Nurturing a community of practice — reflections and our way ahead
We’re coming to the end of an exciting period working with Kate Swade and Lynne Davis, who have been helping us scope out how we could support the growing community of practice around community tech.
They have done some intensive exploration of what community tech practitioners want and need, what’s already out there, and how we might best use our resources to generate spaces and opportunities for practitioners to get together. Through surveys and interviews, analysis of other communities of practice, and lots of discussion with us in the Promising Trouble and Power to Change teams, they have come up with a great set of recommendations that should point us in the right direction.
One important reflection for us in the core team is the extent to which we can’t, and shouldn't, be too prescriptive about how the community works: how it might function, what topics people might be interested in, how it should be governed and facilitated. Trying to steward and support the growth while holding a space for others to participate, and hopefully to lead where it goes, means we need to make sure we’re not trying too hard to steer and control.
The vision set out by Kate and Lynne, which feels really appropriate, is:
A safe, inclusive space that helps the community tech sector to connect, collaborate, share, build and support each other, so that community tech can realise its power
They have also helped us to develop the principles that will underpin the work as it develops:
A space for anyone interested in making and using community tech - whether they consider themselves a ‘tech’ person or not, or recognise themselves in the people that are initially involved. Some people might want quite general support or advice, or just to hang out with others who are on a similar journey. Others might have more specific, detailed or technical questions. We hope that we can nurture the development of tools and spaces that allow for both, and everything in between
We won’t duplicate what already exists - there are a lot of great communities and resources out there already, particularly for support with the more technical questions that might come up. We don’t want to recreate or compete with these, but complement them with a space that emphasises the community in community tech
We need to iterate and experiment to find out what people want and what works. We’re not setting off with a fully-formed model or a blueprint that has been tried and tested dozens of times, but with some initial ideas to try out. This means we’ll have to let go, and embrace some uncertainty
This will mean that relationships are at the heart of this work as it develops - relationships with partner organisations, community tech practitioners, and others in and around the community tech ecosystem. We’ll need to trust others, and behave in ways that build others’ trust in us and in the community as it grows
Part of this means handing over control and resources, and not asking those that support the community to do so for free, but to find ways to generate value (financial and otherwise) for those that participate
We want community activities to be enjoyable to participate in, not a logistical, technical or administrative burden, so we’ll be striving for interoperability in the tools and spaces that are used.
We’ll be sharing more about the community of practice in May, so do sign up to our newsletter to stay in touch.
If you would like to help us to shape the community of practice, perhaps by being a partner organisation, please drop us a line: hello@promisingtrouble.net