Good Stuff Happens in 1:1 Meetings: Why you need them and how to do them well
CodeforPhilly_breakoutsession_summit2015
1. Dawn McDougall• Chris Alfano•
Community Building for
Inclusivity and Diversity
Dawn McDougall
Executive Director
Code for Philly
Chris Alfano
Brigade Captain
Code for Philly
2. Dawn McDougall• Chris Alfano•
Code for Philly
~1200 site users
>1600 Meetup users
150+ projects
5-20 first-timers/wk
o weekly workshops
o quarterly hackathons
o seasonal programs
6. Dawn McDougall• Chris Alfano•
The Grassroots
Community
o Respectable brigade size
o Frequent press on projects/civic
hacking
o Strong relationship with local
government
o Voice at the open data table
o Significant brand trust
o Civic tech cross-overs (osmp)
8. Dawn McDougall• Chris Alfano•
Clear Connection
Points
o FAQ on event pages/website
o Leadership team
o Civic Hacking 101
o Thematic hack events
9. Dawn McDougall• Chris Alfano•
Contribution
Refocused
o Experiments are structure
o Iterations are efficient
o Skills are a deliverable
o Experience is an outcome
o Diversity is cohesion
o Process is the product
12. Dawn McDougall• Chris Alfano•
Successes
o Welcoming environment
o Structured involvement
o Organizational support
o Strategic clarity
13. Dawn McDougall• Chris Alfano•
How we can improve, what
we’re starting with
o Light-weight projects
o Project roadmap
o Partner toolkit
o Community of Practice
o Key metrics/analytics
14. Dawn McDougall• Chris Alfano•
Pulling up a chair and offering a
seat at the table is not alone
inclusive
17. Dawn McDougall• Chris Alfano•
Civic Hacking:
More than Tech
dawn@codeforphilly.org chris@codeforphilly.org
Questions &
Feedback
Editor's Notes
Title of talk: inclusivity and diversity in the civic tech community; slightly different than the usual connotation but equally important
Brigade since 2012; excited by these numbers but what do they really mean? What is the implied (and real) impact? from quantity to quality; measuring process over product
Mostly backend and programmers, some mappers; looking for more front-end designers and graphic designers; project leads and community liasons
Become balanced, robust community
Partners-first
Best projects start with a project as the vision is being defined and creates
Go find partners to start projects with
We’re saying it’s more than tech, so let’s start there.
These are projects that have been successful in a number of different ways but project owners and maintainers in general report that their work wouldn’t have gotten so far without the support of community partners
Civic tech projects are sometimes adopted and put into mainstream use but more widely they serve as an emblem. They are concrete, tangible symbols of the will that exists to engage in civic improvement as well as the power of partnership between the general public and local government.
These are proof-of-concepts for how infrastructures might work better with certain technologies, the value of open and transparent government, and the imperative for democratic, people-driven places
The idea and our goals: inclusivity and diversity
Targeting people who were not coders. Topical experts bring a vision to civic tech projects
Back track a bit to the starting point of when we realized we needed more diversity and partnerships; successful projects were successful when they had community partners who could help grow and maintain a project
This was the banner we began with as we looked to expand our community beyond technologists. “Code for Philly isn’t just for coders” was our mantra, and as person not trained in tech, I was the poster child. Our invitation was met with enthusiasm, and we saw a major increase in attendance at our weekly workshops and quarterly hackathons. But we weren’t seeing what we expected. The number of shipped and adopted projects didn’t grow, and there weren’t as many people staying as there were coming
They’re the people who answer the question, “What do you want to do in life” with “Help make the world a better place”; it sounds generic, and maybe it is, but there is a group of people who answer that question with passion rather than rationale. They might not even know what it means or what it looks like, but in that sentiment they are in search of a feeling, a sense. They want to sense that they’ve made a difference; that they’ve been successful and that their actions meant something.
We knew we wanted and needed topical experts and community partners for projects to thrive and grow, we knew they had interest in our work and community yet we didn’t know why a gap still existed
Challenges:
Both technologists and topical experts reside within their own cultures.
You must offer a mechanism/pipeline/opportunity for both to confidently depart from the known in order to take part and contribute to a new community
Remove sources of intimidation and frustration
Visibility; be explicit about work and vision so that outsiders can figure out how they might fit in and contirbute
Practical Opportunity to engage; getting people out to the events; making the environment comfortable and welcoming
Thematic Opportunity to connect and contribute
-Create familiarity before the event (FAQ) know what to expect
-Set expectations with civic hack 101
-integrate input into
Thematic hackathons target certain datasets and topical experts
Meeting with
Notion of contribution and what it might look like are different when process is the product
Different levels of expertise; structured way to get involved
Disrupting expectation results in innovation
Sense of meaning/purpose/impact
Process is the product--------our focus is on the experience over the outcome
Emergent community of practice from current CoP’s (tech/SMEs)
Successes: outward-facing welcome to first-timers, removing intimidation factor; more municipal partners outside of OIT; getting municipal partners out to hack nights and hackathons to give talks; structured ways of getting involved; organizational support from leadership
Shortfalls: pairing first-timers with projects—get feedback through surveys and anecdotes; create a store of ; still intimidating and chaotic for nontechnical people; demonstrating the value of an intangible contribution
Going back to this first slide and thinking about those numbers, how do we begin to think about inclusivity and diversity in relation to our goals and then measure success or lack thereof? The question is, are we meeting the needs of the stakeholders in our community and are we meeting the needs of the people we’re hoping to include and bring into the community
So we’ve created the conditions for co-creation, and we must continue to iterate the best entry points and quantification as we continue to move forward;
--diversity is crucial for bringing in new insights, different approaches, fresh perspectives that challenge assumption and comfort zones
--being inclusive may seem like it’s only in service to having a diverse community, but providing that experience is a positive mentality for everyone in the community
Goals: broader variety of skill-level; opportunity for more advanced devs to teach; better ways for SMEs to talk about the data they have
Successes: outward-facing welcome to first-timers, removing intimidation factor; more municipal partners outside of OIT; getting municipal partners out to hack nights and hackathons to give talks; structured ways of getting involved; organizational support from leadership
Shortfalls: pairing first-timers with projects—get feedback through surveys and anecdotes; create a store of ; still intimidating and chaotic for nontechnical people; demonstrating the value of an intangible contribution
Going back to this first slide and thinking about those numbers, how do we begin to think about inclusivity and diversity in relation to our goals and then measure success or lack thereof? The question is, are we meeting the needs of the stakeholders in our community and are we meeting the needs of the people we’re hoping to include and bring into the community
So we’ve created the conditions for co-creation, and we must continue to iterate the best entry points and quantification as we continue to move forward;
--diversity is crucial for bringing in new insights, different approaches, fresh perspectives that challenge assumption and comfort zones
--being inclusive may seem like it’s only in service to having a diverse community, but providing that experience is a positive mentality for everyone in the community
Goals: broader variety of skill-level; opportunity for more advanced devs to teach; better ways for SMEs to talk about the data they have
The vision (goals)
We created more events and opportunities for engagement but it didn’t translate into more solid civic tech projects
We talk about how systems and policy are to change; we talk less about how hard it is to change the people who use them
Utilizing skills and knowledge from both sides; reconciling differences co-creating knowledge and solutions co-creating new communities of practice
We’re saying it’s more than tech, so let’s start there.
These are projects that have been successful in a number of different ways but project owners and maintainers in general report that their work wouldn’t have gotten so far without the support of community partners
Civic tech projects are sometimes adopted and put into mainstream use but more widely they serve as an emblem. They are concrete, tangible symbols of the will that exists to engage in civic improvement as well as the power of partnership between the general public and local government.
These are proof-of-concepts for how infrastructures might work better with certain technologies, the value of open and transparent government, and the imperative for democratic, people-driven places
Make anyone a civic hacker
Most importantly, for civic hacking to work we need diverse perspectives, approaches, and interests to challenge our assumptions and push our growth as a movement forward; diversity and inclusivity make our communities vibrant and keep them healthy. So let’s make everyone a civic hacker
