • More locally, attendees mused about the future of Chicago’s downtown, given the continued rate of remote work. Some were anxious that downtown will not recover, and others expressed faith in the resiliency of cities to adapt to changing circumstances.
   • The main source of optimism cited was the coming of spring and anticipated continued decline/plateau in Covid cases.
   • Attendees noted that getting involved in their communities through advocacy work was one source of hope.
2. How are you feeling about Chi Hack Night right now? What are we as an organization doing well? How can we improve?
   • Responses to this question were generally more optimistic than responses to the first question. Responses also often focused on modality (in-person/hybrid/online), in addition to the responses to the next question dedicated to that topic.
   • Attendees commended Chi Hack Night for navigating resuming in-person programming with hybrid options; for providing nonjudgmental, welcoming spaces for newcomers; and for operating transparently and sharing 2021 OKR outcomes.
   • Some areas for improvement were also identified, including enhancing the hybrid support for in-person events; increasing frequency of in-person events; and strengthening breakout groups by training breakout group leaders and offering opportunities for involvement in breakout groups between Tuesday events.
   • In both this question and the next, some attendees proposed moving the physical location of in-person events (trying out different venues from month to month).
3. How would you like to see Chi Hack Night balance in-person and remote programming in the next few months?
   • Perhaps unsurprisingly, the in-person attendees generally expressed a preference for in-person events while online attendees were more interested in maintaining hybrid and online access.
   • The in-person attendees conducted an informal survey asking how many of them would have been downtown if not for Chi Hack Night. Of 13 responses, only 4 people indicated that they were already downtown, and the remaining 9 said they were not.
   • In-person events were preferred by some for offering more flexible and organic opportunities to engage with other attendees and build relationships.
   • Some attendees noted that their interest in in-person Chi Hack Night was correlated with modalities of other activities. For example, one response said that for them in-person Chi Hack Night was connected to whether or not they were working in person. Another response indicated that for them, online events were associated with obligations (like classes in school) and in-person events felt more like a choice.
4. What speakers would you like to see at Chi Hack Night? What organizations do you think the Chi Hack Night community could benefit hearing from?
   • Attendees proposed a variety of government, media, and advocacy organizations, which have been shared with the booking committee.

Reflections

This community feedback session was more inwardly focused than our most post-election session last year, with a primary emphasis on Chi Hack Night operations during the current phase of the pandemic.

While there was some ambivalence about how well Chi Hack Night has achieved hybrid programming thus far, there was a strong and shared interest in figuring out how to continually improve and how to ensure that Chi Hack Night remains an inclusive and accessible space for Chicagoans to get involved in civic technology through the pandemic and beyond.

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