Bridging tech and community working groups

Nick Sellen Public Seen by 47

I feel the tech working group is very detached from the community working group. Also detached from the wider conversations that happen in threads on loomio that from my perspective often have little relation to what is happening in the tech working group.

Let's fix it!

I thought maybe this co-ordination/governing board / working group proposal might address some of it (https://www.loomio.org/d/DPONRFbU/discussion-and-development-of-an-elected-social-coop-governing-board), but not sure what is the status of that?

So, I propose:

ask @Matthew Cropp to summarise the state of the proposal linked above (just because he started the thread, but maybe others can do it too)
we schedule a call to get to know each other a bit more, explore our current positions, and nudge towards the next step (maybe one person from the community working group can join me to co-plan/facilitate that call? I think @Matt Noyes did a great job facilitating the disco discussion call, but could be anyone!)

Matt Noyes Fri 29 May 2020 3:19AM

I like the idea of bridging the two working groups, whether it is through the coordination group or periodic joint meetings, or some other means. A joint call is a nice idea. I am happy to help.

Nick Sellen Fri 29 May 2020 1:00PM

Great, wondering who would be interested to join? From our tech side the people participating in the calls most regularly are me, @Noah ( @redoak ), @David Mynors, Michel (not on loomio?) also joined recently and was keen to take on some tasks. Some of them may be interested to participate in a joint call. How about from from community side?

As for scheduling - those 4 people span West Coast USA to Central Europe timezones. We do 19:30 UTC for the tech calls and that allows everyone to participate. Tech calls are every other week, so maybe we could do a (initially one-off) joint call in the gap between the tech calls? (next slot would be next Wednesday / 2020-06-03 19:30 UTC, otherwise 2 weeks after that).

Mica Fisher Fri 29 May 2020 2:28PM

I would be interested in a join call at some point! Something not related to the coordination group--more information with a community building focus. Also, I'm not a techie and get really lost in the tech WG loomio threads... so maybe would also be a good time for demystifying the technology we're using?

Nick Sellen Fri 29 May 2020 3:22PM

Yup, sharing knowing/information about the technology sounds like a good bridging topic :) I'm always very happy to explain (actually, normally too happy to explain, and go into far too much detail ;) )

Matthew Cropp Fri 29 May 2020 4:11PM

Thanks for poking on this @Nick Sellen.

Moving the Coordinating Committee formation process along has been in my court, and I've only been able to engage with it in fits and starts due to being a bit over capacity for the past two months. I'm hoping things will simmer down and I'll have more capacity once the real estate co-op project I've been working on (which was supposed to close in mid-March) is closed (goal is by June 12th at the latest), but this is a good reminder for me to actually get that meeting scheduled.

To the short-terms "bridging" call, I'd be happy to join that as well, and I've tentatively blocked out 6/3 at 19:30 UTC in my calendar, if that works for other folks?

Poll Created Mon 1 Jun 2020 9:44AM

Will you join the first tech/community bridging call on 3rd June at 19:30 UTC? Closed Wed 3 Jun 2020 5:01PM

Would be really great to have a range of participants from tech and community sides. If you haven't been involved in either of those working groups yet, you can still join, but be prepared to then join one of the working groups to help do the work too :)

It's ok if not everyone can make it to this one, we can do a time poll to make a better time if it helps, but I just want to get something concrete going... if at least 3 other people are able to join then I think we go ahead with this one...

It's 3rd June, i.e. this coming Wednesday at 19:30 UTC, which converted for you is:

East Coast USA = 12:30

West Coat USA = 15:30

UK = 20:30

Central Europe = 21:30

Japan = 04:30 (ooof)