Burning Man staff took on several key infrastructure projects designed to increase our capacity for delivering educational content to a growing global audience. A new volunteer team was formed to handle year-round video documentation of educational events like the Global Leadership Conference, and to share the content with a wider circle of community members. Staff also began the process of creating “export” versions of key trainings, such as our manager curriculum for volunteers and staff. We’re excited to continue this process of open-sourcing more of the knowledge base developed in Black Rock City for the benefit of our wider community, including content from the Global Leadership Conference, the European Summit and more.
The Burning Man website was redesigned from the ground up and moved to a new content management system, giving us a modern communications and education platform that is scalable, easy to navigate, and mobile-friendly. In a parallel effort, we launched an initiative to digitize and publish a wealth of archival material, including historic publications, photos, and videos that are now being made available to scholars and the public through the website’s interactive timeline.
Requests for speakers and panelists from the organization continued to increase across geographical lines and sectors of interest. Leaders from the organization represented Burning Man in 35 speaking engagements, introducing aspects of Burner culture to a broad cross-section of professional and public audiences. These included two TEDx talks from CEO Marian Goodell, presentations by Chief Transition Officer Harley K. Dubois at The Feast and DLD Cities, a presentation at the Long Now Foundation by Chief Philosophical Officer Larry Harvey, and a keynote by Black Rock City Event Operations Director Charlie Dolman at the Project Management Institute’s annual conference.
Burning Man culture and methodology has proven to be of great interest to diverse audiences including municipalities, nonprofits, corporations, and organizations devoted to civic engagement, the arts, volunteerism, and process management. Burning Man representatives participated in conferences and public events — teaching and sharing the Burning Man story — including the Skoll World Forum, the Whole Earth Festival, San Francisco Earth Day, the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, San Mateo Innovation Week, and South By Southwest Interactive. Burning Man also hosted several outreach events at our offices in San Francisco, including a well-attended panel discussion on pop-up urbanism and temporary spaces.