The SRCCON Program
SRCCON is a hands-on conference with two days full of sessions—but the schedule is only where our program begins. Every attendee is also a participant who brings their own interests and experiences into sessions, emergent conversations, our evening activities, and gatherings during SRCCON.
Our Sessions
SRCCON is built around peer-led conversations and hands-on workshops. Our sessions are highly collaborative, not a panel on a stage or a speaker running through slides. We look for sessions that include real interactivity and participation: design exercises, art and games, small-group work, role playing, even field trips—and we’re always interested in new ideas.
SRCCON sessions last about 75 minutes, exploring cultural questions that help journalists work together better, new tools and techniques that people are excited about, and sessions that meet in the middle. Our schedule regularly extends beyond what you might expect at a journalism conference—take a look at previous years, learn more about how sessions work, or check out the schedule for SRCCON 2019!
Our program for SRCCON is built around key community values:
- We experiment in the open—by sharing our work and processes, we do the innovative work our organizations need to evolve on the web and better inform our audiences.
- We support one another—by offering each other our expertise and empathy, we find new collaborators, help each other learn, and make our networks and organizations more resilient.
- We lead change—by challenging the power structures that have failed our industry, we push for inclusive, long-lasting change in our newsrooms, led by journalists of color and the wide community of journalists outside of NYC/DC.
Our Schedule
SRCCON is also organized around building connections between participants. We want you to be able to fully focus on taking part—not just in the sessions on the official schedule, but in all the great conversations in hallways and after hours that make an event memorable. So we build in generous breaks to let you chat or grab coffee or tea without feeling rushed getting to the next thing. We provide lots of snacks and full lunches both days, with space to chill out or make plans with new friends. Dinner and our Thursday evening program are a chance to spend time with people in more relaxed space. We also provide free childcare throughout the event to make it more accessible to everyone.
SRCCON attendees tend to arrive on Wednesday and leave Friday evening or Saturday, depending on how the flight times work out. You can check out the full schedule now. Plus, our logistics page has information about our conference hotel and other ways we hope to make it easier for you to take part in SRCCON.
Emergent Conversations
We love it when recent work sparks a great idea that travels with you to SRCCON, or a session sends you down just the right rabbit hole and you find yourself among kindred spirits. So we create space at SRCCON for topics beyond the ones on our schedule:
- Lunch signup boards let you choose a room and invite other attendees to bring their meals and join you for a conversation over lunch.
- Activity boards help you plan events outside SRCCON hours, from group visits to a local newsroom or museum, ballgame or concert, or just getting out for some sun and fresh air.
- Jobs boards give you a chance to connect with other attendees about career opportunities, whether you’re hiring or looking.
Our Evening Program
We know evenings at conferences can be tough, so we close the first day of SRCCON with dinner together and an opportunity to have fun, relax, and give our brains a chance to process the amazing sessions from earlier that day. We see Thursday as an opportunity to focus on the “life” side of the work/life balance, with:
- local, guided walks
- hobby workshops & chats
- themed lightning talks
- music & conversations
- a room full of card and board games
Plus, of course, a huge spread of snacks and beverages. Our snacks are as local as we can get—we love feeling a sense of place wherever we visit. If you have partners or friends who’ll be in Minneapolis, feel free to invite them to join you for Thursday evening—we offer special partner tickets and are happy to welcome them for dinner and the activities afterward.
The Thursday evening program is built and run by attendees, so if you have an idea you’d like to pitch in, we’d love to hear it!