I'm Aaron and I'm running for a seat on the Code for America Brigade Network's National Advisory Council. Voting is open until February 9th at midnight PST. You can vote for me as the West region representative and for an At-large seat.
My experience
I’m a federal employee and software developer at 18F. I have lead project teams at Code for San Francisco and OpenOakland since 2014. I practice user-centered design and work with a variety of folks across the country including: designers, researchers, analysts, lawyers, officials, and government staff.
I’m a consensus builder and a mediator. I’ve been involved in several open source communities since 2008 and am well practiced in working with distributed teams, communication, and making progress as a collective group. I don’t always have the best idea but I know how to leverage a diverse team to make their thoughts a reality.
I listen to the needs and pain points of brigade members, citizens, and government staff. The brigades have taught us the value of user-centered design, open source software, open data, and iterative development. We can leverage these techniques to improve our brigade network.
Why I’m running
The NAC is still young and has kicked off many needed initiatives. It’s bit off a lot in the first year and hasn’t followed through on all of these initiatives. I’m an effective project leader who can focus these initiatives, recruit volunteers, and move the brigade network forward. Here are my three areas of focus:
- Effectively leverage the brigade network through efficient, remote communication channels
- Bring focus and engagement to the Brigade Action Teams
- Create playbooks that document best practices and help brigades step-by-step replicate each others’ successes
Effectively leverage the brigade network through efficient, remote communication channels
Brigades largely operate locally but the network is remote and distributed. There’s no replacement for face-to-face conversation like the annual Brigade Congress but most of the year we need to work effectively as a distributed network. I have the experience doing that through a variety of technologies and practices.
Slack, blogs, email, Google docs, video chat, social media, GitHub, and word of mouth are all communication channels I’ve seen used within the brigades. The NAC is not using them all effectively and is sometimes choosing the wrong one to get the message out. You shouldn’t have to know a Council member to know what the Council is up to or be able to participate. I have a few thoughts on how to improve this:
- Radical transparency* and open dialog. As much as possible, all conversation should be done in the open and organized in a way that is easy for recall and for participation.
- Make remote folks first-class citizens in live conversations. Video chat works best for this but when the number of participants grow or low bandwidth is an issue for some, text-based discussion is a fine alternative. I’ve seen many meetings run well over IRC.
- Extend participation beyond the event. Volunteers have all kinds of schedules. They need to be able to weigh in on conversations even if they cannot attend the event live.
* Obviously, some matters are never appropriate for discussion in public. Safety concerns or individual criticisms are best communicated one-on-one or in small groups and private settings.
I work on a distributed team every day and helped make our state-wide California Open Disclosure project inclusive of volunteers geographically located across the state. We can make the brigade network work well distributed.
Bring focus and engagement to the Brigade Action Teams
Volunteers are fundamental to the brigades. We need to leverage our volunteers effectively without burnout. I think the Brigade Action Teams are a great way to do that but the idea fizzled out in 2017. Originally, there were nine Brigade Action Teams which spread resources thinly across a number of areas.
I want to revive the BATs with a narrower, focused scope. Let’s focus on one or two based on the resources we have and figure out how to engage the brigades with them. The BATs aren’t an extension of the National Advisory Council, they are a congregation of the brigades.
Create playbooks that document best practices and help brigades step-by-step replicate each others’ successes
Playbooks provide you with strategies and resources for delivering mission success. We need to leverage the experiences of every individual brigade. Just because your brigade has been around the longest doesn’t mean your way of doing things is the most effective.
- How do you improve retention of your brigade’s attendance?
- What should every project have in order to be effective?
- How can you engage your local community and government?
I’m sure a lot of brigades have great ideas here. I want to capture these in a central place and lay out the details so anyone can follow step-by-step to replicate success. We can continuously test their efficacy and iteratively improve.
Questions?
Reach out to me, I’m @adborden on Twitter and the brigade Slacks and would love to hear from you.