Debriefing Post

[klb]

Congratulations on another successful year of Pod Together! We're so excited to have had 61 wonderful projects this year. If you haven't already done so, feel free to crosspost around, and to change the date of your post to the current day so that your project will get a chance to have its moment at the top of the fandom and pairing lists on AO3. This is not cheating! (Unless you do it more than once :D) It's an unanticipated consequence of the way AO3 reveals currently work, and we have put in a support request about the issue, but for now changing the date and making sure each project gets its moment in the sun is the best way we've found to handle it.

So as we wrap up Pod Together 2012, we'd love to hear your thoughts about how everything worked for you as participants this year. If you had a collaborative process that worked well in your partnership, we'd love to hear about it so we can recommend it to participants next year! If you had problems, or have ideas for what you would have wanted to go differently, we'd definitely love to hear those, because we're always fine-tuning the process. We already have a couple of changes in mind for next year, and your feedback can help us come up with even better ones.

If you have thoughts that you'd like to share and discuss publicly, please leave them in the comments here. If you had problems this year that you would prefer to share privately, again that would be really helpful for us to hear, and you can email them to us at pod.together@gmail.com.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Comments

[jelazakazone]

I had a great experience. My podficcer was incredibly supportive and I felt her input into my story was invaluable.

I had never interacted with susan_voight before this project and it took a while for us to sort of feel each other out. It would have been nice if there had been some kind of ice breaker and a period of time built in where we were getting to know each other.

Which brings me to my second point. I know that many people in fandom have more time in the summer, but I was actually on two trips during the "writing" period and while I had intended to whip out the story before my kids even finished school, it just didn't happen that way.

I recognize that there isn't a good answer to this problem. No time of year is good for everyone and deadlines are extremely helpful.

This was my first time doing podtogether. We worked in gdocs and that was great for me.

I will definitely sign up again next year!

[klb]

paraka and I love the idea of a recommended icebreaker and a brainstorming week separate from the time period scheduled for the writing of the text. We could come up with some fun creative recommended icebreakers (with the help of participants during preplanning for the year's challenge) and randomly assign different ones to different partnerships—all optional, of course!

I do hear you on the timing. Unfortunately, the challenge is really time-intensive to mod, and so we have to schedule it at a time of year when we have the most availability, and right now that's summer. If our schedules ever change, though, we'll definitely keep the idea of a non-summer round in mind!

I'm glad gdocs worked for you. I think it's a really good way to keep the process open and collaborative!

I look forward to seeing you next year :D

[jelazakazone]

Awesome! I look forward to that next year:D

Thanks so much for all the work you guys do and did. It really was great and I look forward to listening to the results.

I know the timing is tricky and of course it has to happen when the mods have the time! I probably should not have signed up, but I did anyway. Next year I should have a better idea of what I'm getting into and also there should be less travel for me next summer.

Thanks again!

[podcath]

Thank you for an amazingly well organized and run Pod together. I had a great experience and y'all went above and beyond the call of duty.

THANK YOU!!!!!

[klb]

<3

I'm glad you had a good experience! Are you and your partner still planning to finish and release your longer project?

[podcath]

I haven't heard from her recently and I've been kinda drowning, so not at this moment, but I hope we will (and we'll connect it to pod_together 2012 if that's ok?)

[klb]

Absolutely!

[somnolentblue]

I really enjoyed pod-together again this year, and I would like to thank you for running it again. I can only imagine that trying to settle matching is rather work-intensive, and there's a lot of posting and behind the scenes stuff that I know also needs to get taken care of as stories come in and go live. I hope the AO3 suggestion re: reveal dates goes through!

I've worked with three people on various pod-together projects, and our synergy has been different every time. It's kind of hard to make big statements, since each partnership is unique, but I do second jelazakazone about maybe having some time (maybe another week or so?) built in to get to know each other (and do preliminary brainstorming).

This time, Fleur and I did a lot of skype chatting as we were getting to know each other - we'd never interacted before - and as the stories evolved. We started with four vague ideas in four fandoms, and I actually started writing two different stories; we went in the Good Omens direction, but the second one became our Party Favor, which was awesome.

I would like to suggest that maybe a slower unveiling of projects next year. Three and four being posted every day adds up rather quickly, and I know that I, at least, have a pretty ridiculous backlog of stories I want to read and listen to. I know that there's not a deadline after which the stories turn into pumpkins, it's just a lot coming in a short time period.

[klb]

I can only imagine that trying to settle matching is rather work-intensive

Weirdly, that's one of the easiest parts, mostly because every year I talk my programmer boyfriend into writing a matchup program that does the bulk of the work for us.

The challenge itself is definitely work-intensive, though, which is fine. We're really proud of what comes out of it and happy to do the legwork <3

Thanks for weighing in on the icebreaker/brainstorming week. We're definitely leaning towards yes on that based on these comments.

I don't know how much we could slow down the reveals, because 18 days of posting already feels like it's on the longish side of typical for fannish challenges, and if we had 2 a day this year it would have been 30ish days of posting—which also means that some people would submit their projects and then have to wait a whole month before they got to share it with the world. From a participant's end, I worry that that could get pretty uncomfortable. So I'm not sure how to pace it out so that everything gets posted in a comfortable timespan for participants (and so that people following the challenge don't get burnout) but so that people don't feel overwhelmed with all the choices getting dumped on them at once. I think I remember that Yuletide has something like a weekly or monthly spotlight on a story in their comm, to help readers navigate the vast options available to them... what if the pod_together comm had something like a weekly/biweekly/monthly rec post, where one pod_together project from the previous year was given a rec and a spotlight? It would have to be run by somebody other than the mods, because our plates are pretty full right now, but if someone wanted to volunteer for it, I would definitely support it. Do you think that would address the problem you were talking about?

[akamine_chan]

what if the pod_together comm had something like a weekly/biweekly/monthly rec post, where one pod_together project from the previous year was given a rec and a spotlight? It would have to be run by somebody other than the mods, because our plates are pretty full right now, but if someone wanted to volunteer for it, I would definitely support it. Do you think that would address the problem you were talking about?

Oh, I absolutely *love* this idea, klb! If you need a volunteer, you've got me, and glitteryv would be willing to help out with the bandom podfic recs/spotlights.

[klb]

If you want it, it's yours!

How would you like me to support you? I can do a post this weekend introducing the Spotlight feature and letting people know the schedule, and then you can do your first one whenever you're ready and then continue on that schedule.

Or would you rather introduce it yourself?

I'd title the posts something like "Pod_Together Spotlight 1: [Name of project]"

[akamine_chan]

I'm going to reply to the pod_together mod account rather than spamming poor Somnolentblue with my response!

[fleurrochard]

but the second one became our Party Favor, which was awesome.

So awesome! :D

[susan_voight]

Thank you for being so thoughtful and working so hard on this!

The main thing is that two weeks to record ended up being enough time, but I was pretty anxious about it beforehand and nearly didn't sign up because of that.

Also, I see that some people did party favors, which is great for them! But I didn't go that route, even though I was worried about my ability to commit, because I didn't really understand how it would be an improvement: I'd still have to work with someone (and how I'd find them, I had no idea), and they'd still be disappointed if I didn't finish on time! It might have helped to have the find-people post put up earlier? Or maybe it's just always going to be an option very few people use because of the nature of the challenge.

[klb]

Party Favors are an interesting thing. We actually created them last year out of a need that arose, of some people who wanted to do a project quickly at the end but hadn't been aware of the challenge at the time of signups. Last year, we only had one, and this year we ended up with eight, which was pretty cool. I tend to envision them like Yuletide treats, which from what I've seen often result from finishing the project you'd committed to and then, in a burst of excitement and energy, creating another (or multiple others) quickly right at the end. So I think of them as something that people wouldn't be looking for partners for until they had finished their first project.

When would a Party Favors matchup post be most helpful for you?

[susan_voight]

Sorry I lost track of this.

That conception of party favors makes more sense to me, and I can see that it might not be a good idea to put up a matching post too early to encourage people to sign up for the main challenge if they can. So I'll amend my suggestion to be that you give examples of the circumstances people might do party favors under, so people like me are possibly less befuddled by the idea. :)

[klb]

Okay, thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely make sure to explain that better next year!

[melusina]

I had a fantastic experience! Thanks for all the work organizing and keeping everything on track.

[klb]

I'm glad, and you're welcome! <3

[glitteryv]

I had a good enough experience with pod_together to the point that I'll most deffo sign up next year. :)

FTR, there was a slight rough patch with my podfic partner (mostly due to both of us having busy schedules and not checking-in with each other as often as we should've). Thankfully, everything got smoothed out and we ended up with a great fanwork.

In truth, I really wished I could've done a party favour but I had no idea where to even look for a podfic partner for one. :-/

Now, as someone whose reveal didn't happen until the very last week of the challenge, I have to disagree with the person upthread who suggested having 2 reveals per day. That would extend the wait to the point that it'd be frustrating. 3 reveals a day worked fine for me. OTOH, I don't mind having many fanworks open in tabs or bookmarked.

Thank you, mods, for all of your hard work for this challenge. :)

[klb]

Did you see the post for Party Favor matchmaking?

Hopefully the extra icebreaker week for partnerships next year will help with things like the problem you had. Is there anything else that you think would have been helpful?

And thank you for your thoughts about extending posting. I think the mods are definitely leaning towards that side. We'd love to find a way to deal with the feeling of the reveals being fast and overwhelming, but extending posting doesn't seem to be the way to do it.

[glitteryv]

I did see that post. But, since it looked like no one commented on it, I refrained from replying (in a strange--for me--fit of fannish shyness). At one point, I thought "well, maybe comments are screened?" which was a possible explanation for the silence. In the end, I was thinking was "OK, I guess everyone who wanted to do party favours is already matched up." So, in my case, my not doing a party favour was quiet post + assumption.

The extra icebreaker time idea sounds like a good one (especially since so many of the participants have never met).

If there is one thing that I learned from participating in this challenge is figuring out what is it that I need when it comes to collaborating as well as how to communicate with my partner in a way that will keep everything on a positive level.

ETA: I saw the post on DW (since this is my fannish home). Since I didn't follow the comm on LJ (because I'm already a member over here), I totally missed out on the matching happening over there. FAIL!Luce. /o\!

[klb]

Ah, yeah, for some reason all the responses were on the LJ post, so for someone only following on DW it looked like there was nobody replying, although actually it led to a bunch of matchups.