How we organized a community event to discuss the future of DoR

Over the past year, here at DoR we have started several initiatives to shift our perspective on journalism toward increasing our engagement with our community, and building a stronger connection with them.

We ran live events of all sizes, organized storytelling workshops, invited people for specific discussions before, but in early March we wanted to try something different: meet with our community to tell them more about what DoR is planning for 2019, what storytelling means for us and how we make editorial decisions, and to talk more about our mission.

We decided on a format that combined a presentation from editor Cristian Lupșa with informal discussions on three key topics for DoR this year: digital development, collaboration between journalists and the public, and new editorial directions.

Below is a step-by-step guide to our process for organizing this meeting, and some thoughts for further events.

Step 1. Decide on the content

We realised a meeting with our community had to promise something and deliver on that promise — a vague “meet the team” was likely to convince few to attend. So we created an open version of an internal monthly meeting called “Stare de DoR” (State of DoR), where we discuss the latest operational developments, the latest projects, the upcoming events calendar and other strategic, operational and staff matters.

We also knew we wanted to have plenty of opportunities for conversation, so simply having a presentation and then networking drinks wasn’t going to work. Inspired by World Cafe, we came up with a system of table discussions on key topics. We had three key topics and two tables for each subject to make sure we don’t have more than 10 people at any table. Two DoR staffers, both from the editorial and operational teams, were facilitating the conversation at each table.

We picked the topics for the table discussions based on our main priorities for 2019: improve the experience for readers on the DoR website and find out what a good online subscription offering might look like; test our ideas about participatory journalism and ask our community how involved they might want to be in the editorial process; and discuss our new story ideas and find out what else readers would like to know about.

Step 2. Invite and organize

We held the event across the street from our newsroom, in a larger space at the Maastricht School of Management Romania. We were hoping to bring together around 50–60 people, and we told our community about the meeting in several ways:

1. We announced a Save the Date and wrote about further updates to the programme in the weekly newsletter we send to subscribers to our quarterly magazine;
2. We contacted a number of them who had previously told us they would like to meet to know more about our plans for digital development and participation in the Engaged Journalism Accelerator, in response to a previous newsletter in which we announced the news;
3. We emailed our subscribers in/near Bucharest directly with an invitation;
4. We sent a reminder email to all who confirmed the day before the event.

Step 3. Run the event

The most challenging part of setting up is finding a good layout for the room, which enabled participants to hear the presentation without a microphone for the speaker but also to turn quickly to discussions around the six tables in the room. We decided to keep most chairs and tables in the first half of the room and use the back of the room for networking over snacks and wine.

We also set up a couple of places for people to stick post-its with ideas and questions, including and Ask/Offer whiteboard to create a sense of shared space and hopefully kickstart collaboration within the community.

On each table, we had paper, pens, sticky labels for people’s names, and DoR pins and stickers.

After the presentation, discussion facilitators presented the three topics and participants chose the tables with the subject they were most interested in. After a 45 minute discussion time, one facilitator from each table shared some key takeaways with the group, and the evening concluded with time left for another glass of wine.

Step 4. Follow up

We collected all the post-its and divided them into two main categories: ideas (stories, solutions, etc.) and the asks and offers, which we wrote in a collaborative Google Doc.

We sent the link to the Google Doc to everyone who attended and we’re looking forward to hearing more about its usefulness.

Our team of reporters who focus on the rural development beat collected post-its from the two tables on new editorial verticals and worked some ideas into their meetings about future plans.

Step 5. Debrief

We discussed the experience at a staff meeting that week to work out whether we felt we were prepared enough for the event in advance and what we could do differently next time we moderate conversations. Here are some takeaways of what worked and what didn’t:

• The format was right for the number of people who attended and the purpose of the initial meeting, but it will need tweaking for future, more informal meetings;
• Some of the tables were too close to one another which made the environment quite noisy;
• Conversations went into different directions at all tables and there was a lack of clarity among the moderators about how to manage time without imposing on the group if that happened;
• Better signposting of activities (like the post-it walls) is required;
• Time was too short!

The key lesson we are taking away from the event is that our community participated with a lot of energy and enthusiasm and were willing to openly share feedback and ideas with DoR.

We plan to continue these meetings in various forms and keep the conversation alive, because getting to know the readers who support your organization financially is one of the most important steps we can take for the health of our community, our newsroom and the quality of our journalism.