Plan Presidio Bitcoin Design Week

[GBKS]

This is a bit of a placeholder issue for an event that may or may not happen, in some form or another. There has been some loose conversation around a design week at Presidio Bitcoin, a new co-working space in San Francisco. All we have is a loose idea at the moment. Let's figure out if this is something we want to make happen.

Design week sounds pretty fancy. Makes me personally think of a broader city-wide event, like Riga Bitcoin Week. No matter what it is called in the end, a practical format might be that of a retreat. Interested people get together, maybe some share a rental apartment. The co-working space could be a bit of a home base for planned talks and collaborative sessions around relevant topics. Maybe we organize or join a meetup and maybe there are some external group events. Something like that.

Timing-wise, maybe sometime in fall?

As I wrote, it's all up in the air. What do you think?

A bit of information about the space:

Our space is 4500 square feet. Mainly one big open area with 24 work stations, 4 small conference rooms, and 2 bigger conference rooms that can fit ~8 people. There is a flexible events are in the main room. We have a big drop down projector and speakers, can fit 50-75 people for an event. We don't have a big board style meeting room, but can probably block off the events area during the day

[moneyball]

I think it would be great to include/invite Silicon Valley designers. Let's leverage the location of PB. 2 goals:

1. Recruit them to participate in open source
2. Learn from them how the open source community can benefit their products/companies/workflow

[ConorOkus]

Another interesting idea might be to do a fun design challenge e.g what could you create if you had 30 minutes to plan and 4 hours to design?

Idea taken from Jason Lengstorf Youtube series - https://youtu.be/wPL13VR88iY?si=c3iQyX98fx6kZGiL

[swedishfrenchpress]

In the spirit of making the most of the location, I think there’s an opportunity to merge the Designation II (#625) with this design week. If we can time it so that the final week, judging / prizes, aligns with this it could encourage more local Silicon Valley designers to participate.

I’m not sure how common designations or design-focused hackathons are in SF, but over here they’re pretty rare. If we promote it well online and also get someone in SF to help spread the word, we could bring more eyes to bitcoin design learn from others like Moneyball pointed out.

[moneyball]

Count me in to recruit and rally Silicon Valley designers for this. I suspect @danielnordh still has plenty of connections here as well.

[GBKS]

I think there’s an opportunity to merge the Designation II

In the call yesterday, the idea that the Designathon is intended as online and global was something people responded to. So my general preference would be to keep that direction. But no reason why we can't also organize something with a format that works best for a local meetup (Designathon 3 or what not).

[swedishfrenchpress]

I think there’s an opportunity to merge the Designation II

In the call yesterday, the idea that the Designathon is intended as online and global was something people responded to. So my general preference would be to keep that direction. But no reason why we can't also organize something with a format that works best for a local meetup (Designathon 3 or what not).

Feel like organizing 2 designations would be a lot of work. I think my idea works if we keep the designation online / global but during the last week of it we have the awards / closing ceremony in person (and also live streamed) as part of this event, but if we feel like this would attach the designation too much to an person event that is location dependent, and this would take away from it's more online / global nature then I understand why we might want to rethink this.

[mouxdesign]

Keen on seeing this happen and grateful to you both for being supportive

In terms of date suggestions in fall 2025. Shooting over some date suggestions which would work in my current planning:

• 15th - 21st September
• 29th September - 4th November

Ideas:
Love the ideas that are suggested above will throw some more in:
At the heart of the ideas would love to see an ethos of workshops/sprints that create a path of continuity in the relationships with the people who attend.
This could mean a workshop where 2/3rds happens at the event itself and the 1/3rd is online to continue the collaboration and relationships built.

Workshop idea:
This format is borrowed is borrowed from Chaincode labs.
Its format is inviting people to share their (part 1) specialized knowledge and then moving to (part 2) commit to collaboration on improving that area together.

We received advice that this workshop framework was very focussed on driving end results and allows for the unique specialitites of everyone in the room to shine, then at the same time allowing consensus to be reached as to which topics projects are created out of.

Format

1. Rapid knowledge share
   Aim is to identify the knowledge in the room and see who is passionate about which topics.
2. Deep dive sessions
   These are sessions focussed on the topics which were uncovered from part 1.
3. Collaboration session
   The workshop ends of with people committing to collaborate on areas which they feel drawn to.

Pre-work
Pre-work: There is some pre-work involved to understand all the people who are invited. A question they are asked is:
What do you care about?
Notes are taken data buckets of interest areas for those who are attending is analyzed.

This data is then used to shape the topics used during knowledge sharing sessions and the deep dive sessions. Which results in a dynamic of a few topics being discussed in tandom.

Format

• Its a 3 day format with 2 full days and one half a day.
• It can also be mixed up with fun activities in the city to encourage relationship building.
• Max participants 40-70

[ItranscendD]

I think there’s an opportunity to merge the Designation II

In the call yesterday, the idea that the Designathon is intended as online and global was something people responded to. So my general preference would be to keep that direction. But no reason why we can't also organize something with a format that works best for a local meetup (Designathon 3 or what not).

Feel like organizing 2 designations would be a lot of work. I think my idea works if we keep the designation online / global but during the last week of it we have the awards / closing ceremony in person (and also live streamed) as part of this event, but if we feel like this would attach the designation too much to an person event that is location dependent, and this would take away from it's more online / global nature then I understand why we might want to rethink this.

I strongly feel this could shift the designathon's narrative to be more in person, although this is a really lovely idea, maybe it would work more for another initiative we come up with. I think it also doesn't have to be exactly like the designathon persay, we could do something wayyy smaller, By giving an open hand on the first day, then designs are submitted on the closing day, Nothing big, but fun......

[UmarSalihu]

Another interesting idea might be to do a fun design challenge e.g what could you create if you had 30 minutes to plan and 4 hours to design?

Idea taken from Jason Lengstorf Youtube series - https://youtu.be/wPL13VR88iY?si=c3iQyX98fx6kZGiL

I just watched this video and it's an amazing idea if we can pull it off. However, it has the limitation of being a physical event. so I'm thinking of ways to incorporate stuff like this online. One idea is to have a recorded video call using Jitsi or meet where interested participants do something similar. They have a time limit for ideation and one for designing.

It can be done as a side attraction for the designation to kick off or made to be the format of the event, I dunno just thinking out loud here. However, the idea makes sense if we can fine tune and incorporate it.

[mouxdesign]

Hashed-out the other idea mentioned above a bit more.....

Bitcoin UX meets Development Workshop
The workshop idea is focussed on collaboration between designers and developers. This is done in a 5 step process starting with knowledge sharing and then finally moving to commitment and an implementation sprint. One of the end goals is to also produce case studies in the Bitcoin Design Guide.
5 days in total

Days 1 - 2
Stage 1: Knowledge Exchange
Opening presentations on current challenges/topics in Bitcoin UX (these are just a brain dump of ideas....)

1. Channel Reserve UX
2. BOLT 12
3. Inheritance
4. eCash
5. Fees

• Introduction to Bitcoin Design Guide as a resource
• Lightning talks from participating wallet developers

Stage 2: Afternoon Session: Problem Space

• Break-out sessions for each focus area
• Map out the current implementation challenges
• Together identify opportunities for improvement
• Note down the key insights

Stage 3: Commitment

1. Participants self-organize into groups based on their interests
2. Teams are balanced, ideally there is a good mix of both UX designers and developers
3. Together decide on specific problems to tackle (also touched on in stage 2)

Stage 4: Scope it

• What would be the minimum viable improvement?
• Do we have the resources here in this room to make this improvement?

Days 3 - 5
Stage 5: Implementation Sprint
We have focused work sessions (same groups collaborating who committed in stage 3)
The focussed work sessions are there to focus on design and implementation. Designers working next to devs in a fun relaxed environment.

Two-Weeks After

1. Teams continue refining from dev/design perspective
2. We can continue the collaborate with devs with Bitcoin Design Community Calls
3. Implementation support (leave feedback from UX perspective on repo)
4. Document as case studies in the Bitcoin Design Guide

[swedishfrenchpress]

Started a separate issue for an ecash design contest #759. Maybe this is something that could be part of the designathon?

[GBKS]

In terms of date suggestions in fall 2025. Shooting over some date suggestions which would work in my current planning:

15th - 21st September
29th September - 4th November

@mouxdesign for the second option, did you mean to include all of October?

Around the first week of November works well for me.

[mouxdesign]

@GBKS I made a mistake there. The dates for September would be:

15th - 21st September
29th September - 5th October

3 - 9 November doesn't work for me unfortunately but the second week works!