Some updates from the depths of my work in the background on the outreach and community management for poprebel this week:
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Candidates for the connector are finally here! It was a long and strangely difficult process, but it’s kind of normal - takes a while to explain edgeryders and then make people trust this is an actual job. Not to mention these are all busy, smart, young people. But it worked! I managed to get us a fantastic list of people from Poland, have a look at their stories and profiles, and talk with them
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Kasia - very experienced sociologist from the top science institute in Poland, her story will be there during the weekend
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Magda, an activist doing a LOT of grassroot work with communities in Poland, and an old friend
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Asia, feminist activist and a hyper-energetic person, also a long friend of mine - her second story is already here as well
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and Mikołaj, a guy I don’t know personally and who found me via the advertisement I posted (like Kasia) and who really seems to dig the platform.
They’re all great. I am waiting for three of them to add their stories from other people and we can pick someone soon.
I am spending a lot of time guiding applicants through the process, the platform and explaining the research (there were many more asking, and they still might apply by the 15th of June) - so it’s a lot of calls and emails so far. But it’s getting very promising results and now I have 4 people I think I would be super happy to work with.
Even more, I also have a candidate for Serbia - she didn’t introduce herself yet, but she already arranged the first story. I have one more in my pocket and she will join this/next week.
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The 6 interviews I did in Poland are in progress - they will be on the platform by mid-June, with 6 brand new, very cool users (I talked with a lady from a working family in her 40ties who has two sick family members and faces losing her home, and votes and works for SLD for years now - a very interesting angle on populism on the different side of the spectrum).
The 14 others will be coming in the next weeks, I have a very busy friend tasked with them.
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I prepared the descriptions of the tour and some first draft of the workshop in the fall. I will do the tour alone in the summer (if we approve the texts fast enough, in the dates I mentioned in the draft), probably adding Serbia in August. We will need to find local co-hosts now in these cities (I have some ideas and contacts in the cities I proposed, which is why I selected them). Now we just need to get the social media magic to get many people to see and join them. If you have suggestions on how to improve these texts, let me know.
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I am planning to do some stories and onboarding at two events at the Warsaw Biennale - it was my idea from the beginning to cooperate with them, as I met the curators in January and they were really open to collaborating with us on the program, but that didn’t work out - so we have a chance to join some of the interesting events.
I got a personal invitation to the Congress of female farmers, happening on the 14th of June, from Poland and abroad. Questions of women’s rights and their role in economics, ecology, food security, and identity will be very prominent there - and they’re key to our debate on populism. I want to get the international and Polish angle from that meeting.
And Beyond the Nation-State. Transunions by Jonas Staal. It’s a good train trip from Berlin, so I can do both weekends. I would need to have this approved soon to buy tickets before they become too expensive.
Over the next two days, I will continue the onboarding of the candidates and the calls and email conversations with them, tweak the texts and transcribe and approve the next batch of interviews.
What needs some help pushing is the call for stories, possibly we should change the deadline again? As we have a social media wizard now, I hope this can get some more traction - @inge, should we maybe change the texts calling for stories and create FB events for that as well?
PS. I’m having personal issues at the moment and they affect my efficiency, for which I apologize, but something very dramatic has happened to me last week and it will take a while to come to terms with it. I hope you can understand.