Over the past 6 years, the OpenCon community has hosted many, many virtual discussions, and while it’s impossible to replicate the dynamics of being together in person, we’ve learned some important lessons for helping to make online meetings more inviting, participatory, and people-focused. As COVID pushes so many discussions online (from regular team meetings to entire conferences), we wanted to share some of those lessons in case they’re helpful in adapting to this shift in hosting conversations online.

We’ve been refining an OpenCon Community Call Facilitation Guide, which we’ve shared directly with those hosting community calls, and we’re now sharing it with the wider community. The guide is written in the context of OpenCon community calls specifically; however, many of the suggestions are broadly applicable.

We’ve learned that even seemingly small tweaks can make a big difference, and we hope our experience can provide one more piece of backup to the community as so many make this shift so quickly. Thanks to all of the OpenCon community call hosts who put incredible effort into leading these discussions and to Joe McArthur who led the creation of this guide.