Call for Action: Join the Humane Tech Awareness program - From Awareness to Cultural Awakening!

Dear community,

After making significant forum improvements and a position statement for the community, the time has come to initiate actual community projects that build on top of the many valuable ideas and discussions that we’ve had since the forum was created.

Our community now has a presence on Github with our own organization account:

Github offers us the ability to create projects with ease, and cooperate on documentation projects, as well as on technical works, like public website (sections) and other software tools we’ll build to reach the broader public and spread our message.

A number of projects are under preparation, but in this topic I want to direct your attention to the first of these that has become operational:

Humane Tech Awareness Campaigns

In this project space we’ll create marketing and promotion campaigns to raise awareness with the public on harms of technology and the need to adopt Humane Technology best-practices. The campaigns can address any (humane tech) topics that are relevant and discussed in this forum, and the campaign deliverables can be anything, ranging from video’s, websites, blog posts, press releases, meetups, etc.

Campaign ideation has already started, by the people who have already signed up to the Campaigners team:

Campaign themes

Theme Discussion Description
Dogfooding proposal, forum Using campaigns to strengthen our projects and community
Mankind 2.0 proposal, forum Raising awareness of the impact of technology on our society
Speak Easy proposal, forum Introducing language to change habits and culture
Tech Wise proposal, forum Promoting prudent technology use in child education

Campaigns

Campaign Theme Discussion Description
Aware Prepare Dogfooding proposal, forum Growth hacking the Awareness Campaigns project
Phone Zombies Speak Easy proposal, forum Anchoring the term “Phone Zombies” in common language
Reality Shock Mankind 2.0 proposal, forum Using short, dramatic video’s to shock people into awareness

Call for Participation

The project is brand new, and we are at the start of creating structure and documentation to facilitate efficient cooperation. The coming weeks we will conduct many activities and tasks to get the project from the ground, and embed it in the community. And you can help with this!

*We Need Your Help*

Are you interested to participate in any way? Then please let us know in the poll below:

  • Yes, I want to participate! Sign me up, please.
  • I am interested, but want more information.

0 voters

If you fill in the poll, and sign-up then we will discuss interests and possible activities. If you need more information first, than add a post to this topic with your specific questions.

Current team

As of October 17 we already have the following members who signed up to help:

Can we add you to the list?

Current project status

This project plays out both in this forum and on Github - our brand new addition to the community toolset (and the home of many future projects).

This newness means we need to discover ways to integrate with the forum, so github is a natural extension, and there is cross-pollination and project work is reported back to the community. This involves experimentation and subsequent documentation of guidelines, help manuals, procedures & workflows. And there are always things to improve, in other words we have a process of continuous improvement.

Changes to the forum

You may have noticed a ‘campaigner’ label next to your user name. You have all been added to a Campaigners forum group called to make project communication easier. This has following advantages:

  • You can add group mentions to a post (like this: @Campaigners), so all members get notified of your post (but use with care; no unnecessary use, no spamming)

  • When you navigate to the Campaigners group, you’ll find a ‘Message’ button, that allows you to create topics of discussion that are only visible to community members, and not to the public and search engines (this has still to be tested, but that is how is described)

  • We have a separate Awareness > Projects & campaigns sub-category that is reserved for project-related discussions. While the Github Issue tracker is more focussed on the gory project details and breaking down issues into actionable tasks, the forum topics here are more for general, free-roaming discussion related to the project.

  • You can add new topics to the Awareness > Projects & campaigns sub-category, if you want, but they will not directly be visible to others. Instead they have to be approved by a moderator first. This is to avoid anyone from posting arbitrary topics and maintaining focus on ongoing work.

  • Finally a Github icon was added next-to your profile picture in the top-right corner, allowing you to jump directly to our organization account on Github and see our list of projects. This will open in a new tab of your browser.

The github project

When you go to the landing page of the Humane Tech Awareness Campaigns project, you see a file list with the project structure, followed by the contents of the README document.

(Note: Each folder can (and will) have it’s own README.md document, which causes the formatted document to be displayed similarly when navigating to the folder).

We have created:

  • Some Guidelines for new users and explainer of Project structure as well as lists of existing campaign themes and campaigns that functions as a project Table of Contents (ToC).

  • An open issue on Structuring campaign themes and campaigns from which we derived issue templates, and which will be added to it’s own document in /strategy folder soon (so the issue can be closed).

  • The issue templates allow you to choose from 4 different Issue Types, when creating a 'New Issue`. You’ll mostly use the General issue type, but there are 3 types to create new proposals for Themes, Campaigns and Deliverables.

  • The issues are labeled, so you know what they are about, and can filter on them. When new comments are added to an issue, this indicated by a blue line on the left of the issue title in the Issue tracker. If you participated in the issue, or are tracking it, then you also get Github notifications (bell icon, top-right corner).

And then we have already created some project content, by adding the ideas we had on the forum as proposal issues:

Each proposal starts with the template that needs to be refined, followed by the feedback for refining it. The discussions within an issue can feel daunting, but - importantly:

  • You don’t need to understand all discussion that takes place!. Each person gives feedback from their own background, using their own unique skills and domain knowledge.

  • It is up to the proposal issuer (or other issue assignee) to incorporate the feedback and turn it into a Theme / Campaign / Deliverable README document in the project structure.

  • If that person needs help he/she can ask further explanation, or create a new, related issue that is picked up with someone having the appropriate understanding and skill. This way the project is gradually broken up into manageable chunks, actionable tasks, that can be worked on by others in parallel.

What you can do now already

  • Navigate through the project to get a feel of its structure. Also inspire yourself with the forum discussions.
  • Read the open issues/comments and give your :+1: or :heart: if you understand and agree with them.
  • Add your own comments if you are sure they are relevant to the issue at hand, and not off-topic.
  • Create new issues, if you think they constitute tasks that need to be addressed

Note: Your initial participation will not be perfect, but rest assured, we will help you improve your work methods. Also your ‘mistakes’ will be valuable, because they allow us to see what documentation we need to draft to get the onboarding process of future team members to go smoothly and efficiently.

What’s next?

There is much to do. We’ll have to create a project breakdown structure with tasks that people can work on in their own comfort and time, and that are fitting to you and your ambitions with regards to the project. But we need to do some team planning first.

How we like you to participate

You and I, we are all volunteers in this community (hence: we talk about a crowdsourced project). And we are all willing to contribute to Humane Technology and help build solutions to the harms of technology.

But there should be more to working on this and other projects:

  • Participating in community projects should be both fun and rewarding!

We want you to cooperate together enthusiastically, motivated and with pleasure, unleashing your creativity and allowing you to acquire new skills if you want.

Your participation comes with no minimum time expenditures and no obligations, unless you make a commitment to do so. And even then, if you cannot keep up to that commitment, you can forego it, by informing the team - if you are able - so we can anticipate that, and plan differrently.

Team building and planning

So what do we mean with participation that is fun and rewarding? Well, that is up to you to decide and tell the other team members.

I will send off a Group Message (GM) in our @Campaigners group and ask each of you a couple of questions. Answering each of them is entirely optional, it is up to you. But will make it way easier to cooperate, and make you feel at home and comfortable in your team role.

These questions are:

  • What topics are you most interested in? - What makes you tick? Can be anything: specific harms, specific solutions, areas of expertise, etc. Try to make them easily relatable to ‘awareness campaigns’

  • What are your rewards you want to get from your participation? - Can be ‘just’ “Contributing to society, having an impact”, but could just as well be: develop new skills, meeting people, grow your rolodex, extend your portfolio, land a job in a different field, etc.

    • You are allowed to be a bit selfish here. After all: We are all just humans :slight_smile:

    • Remember: Knowing your rewards allows others to help you achieve them!

  • Where would you fit in the best? - What role fits you best, which skills do you want to display? E.g. ‘User experience design’, ‘quality assurance’, ‘graphics design’, ‘storytelling’, ‘social media marketing’. But can also be non-technical, domain skills in fields of: ‘healthcare’, ‘education’, ‘psychology’, ‘science’, etc.

  • When are you available? - You could indicate the time you think you may be able to spend, if you want, but also ‘I am unavailable in the weekends and on Wednesday’s’, etc.

  • What more do you need to get up to speed? - Mention the things not addressed in this post, that you require more information on.

I will format this as a template. Please be concise and to the point in your answers.


With this - a big read - I hope I have satisfied your need for more information for now.

Yours truly,

Arnold Schrijver
Community facilitator.

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Super @borja! There is no limit to the number of people that can get involved. There is no ‘too many’… we’ll just divide and conquer. Can we sign you up then, to help a hand here and there (note: you can click the poll to reflect that)?

PS. Regarding location. There is alread a Location field in your profile and I added a Timezone and Github field yesterday. See for more information the 2nd post in: Community position statement, contribution guidelines, forum improvements

Participants will be mentioned by username in the respective campaign documents, and we can add a location/timezone there, to have it all in easy view in one list.

Hi, I can contribute on the first video script, ideas and maybe storyboard…
according to me, the main concern is how to avoid cliches about these kind of videos where someone tells you to be afraid of something. The video should flow as natural as possible, without underlying the bad points of the whole situation too much. I will think about it.

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Yess. Welcome on board @micheleminno! Agree with your views. We’ve some creative brainstorming to do :slight_smile:

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Hi there!
I would love to participate in any way possible! Just let me know what’s needed! I’m also in Europe @borja

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Fantastic! You are in. Thank you! We’ll discuss in separate topic(s) and in due time where help is needed.

Hi @Celine

Great to have you here! Things are still in a bit of flux, but this could not be a most opportune time for you to join in. Not sure if you are familiar with Github, the easiest way to immediately get involved is commenting on outstanding issues (see the Issues tab).

We have a couple of exciting projects, which your views will be invaluable shaping up.

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Please count me in as well. This is just the kind of effort I’ve been hoping to get involved in - thanks for the opportunity.

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Hi @khkey

Great to have you here. Please see earlier message to Celine just above on how to get on Github.

You are most welcome, Karen! Nice to have you :slight_smile:

Consider me in. I would like to use my internet nickname instead of my real name. The attached Screenplay should make it clear why I elect to do this. I have read many CHT threads and understand its mission. Here, in this thread, we go further than the theoretical; we actively create solutions by storytelling and creating related websites and technologies that advance the CHT’s overall goals. The following is my contribution which I hope will spark the imagination and inspiration of all who join this thread. http://airofusion.com/screenplay Enjoy!

Being anonymous is no problem, @Hex, you username suffices, unless you want to be attributed on your full name.

I would love to be involved, particularly in the awareness campaigns. Writing, presenting, posting, marketing, whatever may be needed. Thanks!

Great @Hex !

The idea propose more than a single video project, so if you have some concepts to suggest, please go right ahead.

Hi @kentbraz

Great to have you on board. You can start right away by commenting on the few issues on the repository, or create new ones to discuss any other subject.

Just for easy reference, the link to the awareness Github repository is https://github.com/humanetech-community/humanetech-community-awareness

Sign up on Github (takes a minute) and get to contribute immediately by sharing your views and comments in the “Issues” tab. See you there!

@aschrijver added GitHub to the forum navbar. 45%20PM

Indeed. Thanks @patm I had no idea…

@aschrijver surprises us time and again. He is the best :sunny:

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