After participating in the brilliant Agile in the Ether sessions created and facilitated by Emily Webber, and seeing first hand how valuable they are, we rolled out the format to UK Government for various communties. Services Week is such a great opportunity to bring people together, we thought it would be good to run a session as part of the week so people could meet each other and talk about stuff that matters to them, as well as seeing how the format works and maybe finding some serendipitous connections.

This is a lean coffee style meetup; a safe space to talk around topics which are chosen and voted on by attendees on the day. We're limiting attendance to Civil Servants and contractors working across the UK Public Sector but otherwise, everyone is welcome and all topics are valid!

Things to know

we will be using zoom. Teams does not work for this kind of format and other tools cannot be accessed across a lot of departments. Zoom works for most people in-browser, but apologies to those who can't participate.
spaces will be strictly limited so please make sure you can attend at the published date and time, that you can access and download the required technology and that you sign up with your government email address.
one person / one computer, please - it’s easier if everyone is on the same footing.

Where is it?
The meet-up is held online over video (zoom), which means it is wherever you are. You don’t need a zoom account, but you will need to install the software or use a broswer.

What do I need to take part?

a uk government/public sector email address
a computer with access you can install zoom on
access to sli.do
decent internet connection to cope with a video call
a webcam and microphone so everyone can see and hear you
quiet space and headphones so you can hear everyone
a desire to learn and share

This event is using the in the Ether format, for more info or to find out how to run your own meet-up in the Ether please see intheether.xyz.

The format is licensed under a creative commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence - thanks so much to Emily Webber for letting me plagiarise it mercilessly.

#servicesweek in the ether