Hugs and thanks to Lindsay Oliver and the Kenya Red Cross team for their contributions to this entry.
On November 15th, I helped facilitate the Red Cross Crescent Climate Center’s HeatHack 2014, a gathering of amazing people to collaborate on solutions to climate-related challenges. This event focused on the risks and impacts of heatwaves, and how to provide community care and safety nets for at-risk people during extreme weather episodes.
In case you wonder what a hackathon is:
A hackathon is a gathering of diverse people who form teams to work on addressing challenges over a short period of time. These challenges can be technical, physical, resource-based, or even social. During HeatHack, participants learned about heatwave challenges from climate experts and people who have experienced heatwaves firsthand. Teams formed around potential ways to address these challenges, and worked together to come up with solutions to present to the judges. Prizes were awarded based on innovation, documentation, usability, and inclusiveness.
Why “HeatHack”?
Heatwaves can cause power outages, wildfires during a drought, buckling and melting roads, burst water lines, and serious health effects such as severe sunburn, heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and death.
According to NASA, when the temperature hits 95*F (35*C) your ability to function drops by 45%. Your loss of accuracy is 700%.
MPR News reports that body temperature can rise to 105*F (40.6*C) if working outside in a heatwave. Death occurs usually when a body temperature reaches 107.6*F (42*C).
Despite the severity of heatwaves, the health risks often go unnoticed because the people most affected are easily overlooked in a large population, especially if they are poor. We need to create ways of responding to these challenges to care for people who are currently at risk and to prepare for future heatwaves. As the effects of climate change become more severe, the number, length, and temperature of heatwaves will increase – including in Nairobi! Climate change affects the entire globe, and Kenya can lead the way in creating solutions that help as many people worldwide as possible. Continue reading →
I met this guy named Pablo Suarez in a pub in Boston, when our mutual friend John Crowley insisted I leave my introvert-hole. When John insists, I tend to listen. And as always, it was totally worth it. Pablo plays games. As a climate scientist, he got tired of people falling asleep in meetings. He was aware of the direness of the situation, but no one else felt the same urgency. So he started expressing probability and costs and delays through dice, and beans, and objectives. He’s played these games with people who live in disaster-prone areas on through people at the UN who make policy about resource allocation. He’s created actual, connected change through an entire system. We’ve since embarked upon a few event adventures together, and I’m glad to call him friend and cohort.
My experience with KRCS
And so I met this guy named Dr James Kisia, when Pablo suggested I take a gig at the Kenyan Red Cross. In a continuing trend, when Pablo suggests things, I tend to listen. James has become well known as an innovator in the NGO/innovation space. As an example, reframing the understanding and practice of social entrepreneurship in resource-poor settings. Exploring sustainable resource mobilization for an organization whose relevance in disaster-prone Kenya is increasingly becoming apparent. The KRCS runs 3 hotels in Kenya, taking advantage of the fact that conferencing is a major business in Kenya, and in Nairobi particularly. It might seem paradoxical, having a five star facility on the campus of the a humanitarian organization, but the money the hotels make is ploughed back into the humanitarian work of the organization — including non-funded sudden onset disasters.
Based entirely on good faith, shoe strings, and a few well-placed calls, James and I embarked upon a trust fall with each other, based entirely on Pablo’s word. The Web of Trust in real life. I arrived to Nairobi for 4 weeks of work with little guidance beyond to lay groundwork for a Dadaab-focused intern or contractor, as specific to what would be applicable to climate change issues as well. Continue reading →
Early this year, yet another friend of mine up and died. There was of course a mess of things that had to be figured out. It wasn’t just the traditional things of cleaning out her house (I wasn’t around for that part) or figuring out the funeral (Viking in variety). It was new and interesting technical and moral turmoil of getting into her hard drive, questions of “should we even?”- her prolific music and authoring contributions rivaled by her extreme privacy. It was seeking the edges of her far-flung pockets of internet community to notify them personally, racing the deluge of social media notifications, not wanting them to find out about her the same way I found out aboutmy grandmother – before the familial phone tree had reached me, a peripheral friend calling me based on a facebook post from my sister. A morbid seismic wave.
While I don’t have any control over how others plan for (or don’t) their demise, I have a say over my own. I can show my care for people dear to me my own compulsive, facilitating way by being sure they find each other as they find out, and in making sure information and knowledge I have to offer continues to be released under open access, even if I’m not there to do it. From doing humanitarian and disaster response (and just a general “awareness of the abyss,” as my mother used to tell my vast and angry younger self), I have had to face the looming possibility of my own death head-on. The networked reality that brought those strange new questions and moral quandaries for my friends’ deaths can instead be used to carry forward care and knowledge. This is a sort of guide for the bits of postmortem planning the internet and most lawyers have missed. It’s not complete – I’ve run into some interesting blocks and quirks, around which I’m eager to collaborate with others.
It’s called NetworkedMortality, and it needs your help with continuing to build it out. It includes some methods of Shared Secret for passwords, storing instructions in password vaults, and mailing lists for notifications of far-flung internet social groups. But it still needs to be fleshed out around how to best shut down accounts while archiving meta data for posterity and research, how to donate a body to open access science, and more diverity in threat and failure models.
In loving memory of my crypto-loving, open-access enthusiast, and occasionally suicidal friends. We will build more open worlds with our corpses. I just wish you would have held off for more unavoidable causes.
Early this year, yet another friend of mine up and died. There was of course a mess of things that had to be figured out. It wasn’t just the traditional things of cleaning out her house (I wasn’t around for that part) or figuring out the funeral (Viking in variety). It was new and interesting technical and moral turmoil of getting into her hard drive, questions of “should we even?”- her prolific music and authoring contributions rivaled by her extreme privacy. It was seeking the edges of her far-flung pockets of internet community to notify them personally, racing the deluge of social media notifications, not wanting them to find out about her the same way I found out about my grandmother – before the familial phone tree had reached me, a peripheral friend calling me based on a facebook post from my sister. A morbid seismic wave.
While I don’t have any control over how others plan for (or don’t) their demise, I have a say over my own. I can show my care for people dear to me my own compulsive, facilitating way by being sure they find each other as they find out, and in making sure information and knowledge I have to offer continues to be released under open access, even if I’m not there to do it. From doing humanitarian and disaster response (and just a general “awareness of the abyss,” as my mother used to tell my vast and angry younger self), I have had to face the looming possibility of my own death head-on. The networked reality that brought those strange new questions and moral quandaries for my friends’ deaths can instead be used to carry forward care and knowledge. This is a sort of guide for the bits of postmortem planning the internet and most lawyers have missed. It’s not complete – I’ve run into some interesting blocks and quirks, around which I’m eager to collaborate with others.
This post is less about things like wills (what happens to material possessions, who doles it out, and the like) and living wills (if you want to be kept on life support etc) – although I’ve added the templates I used to the wiki associated with this post as it includes digital artifacts and more awareness of gendered pronouns than other bits of the internet. This write-up focuses on specific aspects for Open Access and encryption enthusiasts. Brace yourselves for a morbid entry. Know I’m peachy keen, and being an adult about things, not in danger of harming myself or others. If youare in danger of harming yourself, please say as such directly, and get help, rather than indirectly through things like estate planning. It should be possible to speak about death without fear – that’s what I’m doing here. I hope you can hear it (and act) from a similar place.
I’ve divided components up into documents, accounts, notifications, and people. Documents are centralized with accounts, which are propagated via notifications to people, as triggered by a notification from a person. This means I only have to worry about keeping something up to date in one place — a change to a will or to a website password simply happens in the place of storage, without needing to notify everyone involved. As people become close to me, or exhibit destructive behavior, they can be added or removed from the notification pool. The notification mechanism is the one thing that has to remain consistent in this set up. Continue reading →
I’ve had a few people over the past few weeks make a special point of pointing out how (overly) productive I am. And because part of the way I do things is doing them in public, I figured I’d put together an overview of how I work for The Internets. Much of it is not healthy – I battle with temporal compulsiveness in a way I can only imagine is similar to the exerted control over diets those dealing with eating disorders display. So this is a less a “how to be productive if you find yourself uninspired” and more a “how to funnel your anxieties towards good use.”
This is actively not a way to interact with people you’re Not Working With. This is a constant battle with me, as it’s easiest for me to interact with people around projects. But that’s not fair to people I care about AND work with. It might not even be a way to interact with people you are working with. I’ve tried to have that tension/disfunction show through in this post – the same things that make me really good at productivity are what also make me have unreasonable expectations of carbon-based life forms.
Some of the following advice also has to do with deceiving yourself or other people, primarily about timelines, in exchange for projects being delivered on time. Every person is different – it’s important to ascertain if someone can self-regulate on time and deliverables, or if they need to be managed and reminded. It’s ideal if you can have a frank conversation with someone about this – but I’ve had this go both splendidly (“I’ve got this” or “Yes, please pad my time”) or horribly (“you lied to me? How dare you” (while still delivering late)). YMMV. Informed consent is important. Continue reading →
The Bank booked my tickets for me (yay no financial overhead!.. but–) with an 11-hour layover at LHR. So I popped on the Heathrow Express to Paddington. I’m sitting in a Starbucks, of all places. They’re playing Morrisey. It’s pretty awful, but it’s also a holiday and everything else around here was closed. I was meant to have been back in Boston for the past week, after a long stint of travel, but things got extended by a continent, so here I am.
Cascadia.JS
I gave a keynote at Cascadia.JS, and the event and its people were absolutely wonderful. Even played some pinball with Case (oh, PS, we’re throwing a CyborgCamp at MIT in October and you should come). I was soooo stressed when I gave this talk. Not from the talk itself – this community is lovely! I even wrote about it on the Civic blog – but because of the things surrounding this entry. When I watched the video later, it’s actually pretty alright. They gave me a full 30 minutes, and I wish I had padded it with more information. C’est la vie. Huge huge hugs to Ben and Tracy and the rest of the crew. You made a rough time easier through your care.
The drawings I did for other people’s talks are all here.
Wikimania
This was my first Wikimania, and it was stunning. So so much fun. Many things to think about, frustrations in new light, conversations over cider, and even more stick figures. And! Some lovely person taught me how to upload my drawings to the commons, and so now I’ll be hosting from there instead of from Flickr. Got to spend too-short time with Laurie (who I’ll see more of in Boston! Yay!), AND found out about Yaneer’s work on networked individuals and complex systems which rings closer to true in my intuition than most anything else I’ve run across recently.
Getting to know a neighborhood in London that I actually like, with art in the alleys and a bike repair and tailoring shop with a pub and wifi while you wait that is totally hipster gentrification and I so don’t care. And a strange moment in a Bombay-style restaurant of a half-recognized face, that ends up being the brother of the heart-based Seattle ex-Partner. We hug fiercely (as is the way of his family, and mine), until his manager gets angry. We laugh and promise to catch up.
Thence to Future Perfect, through the too-early fog of morning, and a panic attack, and dear Sam handling the accompanying compulsive need to stick to The Plan, even if it did not make the most sense, with the sort of calm curiosity and fondness which is exactly what is needed in those moments, and jogging through far away airports to finally arrive at our not-even-yet-boarding gate.
Future Perfect
A short flight (slept through) and a longer ferry ride (also slept through) through the archipeligos of Sweden, and Sam and I are on the island of Grinda for Future Perfect. We’re here at the behest of one Dougald Hine, long-time mirror-world not-quite-yet-cohort, to be Temporary Faculty at the festival, and to “difficultate.” It’s a strange thing, to be encouraged to ask the hard questions, and Ella and I are a bit adrift in the new legitimacy of our usual subversive action. “Ella, I think we’ve just been made legible.” “Shit. Quick, act polite!” But there’s an awfully strong thread of Libertarianism and Profiteering From The Future, so it’s not a difficult thing to ask stir-up questions. I sit on a panel called When Women Run the World, and mock the title, and question the assumption of binary sex, and point out matrixes of power. I draw as people talk, and post the print-outs to a large board for all to see, a strange combination of digital and analogue. Another panel I’m pulled onto I advocate for inclusion and codesign on the basis of values – not everyone bites. So then, pulling from Yaneer’s work, I point out that hierarchies fail at the capacity of any individual, whereas examined networks can scale in complexity. They nod. I grit teeth.
We also meet Bembo and Troja Scenkonst and Billy Bottle and Anna and the Prince of the Festival Lucas, and see old friends Ben and Christopher and Smari. We walk through the cow and sheep pasture as a shortcut from breakfast to festival, avoiding dirty boots and communicating via body language to over protective rams. I jump into the half-salt water of the archipelagos after a long sauna stint, and we drink sweet Swedish cider, and we sing Flanders and Swann across our joined repertoires. Ed gives me access to his audio book library, and I’m high on dopamine and scifi for hours to come. Our tiny temporary faculty crew sleeps in adjacent cabins, keeping the floors swept and porches clean.
And another early flight, stomach dropping as the pre-booked taxi service couldn’t find us and didn’t speak English (and Sam doesn’t hold Swedish in his repository of languages), no Ubers showing up on the app as they had the previous night, and finally finding a taxi app that would generate our location and sent a lovely driver for us. Getting to the airport, again, in time, with an uncertainty of how to part ways from this other human-shaped being who moves at high velocities, having been caught up in each other’s orbits for a short period of time, still texting threads and punctuation past gates.
Dar
And then I went back to Dar. And I realize in writing this how worn down my travel-muscle is, exhausted to the core. Less able to appreciate the beauty of a second wrecked ship on a calm sandy beach, unable to see the trying and hurt at the core of some of the people we hear speak. I am frustrated that the workshop I have been flown here to participate in has people reading verbatim from slides, that at the core of this workshop are not the people who are the most marginalized. I am brief, and I am blunt, and I do not show the same care that I expect to be shown to everyone. I become even more blunt with those who are unkind to others, a sort of brute force function into civility, and I and others know it will not work.
But some of the workshop has us figuring out hairy problems like reducing the 16-digit identifier for water points to locally useful and uniquely identifiable phrases for the database lookup table. I listen while the People Who Decide These Things think their servers won’t have the troubles other servers have. And some sections have people talking about appropriate technology and inclusion. It is productive, though differently than I’m used to.
I exchange a quiet conversation in the front of a taxi that waited for us at a restaurant, a practice which I hate, on the long journey home. The driver having not said more than a word or two at a time at first, now sharing anger about high taxes and now visible payout. The roads are paid for by other countries, the buildings, the power grid… where are his tax dollars going? We talk about schools, and his sister, and about how he has no way to speak.
We work with the Dar Taarifa team, who are unfolding and learning to push back, hours into github and strange google searches and odd places to encourage and odder places to encourage disagreement. We pause for translations, and I try to bow out so they’ll operate at full speed in Swahili, rather than moving slower so that I might understand.
Morgan’s research is pretty boss, and Barton did a great job writing.
It looks like I’m going to be in Kenya in parts of October and November playing games around climate change.
This post is apparently in the memory of LJ.
We’re thrilled to announce our first white paper, inspired by the Engine Room’s Responsible Data Forum in Oakland months ago, and with interviews with Heather, Sara, Max, and Lisha!
Responsible Humanitarian And Disaster Response Project Cycles : Embed a “kill date” on your PLATFORM. If people are using that platform, this becomes a part of the community and culture. Alternatively, create a set of stages for the platform. For example, a crisis platform could have the following stages: initial situation awareness, crisis response, early recovery, recovery, and handover. Each of these stages have different information needs and different/progressively more restrictive rules that can be applied. Stages can have expected transition dates relative to each and informed by the unique situation needs. The most important lesson to learn is that there is no easy mandate. Each event will change the needs/time required to complete tasks, and is informed by engaging and communicating with all portions of the community (mappers, in-field deployments, affected populations, etc.).
Mariel (@faeriedevilish) provided this translation, for which we are immensely grateful.
Un panel en la conferencia de Medios Cívicos de MIT y Knight trató sobre la segunda oportunidad de la open web (red abierta), y los problemas a los que nos enfrentamos con el crecimiento de este movimiento. Los panelistas fueron Mark Surman, Director Ejecutivo de la Fundación Mozilla, y Seamus Kraft, Director Ejecutivo de la OpenGov Foundation. Mark comenzó con la historia de la open web, cómo nació Mozilla en 1997 y dónde ve el movimiento hoy. Luego la conversación se dirigió a Seamus, quien hizo su primer login hace 17 años cuando Mozilla fue fundado.
Seamus entró a Internet al final de los noventa por dos razones principales. No como activista, o como desarrollador, sino como un adolescente joven interesado en intercambiar grabaciones en vivo de conciertos de Grateful Dead y Phish… y en conocer y chatear con su género preferido en el Mensajero Instantáneo de AOL. Nos saltamos al día de hoy: Seamus comenzó a luchar por la open web en 2011 cuando, como trabajador (conservador) del Congreso, vio la amenaza de SOPA y PIPA, entonces leyes inminentes, en contra de la Internet que él había aprendido a amar durante varios años. Él es alguien enamorado con lo que Internet le ha permitido hacer, intercambiando música y conocimiento, y conectándose con otros… y ha dedicado su vida a protegerla. Una historia bella – en general, necesitamos más activistas, y, entre más diversos seamos en nuestros orígenes, tendremos más vectores para comprender las problemáticas. Así que fue genial que llegara a hablar de este ideal compartido a una conferencia que es diversa en algunas maneras pero no en otras. Esto me encanta – nuestras ideas adquieren una mayor dimensión cuando se sostienen bajo objetos y fuentes distintos a los que estamos acostumbrados a ver.
Pero la historia del descubrimiento que Seamus hizo de la web no fue contada así. La frase “conectarse para conseguir chicas” se repitió varias veces en en panel. La indignación empezó a hervir en conversaciones paralelas, y luego se convirtió en enojo. Cuando Seamus bajó del escenario, él vio la tormenta en Twitter, entró en shock y terror ante la interpretación, y pasó el resto del día reconociendo su error y ofreciendo disculpas personalmente en Twitter… desde lejos de la conferencia. Yo habría hecho lo mismo. Estoy sorprendida y honrada de que regresó al día siguiente, y más aún de que está dispuesto a escribir esto conmigo.
Seamus dice:
“Cuando me senté fuera de la conferencia a leer cada tuit y comentario, caí en cuenta de cómo mi lenguaje no incluyente había hecho sentir mal a personas, fue como sentir un golpe en el estómago… dado por mí mismo. Fue brutal, abrasador y vergonzoso a la vez. ¿Cómo pude haber sido tan ciego con mi lenguaje? ¿Me había convertido en el chico tecnólogo idiota? Debí haber sabido desde antes, y usar el lenguaje que celebramos como activistas de la open web, en vez del que encontramos en los rincones más oscuros de la Internet. Al leer el hashtag de la conferencia y los tuits dirigidos a mí, sentí que había insultado de manera irreparable a todas las personas que ahí estaban, a todos quienes veían el webcast y a todas las personas que luchan por el Internet abierto.”
“Al contar la historia de cómo me conecté como adolescente, me permití usar el lenguaje de un adolescente. Y al tratar de compartir mi pasión por el creciente movimiento open web, logré precisamente lo contrario. Regresar a la conferencia al día siguiente fue una de las cosas más difíciles que he hecho, pero también estoy agradecido por todas las personas amables e increíbles que dejaron a un lado su enojo justificado, se sentaron conmigo, y literalmente me ayudaron a convertirme en una persona más fuerte, más consciente y –espero– lingüísticamente más incluyente. Me dieron otra oportunidad, una lección de oportunidad y unos abrazos muy necesarios que nunca, nunca voy a olvidar.”
Ahora Willow, en un ejercicio de empatía:
Me recuerda una vez que estuve en Nueva Orleans, tratando de decir que no era una experta – que la gente que vive en la zona es experta en su propia experiencia. Dije: “Claramente, no soy de aquí. Véanme”, como tratando de decir que vieran qué tan quemada por el sol estaba, pues no paso mucho tiempo afuera, y no sé cuidarme cuando lo hago. Pero imaginen cómo fue percibido, y cómo supe inmediatamente que fue percibido. Me mortificó. Lo mejor que se me ocurrió en ese momento fue enrojecerme más y decir: “Bueno, eso sonó mal”.
Pero nadie me dijo nada. No hubo discusión. Y creo que eso es peor. Lo que tenemos en este momento de la conferencia de Medios Cívicos es una oportunidad para aprender y enseñar.
Estoy más inconforme con la reacción de mi comunidad al hecho que con los comentarios de Seamus. Los comentarios fueron inconscientes y torpes, sí. Está bien (y es necesario, diría yo) poner en evidencia esas cosas. Honestamente, creo que si hubiera estado hablando directamente con el público (no en un panel), habría visto esa respuesta inmediatamente. Me molesta que el otro panelista y el moderador no hablaron del tema con tacto cuando sucedió. De hecho, podrían haberlo condonado, o incluso amplificado. Me molesta que una comunidad que se considera abierta llegó al frenesí con comentarios de cierto tipo – y de haber sido culpable de ellos yo también.
Uhhh. Alguien que trabaja en gobierno abierto para “conseguir chicas”. CLARO que suena como algo en lo que estaría cómoda participando. #civicmedia
Es un gran momento para aprender – y no sólo para Seamus. Ésta es la pregunta: Si alguien con buenas intenciones usa lenguaje que causa una reacción de una comunidad cuyas normas aún no se han diseminado, ¿Cómo puede informársele de tal manera que asuma su buena fe y alianza? No sé de ninguna disciplina o acercamiento (incluyendo el feminismo) donde piense que “no regreses hasta que estés a nuestro nivel” es una respuesta apropiada para personas que lo intentan aunque caigan. Especialmente, dadas las intersecciones, y que los valores feministas llegan a nuevos terrenos (¡yuju!) y las personas en ellos no comprenden esos matices aún. ¿Cómo podrían hacerlo?
Me recuerda cómo entrené ballet y gimnasia durante casi una década, y aun así tenía un equilibrio pésimo. No tenía músculos estabilizadores porque, si un movimiento no era perfecto, tenía que rendirme. Con el parkour, practiqué para lograr quedarme sobre una superficie sin importar los movimientos de brazos que fueran necesarios. Las imperfecciones de mantenerse en pie eran más importantes que la perfección de la forma. Y la cosa es que, con este entrenamiento, gané suficiente control muscular para empezar a lograr todo de manera casi perfecta.
Ser un aliadx es DIFÍCIL. Para mí, lo más importante no es nunca equivocarse… lo cual me parece imposible. Incluso los lingüísticamente más precisos cambian de contextos (de manera intencional o a través de colapso de contextos). Lo importante es regresar a una conversación después de un mal paso. Y depende de mí, la persona con quien se alió alguien, asegurar que es seguro tener esas conversaciones después de un error cuando pienso que serán útiles (y tengo los recursos para tenerlas, etc etc). No estoy sugiriendo ni remotamente que no hay que enojarse por algo que es horrible, pues el enojo es por supuesto una emoción humana con mérito, etc. Pero después del enojo… ¿Entonces qué?
Si el punto es la comprensión, y el respeto y la igualdad que vienen de esa comprensión, eso significa que aprendizaje. Y aunque hay excelentes recursos sobre feminismo, igualdad, comportamiento, etc, asumo que todos sabemos que hay una diferencia entre leer un libro sobre cómo hacer algo y hacerlo. Aunque no se trata necesariamente de que nosotras (las mujeres) le enseñemos a los hombres qué pasa, la gente tiene que aprender en algún lado. Si los hombres quieren aprender, y nosotras (las de tipo femenino) no enseñamos, ellos van a aprender de otros hombres. Lo cual está genial, pero quiero estar abierta a preguntas y revisiones (“¿Lo estamos haciendo bien?”) porque sabemos que la cámara al vacío no ha funcionado bien hasta ahora. Y este tipo de intercambios conllevan errores. Y tenemos que saber cómo lidiar con ellos de tal manera que se promueva el crecimiento de la otra persona en el proceso. De eso se trata el aprendizaje. Es mi elección si quiero formar parte de esas conversaciones, pero aquí defiendo que vale la pena y es una responsabilidad hacerlo (aunque no una obligación).
¿Entonces cómo lo hacemos? ¿Cómo podemos decir estas cosas de manera que no puedan ser ignoradas y que se pueda retomar rápidamente (o mostrar que no lo será)? ¿Cómo te gusta que se muestre tus errores sociales? En mi caso, me gustaría que la gente me dijera “¡HEY! ¿En serio?” en el momento, asumiendo buena fe. Yo dejaría todo a un lado para tener esa conversación, o guardarla para más adelante, dependiendo en el nivel de urgencia y transgresión.
Seamus dice:
“En retrospectiva, me habría encantado que se pusiera en evidencia el lenguaje del panel mientras estábamos en el escenario; y, como consecuencia, la oportunidad de tener esa conversación y ajustar en tiempo real. Un “Disculpa, ¿Pero podrías ampliar sobre tu último comentario? Suena un poco sexista” me habría hecho rectificar instantáneamente, así como lo habría hecho la habilidad de poder ver la acción en el hashtag de la conferencia mientras estábamos en frente.
No sé exactamente cómo podemos traducir a la vida real la respuesta lingüística inmediata que se vuelve posible con la open web y las redes sociales. Pero creo que sí es posible. Para mí, la definición de “aliadx” debería incluir la confianza en nuestra comunidad para poner en evidencia el lenguaje no incluyente desde el público, asegurarse de que la gente en el escenario de verdad escucha y entiende, y ayudar a la persona que se equivoca –como yo lo hice– a rectificar sus palabras erróneas y fortalecerse a partir de una experiencia que puede ser dolorosa de una manera positiva para todas las personas involucradas.”
A panel at the MIT-Knight Civic Media conference was about the Open Web’s Second Chance, and the problems we are facing with growing the open web movement. The panelists were Mark Surman, Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation and Seamus Kraft, Executive Director of The OpenGov Foundation. Mark kicked things off with the story of the open web, how Mozilla was born in 1997 and where he sees the movement today. Then the conversation turned to Seamus, who was first logging online 17 years ago when Mozilla was founded.
Seamus first went on the Internet in the late ’90’s for two main reasons. Not as an activist, or as a software developer, but as a young teenage boy both hoping to trade live Grateful Dead and Phish concert recordings…and looking to meet and chat up his preferred gender on AOL Instant Messenger. Fast forward to today: Seamus became a fighter for the open web in 2011 when he, as a conservative Congressional staffer, saw the impending SOPA and PIPA laws threatening the everyday Internet he had grown to love over the intervening years. He is someone who dearly loves what the Internet has enabled him to do, exchanging music and knowledge, and connecting with others…and he has dedicated his life to protecting it. A beautiful story – we need more activists generally, and the more diverse we are in our origins the more vectors we can understand these issues along. So it was pretty rad that he showed up to a conference that is diverse in some ways but not in others to talk about this shared ideal. I love this – it gives us more dimensionality to our ideas when they hold up under different objectives and sources as well as the ones we’re more used to.
But Seamus’ story of discovering the web wasn’t told that way. The phrase “going online to get girls” kept cropping up during the panel discussion. Indignation bubbled up on the back channel, and then turned into outrage. When Seamus left the stage, he saw the Twitter Storm, was shocked and aghast at the interpretation, and spent the rest of the day owning up to his mistake and personally apologizing on Twitter…all far away from the conference. I would have done the same. I am amazed and honored that he returned the next day, and even more so that he’s willing to write this with me.
Seamus here:
“As I sat outside the conference, reading every single Tweet and comment, and soaking in how my non-inclusive language made people feel, it was like getting punched in the stomach…by myself. It was brutal, searing and embarrassing, all at once. How could I be so blind with my language? Had I actually become the Idiot Tech Guy? I should have known better, and used the language we celebrate as open web activists, instead of what you’ll too often find in the darker corners of the Internet. Reading the civic media hashtag and all the tweets directed at me, I felt like I had irreparably insulted everyone in the room, everyone watching the webcast and everyone fighting for the open Internet.”
“In telling the story of how I logged on as a young teenage boy, I had allowed myself to use the language of a young teenage boy. And in trying to share my passion for growing the open web movement, I had accomplished precisely the opposite. Showing up the next day was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I am so thankful for the kind and amazing people who put aside their justifiable anger, sat down with me on the conference sidelines, and literally helped me become a stronger, more aware and – I pray – more linguistically inclusive person moving forward. You gave me another chance, a lesson in humility, and some sorely needed hugs that I will never, ever forget.”
Now Willow here, with an exercise in empathy:
I’m reminded of being in New Orleans, and trying to make a point about NOT being an expert – the people who live in the area are experts in their own experience. I said “I’m clearly not from around here, look at me.” As in look at how sunburned I am, I don’t spend time outside or know how to take care of myself when I do. But guess how it was perceived, and how I immediately knew it must have been perceived. I was mortified. The best I could think to do in that moment was turn even redder and say “well, that came out wrong.”
But no one called me out. There was no discussion. And that, I think, sucks even more. What we have in this moment from the Civic Media conference is a chance to learn and teach.
I was more upset about how my community reacted to this than I am at Seamus’ comments. The comments were unwitting, and bumbling, yes. It’s good (I would argue necessary) to call those things out. I honestly feel that if he’d been speaking directly to the audience (not on a panel) he would have seen that immediate feedback from the audience. I’m upset the other panelist and the moderator didn’t call him out on it, gracefully, in the moment. In fact, they may have cued, or at least amplified, it. And I am upset that a community that considers itself open worked itself into a frenzy over such comments — and that I was a part of that.
Uhhh. Someone working on open gov to “get girls.” TOTALLY sounds like something I’d be comfortable participating in. #civicmedia
This is an amazing moment to learn – and certainly not just for Seamus. Here’s the question: If someone well-meaning uses language that triggers response from a community whose norms are not yet widespread, how can we inform them in a way that assumes their good faith and alliance? I don’t know of any discipline or approach (including feminism) where I think “don’t come back until you can meet us at our level” is an appropriate response to people who are trying but might stumble. Especially given intersectionality, and that as feminist values start showing up in new arenas (yay!) the people already there don’t understand those nuances yet. How could they?
I’m reminded of how I trained ballet and gymnastics for the better part of a decade and yet had terrible balance. I had no stabilizing muscles because if a movement wasn’t perfect, I was supposed to bail. With parkour, I practiced to fight to stay on a ledge, by whatever wiggling and arm-waving necessary. The imperfections of maintaining footing trumped perfection of form. The thing was, in doing this, I gained enough minor muscle control to start landing things near-perfectly.
Being an ally is HARD. To me, the important thing is not never messing…which I see as impossible. Even the most linguistically precise shift contexts (intentionally or through context collapse). The important thing is returning to a conversation after a misstep. And it’s on me, as the one being allied with, to make it safe to have those post messup-talks when I think they’ll be useful (and I have the bandwidth, and etc etc). I’m not remotely suggesting not to get mad about something that is horrible, as anger is of course merited a human emotion etc etc. But after anger… then what?
If the point is the understanding, and the respect and equality that comes of that understanding, that means learning. And while there are some great resources out there on feminism, equality, behavior, etc, I assume we all know that there’s a difference between reading a book on how to do something and doing it. While it’s not necessarily on us (women) to teach men what’s going on, people are going to have to learn somewhere. If it’s up to men to learn, and we’re (feminine types) not the ones teaching, it’s probably going to be other men. Which is awesome, but I want to be open to questions and check-ins – “are we doing this right?” because we know the vacuum chamber hasn’t exactly worked out well so far. And this sort of exchange means there will be faux-pas. And we need to know how to handle those in a way that encourages the growth of the other person in the process. That is what learning is, after all. It is my prerogative if I want to be a part of those conversations, but I am advocating here that it is worth it and a responsibility, but not an obligation.
So how do we do this? How do we call out information in a way that it cannot be ignored which can be quickly addressed or shown that it won’t be? How do you like to have your social faux-pas pointed out? For me, I’d like people to say “HEY! Seriously?” in the moment, assuming good faith, and I’ll either drop everything for that conversation, or sidebar it for later, depending on level of urgency and transgression.
Seamus here:
“Looking back, I would have loved to have had the panel’s language called out while we were still on stage; and as a result, the opportunity to engage in a meaningful conversation and adjust was was being said in real time. An ‘Excuse me, but could you elaborate on that last comment? It comes across as rather sexist.’ would have instantly set me straight, as would the ability to have seen the action on the conference hashtag while we were in front of the room.
“I’m not sure exactly how we can translate into real life the instant linguistic feedback loops made possible by the open web and social media. But I do believe it’s possible. To me, the definition of ‘ally’ should include having the confidence within our community to call out non-inclusive language from the audience, ensure those on stage truly listen and understand, and help the person who stepped in it – like I did – right their wrong words and grow stronger from what can be a positively painful experience for everyone involved.”
I was just heading back from a week in Dar es Salaam and Iringa District when a bunch of people I <3 filled up my inbox. “Have you seen this thing? Isn’t that what you’re in Tanzania for?” Yes. Which made me sigh, because all the updates about this deployment and the community development have been blogged at the Taarifa and GWOB websites. Sometimes it’s easiest to uphold the very vacuum chamber lamented, rather than do DuckDuckGo searches. Nor did the author reach out to the existing community before complaining about… the lack of community… which is amusing as those two things cover most of what the write-up is about.
But maybe I’m tired from travel. 11 hours in a car to catch a 7 hour flight that was delayed enough that I wrote this while standing in the Istanbul airport sorting out a new route to North America. And all I can think is, “is this blog entry worth my time?” But as it gets to a deeper crux, I’ll go for it. From the article, Everything Wrong in ICT4D Academia in One Research Paper:
Focusing on Westerners: The paper starts with a long detail about a Random Hacks of Kindness hackathon that was the start of the Taarifa software. Nice enough, but they spent 2 whole pages on it – almost 1/3 of the total report.
Focusing on Software Developers: They spend the next 2 pages of the report going into detail around Ushahidi developers and who did or didn’t commit code to github. Okay… interesting to a point, but do we really care about the standard deviation of commits per contributor
Forgetting about Community Members: Remember the title of the paper? Well exactly 1.3 pages of the report, less than 1/3 of the total, was spent talking about the actual community impact. You know, if crowd-sourced location based reporting can improve public service provision? And they didn’t even answer the question!
The three complaints in the write-up are spot on for trends in ICT4D as a whole, and indicative of some of the points that grate at my nerves as well. But these are not new points, especially in the GWOB+Taarifa overlap, nor does it start discussion around how to walk the fine line between tech imperialism and community involvement; discussions I agree are lacking in the field. It’s the same opening cry against tech solutionism. Which Nate and I did a whole site and presentation about recently. However, the going-for-the-face-without-looking-at-what-you’re-going-for manifest in the writeup is even more grating. The comments later show that it’s a sensationalist take on… the sensationalism of the paper’s title. And unless we’re getting into ICT4PoMo (please dear god no) I don’t see how it’s a useful rhetoric. This is a paper taken out of its highly-specific academic context and then critiqued for not being broad enough. It’s extremely short and very targeted. Of course it’s going to focus on the tech, because of the forum for which it was written. But none of that context comes forth in this critique. And if we’re going to get into the analysis-of-the-thing-as-the-thing, then the writeup is spot on, as it missed community involvement in the critique, and completely lacks context. But I digress.
The world is huge, and wonderful, and more complicated than I could ever hope to understand. Projects and people and contexts change. That’s what gives me hope in the world – that all the things that bring me tiny rage (from gender ratios to spirals of conflict to vast wealth differences) can, and will change, over time, so long as we pitch in. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: you are not at fault for where the world is right now. You are, however, responsible for making it suck less.
That the world is so complex and nuanced also means one of my favorite things is meeting people who work on making the world suck less in a way or on a topic that I have no hope of fully understanding. Because how could I possibly understand every angle on the myriad challenges we face? By all of us approaching from different angles, but together, we have better chances of making those improvements. When I have qualms with how someone has approached a topic, I speak up to them about it. I try to understand where things are misunderstood (remember this exchange with Patrick?). So, thanks to the author for doing that. Yes to speaking up, but in order to instigate healthy debate, for the betterment of the whole community. Because people and projects and the world change. The github repos of social good hackathons are paved with good intentions, but healthy debate within the community is based on good faith.
So, as in back in the old day of blogger rings and LiveJournal, what shall we talk about – with an assumption of moving into action – next? The community involvement in Dar es Salaam? How the Iringa District Community Owned Water Source Organizations are really excited about these “innovations,” and how they’re taking lead on it? The work that GWOB does around gender equality in the tech and response space? Or should we discuss how to ensure niche academic papers have easy links to other components of the continuation of those projects? Any extra support and enthusiasm thrown at online annotation platforms is a boon to not only situations like these, but also to the museum and open access communities. Hooray for building knowledge together!
