2019 Community Reorganization (Discussion)

This is the discussion thread for the forum reorganization. We’ll discuss here and make changes to 3 posts:

Current organization

Strategy & Requirements

New organization

Important: Stay on topic, add value, be concise

Previous discussions on reorganization resulted in 100’s of metres of comment threads. Let’s avoid that this time. Do NOT go off-topic. Do not just provide a yes / no / agree / like answer, but add some additional feedback that gets us further.

Use formatting with headers and bullets to address multiple points in post, and refer back to previous comments.

A number of ideas and proposals…

Documenting our approach: The Pyramids project

We are creating insights all over the place. I suggest we start a documentation project for it and keep track of it all. It can be read by anyone to know our organization, methodologies.

  • The Pyramids of Humane Technology thus is our official framework
  • The project lives on Github as Markdown documents
  • The documents are automatically transformed to html and displayed as section of community website

Mozilla OL7 Open Canvas

I suggest we coordinate with the Mozilla Open Leaders program, and let that also determine timelines. We’ll loosely stick to the insights gained from filling in the Open Canvas we have to work on.

Mozilla OL7 and the canvas are mostly focused to creating a community around an open-source project (creating a MVP, etc.). HTC is unique in the amount of impact we want to have, and the scope that entails.

  • We’ll make changes to the process they propose to follow, wherever that makes sense
    • Like e.g. we could fill in multiple canvases, maybe one per focus area.

From 4 strategic pillars to just 2: Awareness + Solutions

We will go with the earlier diagram that CHT also found an interesting approach:

It is a bit outdated, but our new core strategy is conveyed as From Awareness to Solutions

Audience versus Stakeholders

I want to make a further restriction to our scope. We can only handle so many members on the forum:

  • Our community members are solution-oriented humane tech activists, i.e. pyramid builders.

Audience:

  • Our audience is humanity, mankind, everybody —> to large to manage
  • They are not stakeholders of our community directly
  • We reach humanity through our Awarenes Program

Stakeholders:

  • Stakeholders are those for which we organize the community
  • A stakeholder has unique needs, and we have needs from stakeholders. A 2-way street
  • We focus on builders, humane tech activists exclusively —> those willing and able to be active

Focus areas as main forum categories

At the time of previous reorganization I liked having HT subjects as main categories best, but Mamie + CHT wanted to keep strategic pillars central. This time we’ll focus on HT subjects in the form of the focus areas we have defined.

  • Each mean category represents a pyramid
    • We can use the individual pyramid breakdowns as image representation

Divide and conquer: Partnering

There is an entire world of potential partners, largely unseen, and unstructured to us. HTC should be a binding force, and strengthen other initivatives where we can.

  • Partners then are a 3rd stakeholder group besides Activists and Builders (see wiki)
  • We should focus on creating a set of clear partnering strategies for each partner stakeholder type

Keep Harms separated from Solutions

  • One main category could represent the Harms of Technology
    • So the rest is focused on optimism and positivity, solution-oriented
    • This category is for elaborating what exactly all the harms are that we need to address

Community commons —> Community Central

Community Commons was meant as a casual lounge for members. That no longer cuts our practical and focused approach.

  • We need a focal point for our (potential) members, a command center, not a lounge
  • Proposing we rename this main category to Community Central to start with
1 Like

@patm, @healthyswimmer, @micheleminno would greatly value feedback on what I’ve written so far :slight_smile:

Regarding HTC’s Harms of Technology vs. CHT’s Ledger of Harms: I believe this has been discussed, but for my sake, could you please summarize how we relate to, refer to, or interact with the Ledger?

Agreed.

For the time being we do not interact to the Ledger. I gave a lot of feedback on how it can (and should) be improved. By lack of response I created the Hotfix project that incorporates that feedback and is crowdsourced and solution-oriented (but starting from Harms). This will probably come up in future HTC / CHT discussions.

But what I mean here it keeping Harms apart at forum level. Elaborate them separately. So we can have e.g. subcategories like:

  • Society > Privacy
  • Harms > Surveillance capitalism

Separate the postive from the negative, the solution from the harm.

OK, thank you.

I read everything else, and that was the only thing I had a question about. I like the idea of partnering with people and groups. BTW, I assume that even though we belong to Cohort B, we may approach people in other cohorts.

Yes, I suggest that in the wiki post I created for that investigation, we take in all candidates of the program.

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It is hard to come up with a good categorization below pyramid level. Brainstorming…

  • The pyramid layers act as compliance levels (sort of), and also represent a process (going bottom to top)

    • The question is if we show them on the forum, or just have them in our strategy / methodology / framework
    • Note: They will be displayed in the form of pyramid images, replacing current pillar depictions.
  • There could be another pyramid (or more) - the dark pyramid(s) - representing the Harms of Technology

    • Colors could be grey to black with levels e.g.: surveillance —> control —> dystopia
    • Building our bright, colorful pyramids then represents a race against those being built by the evil Faraoh’s
  • Showing the pyramids layers as subcategories on the forum, probably provides insufficient clarity

    • One needs to have deep understanding of the meaning of each compliance level when creating topics
  • Showing solution-oriented topics as subcategories would be nice, if they are clear and not to numerous


Note: Adding Dark Pyramids and Evil Pharaoh’s to the pyramid-building storyline would allow us to add ‘suspense’, ‘competition’, ‘adventure’, ‘excitement’, ‘discovery’ to community culture, all great requisites to having ‘fun’. It would also allow us to refer to Big Tech and global elites as ‘just’ Pharaoh’s.

Brainstorming pyramid concepts…

Pyramid of Wellbeing

(see also: full overview on github)

  • Process: From health to happiness
Compliance level Concepts
1. health mental, physical, social skills
2. harmony balance, inter-personal, social network, diversity, culture
3. happiness wholesomeness, acceptance, mindfulness

Candidate subcategories

These categories all have broader meaning, but we consider them as applied to tech.

Subcategory Description
Health improving mental, physical impacts via ergonomy, user-centered / accessibility design
Parenting responsible tech use, digital literacy, edtech, tech in schools
Sociability facilitating and stimulating human social / conversational interaction
Diversity sense of belonging via cultural and emphathetic design, internationalization
Mindfulness stimulating healthy habits, balanced consumption, time well spent

Opposing harms

  • Possible dark pyramid:
    • Pyramid of Apathy —> lethargy, discord, gloom

Brainstorming pyramid concepts…

Pyramid of Society

(see also: full overview on github)

  • Process: From access to safety
Compliance level Concepts
1. access availability, accessibility, structure, transparency, openness, standards
2. protection rights, regulation, compliance, governance, security, privacy, trust
3. safety interaction, communication, behavior, civility, inclusivity, confidence

Candidate subcategories

These categories all have broader meaning, but we consider them as applied to tech.

Subcategory Description
Transparency working in the open with accountability, public domain, open source
Digital Rights regulations, law and government policies, oversight, watchdogs
Privacy control of your personal data, how it spreads and how its used
Trust information security, regulatory compliance levels, audits, certification, ethics
Inclusion lowering barriers, minimizing fear, promote participation, empathy
Civility netiquette, code of conduct, contribution guidelines, moderation, reputation

Opposing harms

  • Possible dark pyramid:
    • Pyramid of Dissolution —> exclusion, jeopardy. lawlessness

Brainstorming pyramid concepts…

Pyramid of Freedom

(see also: full overview on github)

  • Process: From engagement to flourishing
Compliance level Concepts
1. engagement involvement, freedom of speech / information / expression
2. expression creativity, human values, genuine emotions
3. flourishing purpose, synergy, optimism, vision, direction, innovation

Candidate subcategories

These categories all have broader meaning, but we consider them as applied to tech.

Subcategory Description
Collaboration communication, co-creation, cooperation, partnering, synergy
Growth sustainable business, sustainable growth
Innovation prudent adoption of technology improvements, innovation models
Vision visionary ideas, radical new paths, bright insights
Evolution not revolution / disruption but evolutionary development

Opposing harms

  • Possible dark pyramid:
    • Pyramid of Decline —> individualism, suppression. bondage

Here are my concerns about this proposal:

I think it’s best to stick to the Mozilla Open Canvas model, as possible as we can. We can fill the problems square in the template with more than one problem. We could force the model a little bit also for the product / MVP part, to see if we manage to model our project according to those squares…

In not sure about that… we may create a depiction of friends/enemies in black and white, too sharply. I would avoid the dark pyramid, as well as evil Pharaoh or other things like that… I would avoid also the division “good fighters” and “Big Tech / global elites”. I’m not against something only because it’s big or global and I don’t want to demonize big tech companies like ancient pharaoh’s. A pharaoh was a god on earth that used thousands of slaves to build his pyramid, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, etc. are companies that brought some real innovation to people and according to the current economy system tried to get as much money as they could, without any regulation because everything is so new and never encountered before. We need to change that in order to create (through awareness and solutions) a different environment in which if these companies and future ones want to flourish or at least survive, they have to radically change some directions.

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Yes, I think we are on the same line here. Just saying as these canvases are most suited to more tangible product development, while we are basically talking about a portfolio, we should use Open Canvas where it make sense, and make changes where it makes sense too. If that makes sense :wink:

The storytelling is one thing, division of harms is another. Besides people in general find it hard to look further into the future. We should be able to outline the path, connect the dots, if we leave things as they are. The dangers are entirely real, and more pressing than many people realize. Dystopia is a very real possibility, maybe even likely if we don’t act soon.

Also the dark pyramids are not meant to be in-your-face, but part of the framework, to be used in any way that suits us best. They will not be in the forum structure in any way. That would destroy the positivity. But I can imagine they become part of some gamification with a campaign, or to have some fun among members while working on elaborating harms.

PS. If we use ‘pharaoh’s’ somewhere - e.g. in a hackathon - we can completely leave out any naming and shaming. If a big tech giant feels spoken to… they problably have bad consciousness and somethings ring true.

Note, just to get that clear. I do agree that - just as with politics - we leave that out of focus (as discussed before), even if it may be personal conviction that this is what we do. But like we politics, you can name the problems directly without going on the person / enterprise directly. (see also my remark to geo and Free)

Brainstorming pyramid concepts…

Pyramid of Alignment

(see also: full overview on github)

  • Process: From discovery to evolution
Compliance level Concepts
1. discovery knowledge, insights, humane design
2. adoption ethics, best-practices, experience, exemplars
3. evolution innovation, sustainability, expansion, immersion

Candidate subcategories

These categories all have broader meaning, but we consider them as applied to tech.

Subcategory Description
Ethics improving of ethics in technology, ethics frameworks, ethical design
Open Standards specifications, standards bodies, resistance to lock-in / walled gardens
Humane Design human-centered design, UX best-practices, ‘designed for humans’
Decentralization re-decentralize the web, resistance to control / monopolization
Sustainable Business alternative business models, funding, values and policies
Open Source working in the open, project / community management, licensing, funding
Governance IT strategy and goals, risk, compliance / certification / audit standards

Opposing harms

  • Possible dark pyramid:
    • Pyramid of Devolution —> ignorance, stagnation, dystopia

Note:

There are things that obviously need more thought, but I’ll await your feedback first.

I like this part because it places harms in a box so we can focus on solutions and not be married to the negative… Also harms are highlighted, which is an ongoing discovery process. I see Michele’s point that it’s dark- but we show light in working solutions.

Also- we are an activist group so we can ride the edge- be polite but not necessarily politically correct. This is the arm that serves CHT in a way…

Otherwise I really like the part where we have action as goal to spread campaigns- a local forum just helps people process these things. Once people realize what’s happening perhaps we can post brainstorming ideas on things people can do independently on their own… only a list- no handholding;).

In all this do we have a goal list? In my profession we have no actions without goals. Keeps us on the same horizon.

  1. Have fun
  2. Spread campaign mottos to bring humane tech awareness.
  3. Strive to be an example of humane living in a tech world.

One more thing- a quick guide listing ways to get personally started along the way will help people get started. Quick start guide with privacy education and how to protect oneself. Very brief and no guiding- with cautionary statements that things change etc…

2 Likes

Yes there are objectives stated in summary in the Strategy section in this Wiki Post.

I have separated strategies into

  • core
  • secondary
  • community

Besides that we have tactics and philosophy. Your second point is a mix of tactic (campaign mottos) and core strategy (from awareness to cultural awakening). The third point I would add to community philosophy (and part of culture).

Yes, entirely agree. But I also see that as at lower level than where I have been elaborating. This can be done in many ways and for many subjects, so should be careful that overview is not lost.

Edit: On second thought there 2 things in what you are saying: community overview and e.g. privacy protection.

The first goes to Community Central > I Need Help, where there can be 1 single pinned overview document with a list of links to everything relevant (and this post also referenced from FAQ), while the second thing should be produced in a project e.g. in a campaign with the deliverable being a site section of the community website. This way we only do this once, and it serves a broader public.

Proposal: Audience vs. Stakeholder groups —> scope restriction

This forum only has limited capacity, and with many active members manageability and overview decreases quickly. Stricter moderation is absolutely necessary.

We have goals to serve message to a broader public, our audience: The outside world
They are not part of our community.

I proposed 3 stakeholder groups as part of our community (and people from the audience are prospects):

  1. activists
  2. builders
  3. partners

We want:

- to activate as many people as possible, participating and involved
- to be as productive as possible with reaching community objectives

The nature of the activities we do on this forum will have to change. This is a requirement. Casual posting of random links, as many do now, should be considered. A lot of activity we currently have can be continued however, but needs to be put in context and processed quickly, or we’ll only create archived information.

Also, since activity will be discussed, casual posts will be distracting, and casual posters will find the forum less interesting. But this is not a problem. We can facilitate our casual reader visitors and posters on our social media and the community website. And draw them in as active members from there.