During this workshop we started building a collaborative map of the Belarusian social innovation scene. We need to convert what’s already been done into a format that’s easiest to share online and collaborate upon. That way, we can push it out to the crowd in Belarus and they can help us finish it, while at the same time creating engagement.
Assigning to @hexayurt.
How are we doing, guys?
Time to get dug in!
And Masha
Also assigning to @Masha Cheriakova
Send an email last week to all participants of the training to add more names. Waiting for their reply. It takes a bit longer as I have to scan/research everyone who was already been listed on the map whether its ok for them to become ‘public’. Can someone help me with how we want to portray this map on the platform?
Just publish!
@Masha Cheriakova, there is no point in waiting. We publish incomplete things, and this will by itself prompt people to send their correction. Think Wikipedia: you don’t do your research first, then publish: you publish a stub (a placeholder with whatever you know already), then the research gets done and evolves over time.
In terms of how to do it: Vinay is supposed to supply you with a tool. For a stub, you could even export the MindMap file as an image!
Generation
I heard from a Dutch friend (who actually wrote a book about Belarus) about Generation, led by Vola Kuzmitsch, have you been in touch with them?
Generation
Hi Inge,
Yes I have heard of them and also of Volha. Will contact her and maybe write a nice blog about them. Thnx!
Promo Edgeryders Belarus during Hack4SocialChange
While I am still busy identifying the once that are ok with the fact of being visible on a public map, i have a new idea that involves the Hackathon organized by UNDP: Hack4SocialChange on the 20-21st of Sept. During this Hack many social innovators will join and this is a good chance to promote Edgeryders mission in Belarus!
During this Hackathon I want to hang a big poster on which Edgeryders social innovation mapping will be developed. We will ask to all the participants of the the Hackathon to add the social innovators/changemakers they know on this map by writing first their own names and adding the social innovators they know on post-its and sticking it on the poster. I would like to have a camera that will be pointed on this map, in this way we create a video of people developing the map. Later we can accelerate the speed of this video and in this way create a nice promo video for Edgeryders in Belarus. I hope my idea is clear.
I have asked the UN whether they can provide me with a camera, if not I will use my own.
Is there a possibility to send me more promo material of Egderyders like stickers, posters anything before the 21st of Sept?
Print them yourself?
For small sums, we could just send you the files and you could have them printed in Minsk. We could then pay via credit card or something. @Nadia, what’s the stickers situation? Where are the files?
Promo material
Please send me all you have, I will print it and use it during the Hack4SocialChange.
Are you sure?
In my experience once people are on facebook groups conversations tend to dissipate, same with people. With Edgeryders we strive to maintain an online space that already has better data protection and information accessibility than a commercial platform, among other advantages (if you haven’t, here’s our answer to the question of why we’re not using Facebook, asked before).
Exhibit A is this Georgian group with was accidentally set up while we were working there in a project similar to yours. What happened it not only drew some people away from Edgeryders, it had suddenly no goal to exist since there wasn’t any curated content, pointed questions to get people to really talk to one another instead of just sharing links once in a while (talk at each other).
I see you already have posts in this group in Russian and know how to use the Translate feature, why not release calls on social media that are in Russian and pointing to a post in Russian, would it not be enough of an encouragement for your fellow nationals to answer in the same language? I know, platform navigation and menus are still in English, but it did seem to work with Armenians here, at least getting people to come up with a first contribution. Then if you do community management in Russian, that should also help.
Just some ideas, perhaps I don’t know the full scope of your project…