This isn't a first for CFAR or MIRI - I hope you guys are putting lots of thought into how to have your last-minute ideas earlier :-)
I think it's partly not doing enough far-advance planning, but also partly just a greater-than-usual willingness to Try Things that seem like good ideas even if the timeline is a bit rushed. That's how the original minicamp happened, which ended up going so well that it inspired us to develop and launch CFAR.
CFAR will be running a three week summer program this July for MIRI, designed to increase participants' ability to do technical research into the superintelligence alignment problem.
The intent of the program is to boost participants as far as possible in four skills:
The program will be offered free to invited participants, and partial or full scholarships for travel expenses will be offered to those with exceptional financial need.
If you're interested (or possibly-interested), sign up for an admissions interview ASAP at this link (takes 2 minutes): http://rationality.org/miri-summer-fellows-2015/
Also, please forward this post, or the page itself, to anyone you think should come; the skills and talent that humanity brings to bear on the superintelligence alignment problem may determine our skill at navigating it, and sharing this opportunity with good potential contributors may be a high-leverage way to increase that talent.