Community Tech Monthly Meet Ups: Care, Connection, Codesign
The Community Tech community of practice is an informal programme and network which we are stewarding in partnership with Power to Change. It brings together those who are also passionate or curious about the potential of community technology. We officially launched the community of practice in May 2023 and since then have gathered online once a month.
Whatever people’s background, interests or experience, they are welcome in the community of practice. Whether people feel like an expert or a newbie, or somewhere in between, they are welcome. We believe the unique perspectives and contributions of all enriches our collective knowledge. The online meet ups are particularly effective at providing an opportunity to connect with each other and have meaningful discussions. This blog post talks about what we explored in our first two sessions.
Care
We ran our very first monthly meetup in June, focusing on simplicity, engagement and care. Most of the session ran as a large group check in. It helped us get a sense of who was in the space and enabled everyone (who wanted to) to speak, sharing a bit about their background and their interest in community tech. We also asked people as part of their check in, 'what behaviours or qualities did you want to see in this collective space?' People shared the following ideas:
Collaboration
Open sharing
Avoid using jargon
Generosity
Reuse things
Kindness
Spirit of experimentation
Inquisitive
Positive enthusiasm
Empathy
Patience
Show care
Be supportive of one another
Respect
Usefulness
Curiosity
Radical transparency
Collecting learnings, methods and tools in a structured way
Be open minded
These thoughts will feed into a living collective care charter which will form part of our community guidelines and agreement.
Connection
At our second monthly meetup we wanted to try a different format - one where others’ in the community co-hold the space. Talking to Lesedi Bawley from The Engine Room, there was good alignment in our missions to support people to use technology in ways that work for their communities and local places. The Engine Room is a non-profit organisation with a global team of experienced and committed activists, researchers, technologists and community organisers. Since 2011 they have supported more than 500 activists, organisations, and other social change agents to make the most of data and technology for social good.
Lesedi brought a two part provocation for the group to explore in break outs together. He asked: What do you think of when you think of tech for social good? How could you use tech for social good to deliver your mission? This prompted conversation about the challenges of bringing communities into both online spaces and projects involving tech. We discussed some of the barriers to this and how we can provide space to build confidence without judgment.
Codesign
During our check ins at the start of this second meet up, we surfaced questions that people had about the community of practice. Grouping them into themes. Questions explored:
How we might build community with the wider sector/public/private sector?
What internal community building/relationships will be like?
How we might collectively govern the space?
What the future of community tech holds?
What to do about limited capacity?
Tech specific questions about trends, ethics and coding.
Comments about having no specific questions but wanting to learn more.
We also asked attendees when they’d like to meet in the future and what sort of platform/s suit them best. Many people are keen to try out an ethical alternative (like meet.coop) to Silicon Valley Zoom, and many are keen to stick with platforms they know and can therefore access most easily. How far we can embody the values of community tech and remain accessible is a tension in this work.
These questions and others from one to ones are informing how we move forward with co-designing the network and programme. The monthly meetups are now scheduled at a regular time as requested and we’re setting up a Discourse platform for the community of practice to stay connected in between. We’re interested to see how this evolves depending on the topics people want to explore. We have also set up bursaries for attending community of practice events to support non-salaried members of our community and those who experience marginalisation.
Nurturing the community of practice is an emergent and iterative process, involving constant dialogue with the community. We’re grateful to everyone who has come along on the journey with us so far. Come and experience the energy and enthusiasm of our community of practice and join our next monthly meet-up which is happening on Tuesday 26 September 2023, 11.30am-12.30pm. If you’d like to have a chat with me, email me on roseanna@promisingtrouble.net, I’d love to connect.
