Edgeryders Seeks to Hire Part-Time Community Managers for a 3 Year Project (call closed)

The NGI Forward project, part of the topic Next Generation Internet - An Open Internet Initiative is a EC Horizon 2020 project focused on developing a more human-centric Internet: supporting values of openness, cooperation across borders, decentralisation, inclusiveness and protection of privacy, as well as giving users the ability to help create an Internet they trust. We are focused on understanding people’s own perspectives on the Internet and desired futures for it to inform long term strategies and policies. We intend to convene a set of 5 large online conversation spaces, each in different languages where people discuss these issues. We at Edgeryders will, at the same time, perform continuous ethnographic analysis on each of the conversations. This analysis will then be used by NGI and the EC in their policy initiatives.

We are looking to hire online community managers to collaborate with us on this project. The project runs 3 years total but this work will run for circa two years, starting May 2019, on a part-time basis (approx 20% of your time or about 8 hrs/week).

Requirements:

  • Experience desirable, but not strictly necessary if you are an experienced participant in online communities.
  • Fluent in English and one/ more of the following: French or Polish or German or Italian
  • Able to work part-time without set hours, during the day or night - strong time management skills.
  • Good writing skills - able to get to, and make, points succinctly. Good storyteller. Able to advance a conversation by interacting constructively with others.
  • You need to be open, accepting, tolerant and a good listener. At the same time, you need to be able to maintain civil discussions and manage conflicts when emotions run high.
  • Passionate and reasonably knowledgeable about the subject matter of NGI’s goals.
  • A good collaborator who works well with a team and takes direction from management when needed.
  • Your professional and personal network includes people active in NGI’s scope of interest.

Tasks:

  • Participate in, moderate and be responsible for ongoing online conversations about the future of the Internet and related issues.
  • Add to conversations by providing links to reference material, articles and papers when appropriate.
  • Maintain a lively and civil atmosphere. Mediate conflicts when necessary.
  • Organize the topics to minimize clutter.
  • Help other participants with the platform when they need or request it.
  • Assist in outreach efforts that include scheduled group video calls and attending local live NGI events organized by Edgeryders.

Workplace

You can do the work online, from wherever you are, but you may be requested to participate in one or more physical meetings. And there will be a required two-day training session in early April. Your travel expenses for these meetings will be covered.

We coordinate and communicate through the Edgeryders platform.

How to apply

  1. Study the NGI website and do a search for NGI and follow some of the links so you understand the project and its scope.
  2. Sign up with an account on: https://communities.edgeryders.eu 8
  3. Post a reply to this topic below, and tell us why you are motivated to join the team, about your interests and current work, or any life story you think is meaningful. When you write it, consider the following questions:
  • What experiences have you had that are most related to the NGI mission? What stories can you share?

  • Is your own network of colleagues and friends involved in technologies, issues, policies orgs or projects in harmony with the NGI mission where they have a deep interest and involvement that furthers one or more of the goals of the NGI mission such as openness, inclusivity, transparency, privacy, cooperation, and protection of data?

Include a link or reference to your CV (preferably online).

Applications will be reviewed as they are received until openings are filled.

UPDATED POST 18 March: Most promising candidates will get an invitation to the Community Management training we are hosting at the Edgeryders office and community space in Brussels, 8-9 April 2019.

11 Likes

Hello,
My name is Louis, I speak French Italian swedish and English, and would love to hear more about this project!
The internet as it is today is not one of my deeper knowledge’s, but a platform I would love to know more about and dig in to!
I am good at managing conflicts and I’ve been part of different community Management’s.

Follow the link up there and read about NGI Forward and see if you see a fit there. Have you done any online community work before?

Hello!
Wich link?

Yes I have, I was on the board for Borderland festival 2017, and managed the dream platform, Wich is a granting system that distributes money for different projects that festival members are applying to, and managed a group of guides during the process.

I am also starting up a new community this year with a couple of friends to have gatherings for personal, and community development.

Best regards

Louis Fellbom

2 Likes

Hello,
As the project is launched by the European Commission and it is dedicated to Europe. Must the applicants be only from European countries?

Hi, I’m an old contact of Edgeryders, but I never managed to get involved in the platform and in the activities. I’ve always followed the developments from afar, and when seeing this post I thought, why not? I can finally put my expertise into use for a project I believe in (I’ve been wanting to work with people on how to make the Internet a better place for a while! And I really like the approach of doing it from the perspective of users, with extensive research to back up recommendations or proposals).
I’m Italian and speak fluent English and French, I have experience in moderating online communities, especially journalist communities (currently work part-time for the European Journalism Centre, so 20% would be perfect!). I’ve used Slack and Facebook groups, as well as mailing lists and forums.
What I’m mostly interested in, for my own personal and professional development, is the opportunity to work as online community manager but focusing on developing meaningful conversations instead of trying to moderate the usual bad stuff we see around us on online forums.
So that’s me :slight_smile:
Here’s my CV: Letizia Gambini_CV_March2019.pdf - Google Drive

2 Likes

Thanks…can you describe here some of your relevant experiences? What kind of situations you were in, how you dealt with it, etc?

Dear John,
I am interested in this opportunity mainly for the following reasons

autonomy and freedom to work independently, without a fixed workplace and part-time

I have been working as freelance since 2009. I am a regular user of coworking and shared spaces and I want to keep it this way.

i am very interested in the future of the internet

i think that being part of this discussion will help me to learn a lot about possible futures for technology in such an exciting moment . i am a advocate of decentralization and the return of agreed protocols in order to break the silos and empower people and communities (not only corporations).

meet and join a new team

Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any other question.
Thank you John,
Thank you @noemi for sharing this offer
My CV online

2 Likes

Thank you Manuel. Can you describe some of your relevant experiences here?

Not necessarily. But you would have to have a strong working knowledge of it plus direct experience.

Tell me more about your relevant experiences…

Hello I am Maria,

I recently joined Blivande and Studio TAU and am very happy to participate in those forums and communities online and offline. There I also learned about Edgeryders. I am an interdisciplinary artist and design researcher with a MA in Information Experience Design from the Royal College of Art in London who relocated to Stockholm in 2018.

I love to participate in and facilitate interdisciplinary communication and exchanges. Therefore I am very interested in your type of research in general as well as this topic of the development of a more human-centric internet embracing and developing important key values.

Since 2010 I have lived in 6 different cities and 3 different countries in Europe and I very much appreciate being able to do that and the experiences and encounters I had and have. However, sometimes I am questioning the effect of being disconnected from long term political and cultural discussions and participation due to this modern nomad lifestyle shared by so many of our generation, which is another reason I would be interested in this project.

My native language is German and additionally I have professional language skills in Englisch, am on a conversational level in Swedish and can just about ask for the bathroom in Spanish ;).

During my MA and I took part in the online community of the Information Experience Design program where we exchanged texts, ideas, upcoming events and had discussions. (We went through various community and discussion tools before settling for facebook after all.)

Professionally I have worked in multiple groups making heavy use of online tools such as slack, messenger and Trello to plan, communicate and discuss projects and topics with people working from different locations and countries.

In my private life I am of course part of many WhatsApp and facebook groups keeping alive relationships and friendships over long distances for long periods (especially the groups including relatives certainly include some rather heated discussions and need diplomatic skills ;)).

For my previous job with the financial education app Gimi I also participated in quite a few online user chats on our Intercom with parents and children using the app, reacting to and answering around the clock if necessary.

Additionally I think that the experiences and abilities I have from for example performing qualitative interviews in user research projects for example with the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Inclusive Design as well as participating in, designing and facilitating workshops and discussions of an interdisciplinary character in- and outside the university in a non-online setting are relevant.

I have an inherent urge to find points of connections between topics and people thinking about those topics, which I call being a “compulsive connector”. I love to recommend books and texts as well as potential collaboration or conversation partners to the people I meet and am very open to listening to and exploring the point of view of others, trying to find some common ground upon which we can communicate.

I recently started my setting up my studio in Stockholm working as an artist and design researcher and working part time with you as a community manager with you would fit in very well, while probably also complimenting my other work and research.

You can find my CV here.

I am looking forward to more communication,

Maria

2 Likes

Welcome to the edgeryders.eu side of Edgeryders @MariaEuler! Happy to have you here too.

Yes hi Maria. Very glad to hear from you.

I just now rewrote some of the description text at the top.

I added these two questions:

  • What experiences have you had that are most related to the NGI mission? What stories can you share?
  • Is your own network of colleagues and friends involved in technologies, issues, policies orgs or projects in harmony with the NGI mission where they have a deep interest and involvement that furthers one or more of the goals of the NGI mission such as openness, inclusivity, transparency, privacy, cooperation, and protection of data?

Dear John,
Your offer is interesting for me because cooperation, inclusiveness, and openness are core values that I try to promote in my work and artistic practice. The Internet is a very powerful medium that is changing the way we communicate, learn, work and build relations. I believe that privacy protection and net neutrality are key issues that we are currently facing.
Since 2013 I’m managing a gallery and curating exhibitions which taught me how to moderate and coordinate projects and conduct research. I’m also a member of Culture Backstage programme that focuses on developing exactly these skills. I’m fluent in English and Polish.
I’ll be happy to answer any further questions.
My CV - CV.pdf - Google Drive

1 Like

ping @eireann_leverett @Geminiimatt @asta @teirdes @smari might be something for people you know. Help spread?

I know many of those in our crowd :slight_smile: The hardest is striking the balance between making connections and following up or have them pay off somehow. Myself, I get anxiety from the many possible options when you meet someone, go to an event, or trying to build any relationship. The hardest is to get it from connection to collaboration - and that’s somewhat of the edge in edgeryders too (among many others depending on who in the network you ask…:-))

Thanks for your sincerity in putting all this in a public space, we know it’s not easy but it’s how we get used to meeting each other for real, even in on a digital tech mediated platform. Your spirit really comes across, thanks again!

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Hi @johncoate Interested for many reasons, being a xenofeminist for one.

Here’s my CV.[Curriculum Vitae.pdf - Google Drive]