Grants:Project/Rapid/Thekidpossum/Activité de sensibilisation/Report
- Report accepted
- To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/Thekidpossum/Activité de sensibilisation.
- You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
- You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.
This is the final report for Grants:Project/Rapid/Thekidpossum/Activité de sensibilisation
Goals edit
Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?
Overall, we met our goals and we are very happy with how the project went. Some parts of the planning may be fine-tuned.
The event:
- It was held on Dec 4, in Montreal (BAnQ Vieux-Montréal, 535 Viger Est, HQ of WMCA).
1. First part : A conversation with researchers (Florent Michelot and Gabriel Dumouchel, Université de Montréal) and Sophie-Andrée Blondin (Radio-Canada, les Années lumière) Short introduction by graduate students in research from the Comité intersectoriel étudiant des Fonds de recherche du Québec (Stéphanie Luna and Nicholas Cotton).
2. Second part : A networking session with Wikimedians and the public
Initial goals:
- We want to recruit new contributors through an awareness activity in addition to our regular contribution activities (Wiki Tuesdays).
- Audience goal : 50 people from various backgrounds
1. General public
2. Academics and schools: graduate student researchers, professors, librarians, etc.
3. Journalists
- We ask participants their email, for follow-up purposes (so we can invite them to Wikimedia related events).
Please note that this event was coordinated by Ha-Loan Phan and supported by the Acfas - Association francophone pour le savoir, where she works as a project manager (Acfas authorized Ha-Loan Phan to spend a few hours on the project).
Bibliothèque et archives nationales du Québec provided free of charge the auditorium and atrium for the event, along with the security service (around 1 500 $CAN). We also had financial support from WMF (Rapid Grant to thekidpossum) and from WMFr (granted to Benoit Rochon)
The public was invited to join the Wiki Tuesday workshop on Dec 5 (next day).
Outcome edit
Please report on your original project targets.
| Target outcome | Achieved outcome | Explanation |
| New participants, different from the people we already reached out during our Wiki Tuesdays | 3/4 of the participants (30 people) were new participants | An awareness activity like this one is more likely to attract the general public, and may generate new contributors that may attend Wiki Tuesdays in a near future |
| Audience goal : 50 people from various backgrounds | 40 people (students, librarians, professors, journalists, from Montreal universities, research centers or working for the Ville de Montréal). Interesting to note that 50% of them were female. | We had less people than expected... but I think retrospectively that 50 was an ambitious goal for a Monday evening in December... :-) 40 is a great number. |
| Collect participants email, for follow-up purposes | We collected over 60 emails | Some people didn't show up even if they signed up for the event (we had a 70% attendance) through a Google form we setted up; this is a normal phenomenon... |
Other outcomes from the communication strategy
We publicized the event through different medias :
1. Event hosted by the Acfas Facebook page, also linked to Wikimedia Canada Facebook page as a co-host
- People can share the event page through their personal account (e.g. : Ha-Loan Phan or Florent Michelot, the speakers), invite friends. Regular posts (total of 7) were made in order to advertise what to be expected (speakers, etc.), to thank people and to share a link of an interview about the event.
- Insights since the creation of the event on the 11/14/2017 (Facebook tools) : 13K reached, 686 viewed, 224 responded, as of Dec 7. 43 people said they went to the event, 170 were interested in attending the event. In comparison, our Wiki Tuesday event for Dec 5 only got 900 reached :/ as we do not have much time as volunteers.
2. Regular Tweets from @_Acfas account on Twitter and Live Tweet during the event
- Insights : 1. Before the event. Total of 6 posts, from Nov 22 to Dec 4. Interaction : Total RT 27; Total likes 29. 2. Live Tweet : Total of 20 posts. Interaction : Total RT 44; Total likes 58. We also "called" a number of Twitter user accounts : @ScChefQC (Chief Science Advisor of Québec), @FRQ (Fonds de recherche du Québec), @gdumouchel-@michelotflorent and @SABlondin (speakers and host accounts), @WikimediaCAfr and @BAnQ, our partners/sponsors. 3. After the event, we tweeted to thank the speakers and host. Interaction : 2RT, 6 likes and 2 comments :)
3. Personal invitations from Ha-Loan Phan Acfas email account to a list of 100 journalists based in Montreal.
- Only a few responded to decline the invitation because they were busy, including Martin Blais, the journalist who wrote a long piece in Le Devoir
- They showed interest; Wikipedia may not be a hot topic at the end of the year in Montreal, but who knows? It may come to their mind in 2018!
4. Other - Personal invitations were made during the Gala de l'Acfas to 200+ VIP attending by the president of the Acfas (Nov 8); to 40 (non-graduate) students in an Université du Québec à Montréal media course, where Ha-Loan Phan was invited as a speaker (Nov 16), to 15 physics graduate students in University of Montreal, during a contribution workshop given by Ha-Loan Phan. Finally, the event was publicized on Projet:Québec.
- It is difficult to account for the outcomes of such communication actions, but one may think it is critical to do so, in order to position Wikimedia related projects into the academic milieu in Québec.
5. A journalist from Radio-Canada Ottawa-Gatineau called for a live interview (Ha-Loan Phan) aired on Dec 4. Lenght : 10 min. It was unexpected but we were very happy that the subject of the conversation had a direct outcome in the media, even more surprising because it was not initiated by a media based in Montreal. The journalist said to Ha-Loan Phan that Wikipedia was not a local subject but due to its "online" nature, it was a hot topic for them. WMCA has a Wikiclub in Ottawa Gatineau, so people from this region can reach out their local section. An interview remains a nice piece to have, as an archive.
6. Ha-Loan Phan made a record of the conversation with her personal recorder. It can be found on Wikicommons.
7. Lëa-Kim Châteauneuf, WMCA, took several pictures of Sophie-Andrée Blondin, in order to illustrate her Wikipedia page and feed Wikicommons/Wikidata with content.
8. Press review : another article "Montréal, des wikimédiens pour lutter contre la désinformation" on an online local news media, by a PhD candidate at Université du Québec à Montréal (Hanna Hattab).
Learning edit
Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions: What worked well?
- The choice of the subject to reach out the general public (Wikipedia : Fight For the Truth in The #FakeNews Era). The choice of the speakers. They graduated from Education and Political sciences Faculties, and they are well spoken. The choice of a professional host, from the national broadcaster Radio-Canada. She knows her job and she is able to wrap the conversation.
- The communication strategy, focusing on the community of the Acfas (scientific community), and the live tweet (having my colleague Laureline Lefèvre all along really helped)
- Being able to spend a few paid hours as an employee of the Acfas on the project really helped. Ha-Loan Phan is a professional scientific event planner. We had all the tools to make it work. As a volunteer, she would probably have spent less hours (less communication actions).
- The cocktail part was very appreciated by the public, in order to socialize. It is sexier than a contribution event ;-)
What did not work so well?
- We were not certain that the grants would be accepted (from WMF and WMFr). Therefore, we did not advertise the "cocktail" part as a part of the event. Maybe it would help if we had that money from other sources, or if we had planned the event months ago (I would have put it in the APG of WMCA). This kind of event "5@7" ("after work") is appreciated in Canada, it is a good time to socialize.
- The audio recording part was sketchy. I took my personal recorder and did not know if it would work (that's why you will hear a lot of ambient noise). I ended up tweaking the record into Audacity before uploading it to Wikicommons. That is not a professional job! I know it is better than nothing (it is a nice archive to have), but I would have appreciated to have the right equipment and technical team to make a good record of the conference.
What would you do differently next time?
- I would plan the event at least 2 months before.
- In the invitation form, I would add a box "Occupation", in order to gather more details about participants, so we exactly know who is in the room.
- I would try to get a financial aid, in order to livestream the event, for those who cannot attend in person.
- It would be great to have $ from other sources (in Canada, I am thinking about the Fonds de recherche du Québec, NSERC, CRSH, etc. who might be interested in financing such events)
Finances edit
Ha-Loan Phan received a rapid grant for the event. Benoit Rochon contributed with some $ from a previous grant (which were reallocated) - total : 120 $CAN to cover expenses for food and beverages in addition to the 400 $CAN spent by Ha-Loan.
Grant funds spent edit
Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.
- Reunion permit : 45 $CAN
- Beverages + food : 184.60 $CAN + 225 $CAN = 409.6 $CAN
- Total : 454.6 $CAN
Remaining funds edit
Do you have any remaining grant funds?
- Yes, 138.9$CAN from the 593.50$CAN that were transferred to my account in the end. Please note that BAnQ covered the expenses for security.
- I would like to keep the remaining funds and spend it on a similar project in 2018. It could be for a conference or a workshop, just like we used to do. We will probably use it for the Mois de la contribution francophone, in March 2018, if approved by the grants officers.
Anything else edit
Anything else you want to share about your project?