Yay, the weekend is over and we got to go back to work!
Today we worked on our projects (I’m doing communications work, Anna’s reaching out to the hundred+ people we will probably meet next month, and Alan is hooking us up with systems to manage our information.)
We were really lucky to have two guest speakers. We met Charles Blanchet from Granicus. Granicus is a really cool tool integrated public note-taking system “Streaming Media for Government.” He talked to us about what life is like for a government contractor. We learned about Sales.
This is a very good thing. My life in non-profits did not present me with any opportunities to learn about sales. I learned a new phrase “Beach Head.” These are a companies first clients. These are the people I consider guinea pigs. I also wikipedia’d “private equity” for the first time. There are 11 more months in this year. Maybe I will get a bit more business lingo.
We also met Sibel Sunar, who talked to us about talking to the press. This was really helpful. Basically, we learned about diplomatic honesty. We talked about representing CFA. I’m really excited to represent CFA. It’s so new right now, and this blank slate allows us the opportunity to be our very best.
It’s amazing how one hour of discussion about talking to the press can bring to light the nuances of speaking well & kindly. All those web content/usability skills (good design, don’t overload your reporter with tech jargon & too many thoughts) — they transfer. Awesome. I’m still nervous about video & audio recordings, but being really prepared will help a lot.
And I’m now reframing my blog for additional audiences. So far, my audience has been friends, fellow geeks, tech community builders, Code for America fellows. Now I am extending it to the Code for America audience, the City of Seattle, Mayors, and large organizations like Microsoft, ESRI and others. Welcome everyone. :)
I find that the theme of all of these learnings - which fit perfectly with what I’ve already learned about advocating for humanists among developer communities - being a role model is really huge.
Had a lively debate with Alan about designing sprints to be the most inclusive. (And later this evening, I was telling Patrick about Drupal’s “drama sprints” - which are basically what happens when social issues crop up. We spend a lot of time dealing with it. I think about how I’m having this code/technical hiatus (which is a good thing, right) and how I’m eager to be a community builder. Realized that with code sprints, I always, always feel like I’m running as fast as I can to catch up.
Time, or rather, the perception of lack of time, is an important element in making people feel they have a place in helping out. I’ve done nothing but research and learn as much about inclusion and open source participation. If I have a chance to do a technical sprint, I’m ten times more likely to work on educational materials. This makes me feel less geeky, but I realized today that I’ve taken on this community builder role for two reasons: 1. I want people to play with 2. I don’t want others to have as hard a time finding a way to connect & help out. Some structure helps. I told my friend “I’m working on bugs; they are community bugs.”
It’s late, so I’m not going into thoughts about inclusive sprint design, but I found a really cool overlap with democracy. We talked about having a weekend sprint at our CFA house. I realized that lots of our city partners might be people who organize locally - in houses - and inviting and getting folks from the community to help out..well, I see a potential exchange. More on that later. We have a lot to figure out in the next two weeks.
This evening we saw Philip K. Howard discuss the idea of “Fixing Broken Government.” There were about 15 CFA fellows there. Jen Pahlka and Tim O’Reilly snuck in. My friend Patrick Hayes was there (Drupal/Open Layers.)
Howard said “America needs a new Operating System.” We got very excited about: cause in fact, this is just what we’ve started doing.
On one of the first CFA days, we talked about the possibility of failure. Most startups fail. Arguably, most good businesses should be designed to eventually make themselves obsolete. David Eaves later talked about the idea of failing forward. But he put it even better than that. Ideas are like seedlings. They try to sprout up. But even if they die, they don’t go away. They fertilize what comes next.