Over the next few weeks , and for as long as this crisis continues to affect us all, we are coordinating a a number of activities which we feel can help everyone, including ourselves, to better cope. This is a call for everyone to let the coordinating team know what you might be interested in doing with others in the community. Then the crew can reach out and find a nice way you can contribute based on your interests, what you enjoy doing and your constraints.
Three parallel activities
We put together a rough breakdown of what we think is needed to make each thing happen in to specifc tasks that people can take on. It is based on our previous experiences. Don’t worry if you do not find an exact match, there is always something you can contribute and maybe you even know of ways to do it differently!
Activity 1: Organise Weekly online community video gatherings, or " Campfire Chats" related to the themes that we are focusing on.**
- identify compelling offer for participants to talk with one another via us calls (what happens during and after call - what we can offer people (documentation/summary of what was discussed + identify needs & offers for support, analysis of what they all say together about what to do to mitigate future crisis
- define each topic & why it is important to discuss it now: what issues do we see now and what is in the future:
- pick/define key questions around each topic that resonate with how people are feeling/concerned with/ thinking or talking about
- set one event per weekly call
- do a call for participation (text + flyers); - publish description of this community activity, engaging materials for people to join the calls
- make a nice format for publishing post- call summaries that draw people into the platform documenting discussions
Activity 2: Crowdbuilding solutions (OCI lab Method)
- publish a call for problem owners & Project leaders who need something done/help, and agree to be present in the thread (calls should be for projects that are related to the themes ).
- also publish a call for Mentors with different skillsets (bss dev, tech etc),
- Project Leaders and Project Mentors share story and answer questions in a thread so people get to know/understand what they are doing & why, plus connect with who they are e.g Anthony/OpenInsulin, Woodbine, Greece with Refugees, Thomas Mboa (others @noemi ?)
- Create short descriptions of their initiative & what support they need,
- structure them into tasks/calls for specific kinds of help or kinds of skills needed,
- publish a call for Project Contributors to choose between which projects they want
- Project Contributors publish their story so people get to know/understand who they are, know about their background and professional interests/profile/skillset, plus connect with who they are
- make a selection of projects that we can support based on interest demonstrated by project contributors (which projects get PLs who want to work on them)
- Matchmake small teams of PLs with PCs and Mentors,
- The teams develop clearly defined goals and tasks that they can do together in 1 week with daily social work sprints (via Video chats + Riot + daily status updates and calls for help here on the platform)
Activity 3: Source Stories for seeding conversations (directly) on the following topics that can act as mind/conversation openers:
- Health care (opencare topics matched to Corona)
- Work/ Labour
- Acts of Kindness and Solidarity
- Mental Health
- Migration
Want to get involved? Answer these three questions in a comment below!
1. Which theme are you most interested in at the moment?
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Learning from the Past, Taking Notes for the Future: What are we learning from this crisis that informs how we’re thinking about responding to other crises, like global climate change?
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Work/Labour: How has our work been affected and how have our day to day lives changed? What tools or practices have we used to cope?
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Acts of Kindness and Solidarity: What do we need to do to help each other get through?
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Mental Health and Surviving Boredom: What are we doing to cope with our social day-to-day lives …boredom …anxiety?
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Digital Communication: What has changed under social distancing? What tools have we used to stay in touch, and how has it felt to use them — how have our relationships changed or been mediated differently?
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Technology before and after What technologies are were talking about now vs a month ago? What do we now relate to topics like " innovation" or new technologies like artificial intelligence? What hopes or doubts do we have about their potential? What fears do we have?
2. Which of these activities are you most interested in contributing to:
- Organising one or more community video chat
- Crowdbuilding Solutions: E.g Building a MOOC on distributed/remote collaboration
- Source Stories for meaningful conversations
3. Which/if any of the roles below would you like to take on or contribute to? Maybe you can think of something we have missed? Great! tell us!
- Collaboration DJ: We need a small team of coordinators who work together to build a ganntt based on the above and then check in with the different people involved to ensure they know what they are to do when, flag any potential delays etc
- Question Asker: Defines the topic/subject of the call for projects// helps Project Leaders, Mentors and Contributors to develop their stories //asks people to elaborate more and based on this// produce concise descriptions of topic they are addressing, project & why it’s important incl context and a bit about the person// as well as to better elaborate/define what they want to achieve and why/what it says about their view of future of internet/digital)
- Synthesist: Read threads and write concise descriptions for each project, bios/short intros for each PLS, Mentors, PCs/ As well as specification of what they are looking for / task description/ Skeleton call for contributors
- Storycrafter: You work with others to produce engaging description of what we are doing + call for PLS, Mentors and PLs/ Produce succint descriptions of tasks to make clear to general public (and make it easier for people to find “their people” and know around what to engage with them), Craft engaging feature articles + text for flyers featuring each person/ Produce status updates to draw conversions on social media/ Write email for engaging Problem Owners (potential adopters or financers of solutions)
- Community Engager : Do research in platform archive for “best of stories and or comments” around the set themes// Reach out and re-engage the people who posted best stories and or comments with question of how they are and how/if things are different now
- Mentor : You have domain expertise you can contribute to help guide people working on projects
- Matchmaker: Talk to the Project Leader, Project Contributors and Mentors - propose teams based on what complimentary skills that are needed and offered to complete tasks for the projects.
- Future Forwarder : Produce MOU/Social contract on how each org will pay it forward/work to make the effort of everyone worthwhile/generate opportunities to support the professional development of each participant. E.G Feature them/ the process/ lessons learned and lobby for EC and other institutions to invest in the cloud of insights+ solutions attached to it .