Back to @andrewmurraydunn’s humane technologists piece.
As stated, the humane tech field is vast, new, and represents a mostly empty canvas that needs to be painted still. So I think it is okay to just provide the “frame” of the framework, and - instead of outright teaching others to be humane technologists - be more of a coach and mentor that inspires to paint this canvas together. We can provide direction, put things in proper context, but we don’t provide a ready-made, easy-to-consume package.
The curricula form the frame, which must be crowdsourced and gradually filled in with tools, methodologies and reference guides. It’ll never be finished.
The target audience are technologists plus the organizations where they operate. A bigger emphasis on targeting people at the start of their career or still studying, and organizations that already started walking the good path (i.e. with the right mindset), might be prudent.
They keyword is in empowerment, I think.
This also means that, rather than handing participants entry to our own existing relationship network, it might be better to instead learn them how to build their own network most effectively and tailored to their situation. The methodology might be set up such that as participants are doing so, they expand the aggregate network of the community so it become ever more of a unifying communication medium that connects otherwise fragmented initiatives. This different focus also does alleviate us from much effort we need to spend. We have delegated networkding, as it were, in a way where we stand to benefit from it too.
Similarly this goes for the courseware. If you look e.g. at Coursera courses, or what happens at basically any educational institution: Every student does the same courseware, repeating the tasks, creating more of less the same output. It determines their grades and is then discarded: In fact this means that the wheel is reinvented millions of times, and then not used to roll the cart!
(Note too, how many people are cutting corners here. Stackoverflow for instance is full of people asking homework questions. They are in it for the certificate, nothing more)
What if there were no fixed courseware? (heads up @m3me …interesting?) What if the education was an entirely creative process, where everyone is actively involved in evolving the field? Every participant could be involved with solving just some small pieces of the framework / curricula puzzle. The ones that are most dear to their heart. Part of the methodology should be that they create the follow-up questions and open issues that participant can work on to keep the ball rolling. In other words:
The education track EQUALS the crowdsourcing process.
I think with the above an entirely different approach emerges. One where the focus is much more on culture (fostering philosophical aspects mentioned above), facilitation and offering the tools for that, rather than being the teacher (or even the inspirational community leader).
In summary on educational tasks set to others:
- Ensure all has practical use, nothing gets lost (building blocks)
- Should contribute to crowdsourced base (the “frame”)
- Maximize participatory incentives (the rewards)
- Involve teachers, educational institutions, other direct stakeholders
Update: The incentives should aim to fix the “barrier to action” problem, and tools / methodology the “modern-day ADD” (at least the part where sensory & information overload causes it).