Brigade Action Team (BAT) Report
CODE FOR AMERICA BRIGADE NETWORK
Drafted on: May 31, 2018.
Drafted by: Ramy Kim (OpenOakland), Carl V. Lewis (Open Savannah)
Table of Contents | |
---|---|
INTRODUCTION | 1 |
Defining the terms | 2 |
Background | 3 |
Framing this work | 4 |
1 Introduction
2 The IDEA Framework: An Explication
The four building blocks –– and what each building block signifies in a world increasingly mediated by technology, design, and usability
The IDEA Framework is geared to civic-tech communities of practice and place – called ‘Brigades’ in Code for America parlance – includes four overarching patterns that civic technology, media, and design organizational leaders should follow as a core part of their day-to-day mission for improving society, not as an afterthought. The four components of the IDEA Framework include: inclusion, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Although these four terms have overlap in meaning, each represents a distinctive idea and vision for compensating for systemic inequity from broader civil society.
In a manner not entirely dissimilar to other frameworks already widely-adopted in the social sector, this guide focuses on the distinct yet nonetheless overlapping democratic aspirations for inclusion, diversity, and equity (DEI) for all. But few, if any, existing frameworks for address these concepts in relation to human-to-computer or human-to-screen interactions. In a period of human history when our lives increasingly take place behind a digital screen –– from financial transactions, to ride hailing, to grocery shopping, even to building grassroots movements – strategies for inclusivity in volunteer organizations dedicated to social good, for the most part, fail to address the unique and emerging influences of the digital sphere.
largely do not touch on many of the unique and largely untackled issues for inclusivity in the private sector and beyond have not historically tended to focus as much on user experience as a civic technology community should –– instead using the acronym DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) and leaving out the growing importance of accessibility as an entry point or barrier to information. The authors of this guide felt the need –– given that much of its audience is composed of software and web app developers – to include an additional focus area: accessibility.
Unlike previous mass media, electronic networks allow people to directly interact with the information with which they are presented. Consequently, citizens can have ‘real-time’ conversations with each others, regardless of geographical constraints. In addition, people with similar interests or goals can go to ‘virtual’ spaces to meet like-minded individuals and discuss issues of interest. In some cases, citizens can even converse with their political representatives about legislation on which they have an opinion.
This type of interaction adheres to the "ritual view of communication, directed not toward the extension of messages in space but toward the maintenance of society in time; not the act of imparting information but the representation of shared beliefs.” Ritual communication brings people together in a manner reminiscent of Athenian democracy or the old New England town meetings, where each citizen was provided with an equal right to speak.
The ritualistic capability for expression increases the participatory nature of democracy in cyberspace while undermining old hierarchies. Individuals play a more direct role in their own governance, through “the power of citizen-to-citizen (lateral) communications” which benefit both themselves and their community:
“Community building power comes from the living database that the participants create and use together informally as they help each other solve problems, one to one and many to many. The web of human relationships that can grow along with the database is where the potential for cultural and political change can be found.” (Rheingold 249)
Rheingold’s explanation of how communication between citizens can result in the production of an empowered community and the possibility for political action, echoes Habermas notion of the public sphere, in which individuals respect and take interest in each other’s opinions while also looking out for the good of the community as whole.
But electronic networks such as the Big Sky Telegraph and the Blacksburg Electronic Village allow for democratic participation across geographical boundaries as well as within local areas. Virtual communities created online can serve as alternatives to or reinforcements of actual physical communities in their functions as public spheres. By utilizing the transcendence and speed of electronic technology these communities can also spur political action by citizens, especially on the grassroots level.
ACCESSIBILITY, diversity, equity, and accessibility.
Even though the words ‘INCLUSION’, ‘DIVERSITY tend have slightly different social connotations.
INCLUSION
refers to the way our membership acknowledges inequalities within our organization and outside while intentionally promoting equity among diverse populations by actively working to minimize behaviors that continue subtle biases and exclusive behavior. Inclusion is by default diverse, but diversity within a group does not presuppose inclusion (www.d5coalition.org)
- Highlight exclusion – For individuals comfortably living in the majority in technology and design communities, it’s easy to be exclusion-blind.
DIVERSITY
is the act of bringing to the table community members from a range of demographic and cultural characteristics, e.g., gender, viewpoints, backgrounds, skillsets, social status, economic status, etc. Diversity should strive to include members of groups that have been traditionally underrepresented, margninalized, or underresourced by systemic processes
EQUITY
Equity is the fair and just distribution of resources in a manner that promotes equal access to participation. Resources can encompass fiscal, physical or social capital and may have structural ties to inequity. Ongoing commitment to equity through strategy, implementation, reflection and improvement is required. It can be viewed as an end goal, rather than a process.
Civic technology and design communities shouldn’t expect to act as a panacea for deeply systemic and seemingly intractable issues
ACCESSIBILITY
addresses the physical and nonphysical barriers that may hinder full participation in brigade work and events. Physical barriers may be diminished by compliance with ADA, however, nonphysical barriers may be addressed by universal design principles to be usable and inclusive of persons within a spectrum of abilities, including those with age-related impairments. Further, accessbility and inclusive design should consider persons with low literacy or non-fluency in English; low bandwidth connections or older technologies; new and infrequent users;mobile users (w3.org)
3 Background
4 Framing this work
The Problem with Civic Inclusion Efforts
Since its nascent days nearly a decade ago, ‘civic technology’ has grappled with the never-simple question of: ‘Civic for whom?’ The civic technologists devising the solutions and planning the interventions –– are they the ones whose lives stand to benefit most immediately from public sector innovation? Or is it the individuals living at the margin of society who actually need robust public social safety nets the most? Alternatively, is it politicians?
Any strong believer in democratic principles would rightly note that it benefits everyone when we have more civic and informed communities, Empowered communities are more robust, more innovative, and produce more collective prosperity than disempowered ones seen in the data from almost all major United Nations Economic Development Indicators than those with disempowered communities. So the topic of correcting systemic inbalances for the long haul gets
Proposal
The Purpose
The Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) BAT will be a multi-brigade effort to exchange knowledge and resources to develop a shared framework for DEI efforts across the brigade network. This collective effort should result in the creation of a DEI Toolkit that is open-sourced, reproducible, and shared with all brigade members, and adaptable by the constituents they serve, and other organizations.
The scope of the BAT with start and end time; which should be no more than 12 months. Successful and ongoing BATs can renew their teams after one year. *
The scope of the BAT is to align efforts and resources and create an action plan that identifies IDEA BAT projects that all participating brigades can work on and a framework that can be deployed successfully for any brigade project process. This action plan will also create timelines and milestones so that all success criteria (metrics) are completed. Our proposed timeline for this scope is eight months.
The success criteria (metrics) *
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Creation of IDEA Toolkit hosted in Gitbook
a. IDEA: An explanation – What we mean when we say ‘IDEA or DEI & A,’ and why it’s important not only from a perspective of equity, but also in how it catalyzes more successful teams and outcomes.
b. IDEA: Principles & Values – Guiding Patterns that we can provide
- Present OpenOakland’s Working DEI Principles
- Assess where the document is lacking e.g., accessibility, and improve the document for scaled brigade adoption
- Present OpenOakland’s Working Agreement (in progress)
- Assess where the document is lacking e.g., accessibility, and improve the document for scaled brigade adoption
- Explore and finalize how Principles can be turned into Action, guided by:
- UMD framework for digital inclusion, which consists of three (3) parts: access, adoption and application?
- Also, Building Digitally Inclusive Communities Framework
- Aggregate other brigades’ DEI or IDEA Principles and plans for adoption
c. IDEA: Policies - The policies will guide all brigade project work that prioritize diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (IDEA) principles and values. By committing to these policies, brigades will foster a culture that is committed to being open and transparent in their ongoing journey with citizens, local and state levels of government, and other constituents that are most affected by work done by the CfA brigade ecosystem.
- Ex. of policies
- Code of Conduct / Ombudsman
- Policy for Leadership Diversity
- Vendor Diversity
- The IDEA BAT will utilize other brigades IDEA policies as a foundation to create policy tools that will meet IDEA goals.
- Ex. Current policies implemented in CDA Brigade
d. IDEA: Strategies – Moving from symbolic inclusion to active inclusion? Essentially, practical, actionable, tactical tips for building inclusive communities, i.e. language to use, behaviors to avoid, steps to take to ensure DEI is proactively promoted, not only raised after an incident has occured. -CVL (+ABCD strategy)
- Determining audience familiarity - When leading meetings, especially in the presence of newcomers, it’s always a best practice to quickly poll by raise of hands how familiar with the concepts covered during the meeting are. If the meeting is more general, a quick assessment can be reached by asking those in the room to identify based upon self-characterization who they are. For example,
- Asset-based community development (ABCD) as a strategy for bringing in residents from the margins of our communities and helping them find or develop their unique individual gifts and assets. No individual is devoid of talent, and ABCD focuses on utilizing the resources already in a community rather than looking for outside interventions. See ABCD institute.
- Balancing between those who come to hack and those who come to learn –– Open Savannah Buddy Model’
- Conduct a media consumption assessment to determine the predominant means of getting information for residents, especially those in harder-to-reach areas of a community.
- Be willing to “deal with the neighborhood whino” (see video)
- Verbs such as ‘hack,’ ‘code’, ‘program’ as well as any jargon (ECMA 6, ‘open data’, ‘linked data’) as well as obscure or emerging technology frameworks (
e. IDEA: Project management systems and processes - These systems and processes will guide the work that all project teams within a brigade do. The intent is to create a project environment that is inclusive for all brigade members that would like to engage in any particular project.
- Examples of systems and policies
- Working Agreements
- Onboarding
- Project management roles
- Decision making models -
f. IDEA: Assessment Tools (e.g., IDEA survey, custom metrics for each brigade) refine existing questions; baseline for whole brigade system (data uniformity necessary for brigade-wide analysis); document methodology for OpenOakland survey; give suggestions of vetted questions relevant to each brigade
- Present OpenOakland’s Working DEI Principles
-
IDEA Content Strategy for Brigades website
- Project descriptions & how to use the toolkit
- common content that all brigades should adopt
-
Community Outreach Strategy
- Includes policy for how changes to toolkit gets communicated within the brigades, and the communities they serve
- Selected best practices across the brigade networks highlighted in support of the policies
- Asset-based community development (ABCD) as a mode for community empowerment and civic engagement.
-
Network Visualization/Map of IDEA ecosystem
List of Brigades working together to start the brigade action team. *
OpenOakland, Open Savannah, Hack for LA
Proposed kickoff date
May 30, 2018
Back-up proposed kickoff date *
June 15, 2018
Back-up proposed kickoff time *
12:00pm
Proposed end date *
January 31, 2019
Designate the following leadership roles with names and email addresses:
Co-Chair names *
Ramy Kim, Richard Ng (OpenOakland)
Carl V. Lewis (Open Savannah)
Chair GitHub username *
Chair email address *
richard@designgoodbusiness.com
ramy@openoakland.org
Carl@opensavannah.org
Secretary name *
We have no secretary, as the co-chairs will be equally responsible for project management and administration
Secretary GitHub username *
N/A
Secretary email address *
N/A
NAC sponsorship member *
Nina Kin (Hack for LA, NAC Member-At-Large)
Name of BAT to be used for all infrastructure (Google Drive, GitHub, Google Group, Slack channel, etc.) *
IDEA BAT
Additional Interbrigade Collaborators & Contributors:
Deirdre Hirschtritt (OpenOakland)
Bethany Patrick (Civic Data Alliance)
Margeaux (Civic Data Alliance)
Nina Kin (Hack for LA)
Tamura (Hack for LA)
Victor Ogundipe Jr (Open Toledo)
NOTES & RESOURCES:
Open Austin’s Civic Tech Canvass
Code for Charlotte: bat-matchmaking
OpenOakland DEI Survey (Google Forms)
OpenOakland DEI Survey Narrative
Open Savannah Diversity Treatise
Hard and fast policies
Context-specific policies
UBM