Naming Convention Discussion

[civicwhitaker]

View in #brigade on Slack

@nflourish: So, let’s hypothetically say, we change our named to CivicTechforVT … how unacceptable is that? I’m getting pressure from the rest of the brigade towards a name change away from ‘Code for’ and ‘Open’ is only mildly popular. The folks seem to want a more descriptive name. I think we all understand that ‘Code for’ is often viewed as exclusionary against certain skillsets… but despite that, it has been around for a while, has a national backer, and a lot of branding. I feel like, to a non-tech-savvy public, ‘Code for’ at least tells them that we do some kind of tech ‘stuff’ … whereas ‘Open’ tells the general public absolutely nothing aside from that the group is presumably inclusionary. The general public doesn’t even know what ‘open data’ means. I also personally feel like having name recognition and understanding amongst the general public is more valuable than having a precisely defined name to attract tech-savvy volunteers to our cause. I can go to meetups for the techies and explain who we are and what we need… but it is harder to make inroads in the wider public understanding - or so I guess.

@ihenshaw: Here is my slightly humorous story about this: I have been a vocal proponent that at the Brigade Level, “Code for” sounded exclusionary and it kept “non-coders” from coming to our meetings in the first place. Well all of the fine folks in NC finally were sold and the NC Brigades became the “Open NC Collaborative” and several brigades have become “Open [city] Brigade”. While after doing our final due diligence in Cary, we realized that changing our name could and probably would confuse us into all the gun legislation going on as “Open Cary” has a different meaning when you say it, regardless of spelling. So we have stayed with “Code for Cary”

@civicwhitaker: So, right now the MOU mandates either ‘Code for’ or ‘Open’ - This is to help build consistency across all the Brigades. (Though a few were grandfathered in like Sketch City and BetaNYC) - I’d love to explore the naming conventions are part of our MOU review, but I’d also like to explore ways to make brigades in general more accessible. I think the names only go so far.

@andynelson: brigades can also be super different from each other in multiple ways, aside from core principles of focus on tech and inclusionary policies. Before diverging on naming policy, I’d expect a community review of CfA’s principles (i.e. codeforamerica.org/how).

@civicwhitaker: Have you seen the values doc by chance? (https://www.codeforamerica.org/how/values)

@mzagaja: I am curious if anyone has examples from Meetup data or anecdotally of a brigade changing their name to a “non-Code for” name and receiving a big bump in Meetup attendance from non-developers.

@civicwhitaker: ooooo, that’s a good call. I think the only name changes we’ve had where Meetup data would be NC. Everyone else either came in new or didn’t change after being grandfathered in

@mzagaja: Hmm ok. Sometimes the idea of trying “OpenBoston” appeals to me but the trademark attorney in me says that re-branding is a lot of work and people would get confused and so it feels like it’d be worth exploring if it does cause a big bump but otherwise my own instinct says we probably would not get anything for that effort or could even lose folks/interest.

@civicwhitaker: realizes the above would be good for discourse

@ihenshaw: The “Open[city]” naming is also widely used for open data programs…

@nflourish: But @ihenshaw as you said, Open means different things to different people. ‘Code for’ means fewer different things to most people.

@andynelson: other similar orgs, like open data programs, also explicitly name themselves after their political affiliation like “___ for Democracy” and “Progressive ___”. Although CfA’s community is fairly progressive liberal leaning atm, I wouldn’t want to rename it based on a political identity. Perhaps there’s something more explicit than “open” but without excluding people who don’t identify as someone who “codes for” something?

@lauramb: @lauramb uploaded a file: pdxsign.jpg and commented: anyone have suggestions on a sign/design that communicates “code for durham meets here.” i want to have something made for our regular meeting space. it should probably also say “code for america brigade” somewhere. something that can go in the window. (also here’s a sign i saw in portland, or. last summer that i love.)

@nflourish: @hashim We were running a poll in our slack about name change stuff and a few members said that they new of people who had not attended or joined in because they thought the name meant that the group was only for programmers. So - a couple anecdotes.
@andynelson that’s why our brigade members have been leaning toward ‘CivicTechforX’ … explicit, and less exclusionary. I’d like to be clear, I’m still in the ‘Code for X’ camp, but if the rest of my brigade wants the name change, I have to at least listen, even if the MOU won’t allow that :^)

@ihenshaw: So in “Code for” meaning, @ejaxon wrote a great article https://medium.com/code-for-america/whats-the-code-in-code-for-asheville-ac73924d3102

Medium: What’s the Code in Code for Asheville? – Code for America Blog – Medium

[andynelson]

I imagine that an org’s title is often its first and most critical marketing artifact. If the title doesn’t have a clear connection to its mission, then that shifts a lot of mental effort to the public/non-members to figure out what we’re about.

If we’re going to keep the Code for America/state/city convention, then we should clearly prioritize coding and thus be a specialized member of our greater civic tech community.

If we’re going to keep our mission of being about generally making government work better, we should allow more naming conventions for brigades who don’t center on coding and find “open ___” to be for whatever reason inappropriate.

[AndrewNatoli]

This month we started the transition from “Code for Charlotte” to “Open Charlotte Brigade” after approval from our leadership team. I think we came out of the 2017 Brigade Congress inspired by all of the discussions surrounding non-technical projects and we’ve struggled with the overly-technical / “are you a coding school?” image, so we decided to make the change.

We have a lot of programmers show up but we’re looking for a more constant flow of non-technical community members to join us like they do at NDoCH and all of our other special events. If we lose some technical reach but gain some community members to help guide our projects and technical approaches, that’s a win.

We’re still in the process of switching over so I look forward to sharing how it goes in a few months once we’ve switched and have had time to notice some feedback :D.

[mpbrown716]

Reviving this thread to share our perspective in Buffalo as a brigade just starting out.

Similar to what others have mentioned, our brigade members have also been hesitant about using the name Code for Buffalo. Since our city still struggles with high poverty rates and deeply entrenched racial and economic segregation, it is very important to us that we make our brigade as open and inclusive as possible, particularly to non-technical community members.

We absolutely would’ve gone with the name Open Buffalo except for the fact that Open Buffalo is an existing organization funded by Open Society Foundations and dedicated to social and economic justice. We will certainly be partnering with them on projects though.

With “Open _” no longer an option, we took a look at a few other organizations and particularly liked the model and mission of the Smart Chicago Collaborative (merged to become CityTech Collaborative). Since this past winter, our core team has been meeting with city officials and operating under the name Smart Buffalo Collaborative.

In June, we had a conference call with CfA about formalizing as an official brigade and one of the points that came up was about the MOU requirement. Over the past two weeks, our brigade has discussed the naming issue and the members prefer to stick with the name we’ve been using. Someone suggested that if we can’t get an exception for “Smart Buffalo” from CfA, to see if there’s a way to have our formal name be something like Smart Buffalo, a Code for America Brigade.

Even when comparing “Open _” and “Smart _” there isn’t too much of a difference and ultimately if the brigade is doing a good job engaging with the community, then the name mainly matters insofar as the impression it gives to the public and to non-technical audiences.

Open _

• can associate it with open data and open collaboration
• neutral name for non-techies
• name doesn’t make it exactly clear what the organization does

Smart _

• can associate it with smart cities (+/- depending on how one defines a “smart city”) or approaching a city’s challenges in a “smart” way
• relatively neutral name for non-techies (might loosely associate with “smart tech”)
• name still doesn’t make it exactly clear what the organization does

Code for _

• tech-specific name for non-techies
• name clearly implies either a city-affiliated coding school or a coding-based volunteer service, like the name Teach for America

[nFlourish]

We know the issues with “CodeFor*” …

I just wanted to really echo that I feel “Open*” is really not a helpful name … it means nothing to the general public, and is vague at best for the tech community. But it is at least not offensive or exclusionary. I’m not saying I don’t like the name, but it seems like it is trading one set of issues for another.

“Smart*” … at least starts to suggest some kind of improvement or intelligent approach to whichever city… which is more focused than “Open*” … although it has no meaning of tech to most of the general public, unless they associate it with a “smart home” (which has had some marketing to the general public). To the tech community, it may also suggest things more along the lines of “smart homes” or IOT. Despite the lack of clarity, this is also less exclusionary than “CodeFor*”

To me, unless we go with an extremely explicit name, the only way we can clarify the name to the general public, and broaden the understanding such that we get attendance from all sectors, is to ramp up outreach and recruitment… aka marketing. And to follow on Harlan’s point, re-branding has such a cost in any community where the brigade has already been established for a while, that only some very damning statistics about attendance increase in moving away from CodeFor* would suggest doing so.

If we look at those who were grandfathered in… BetaNYC, Sketch City… neither name means… anything clear to the public, as far as recruiting, just based on the name alone. And if we look at long established “Open*” groups, they seem to be doing fine - for example Open Oakland. So these groups are cases where the importance of the name is proven to be of fairly low relevance in terms of recruiting… aside from the importance of establishing the name, sticking with it, and building up the brand’s reputation.

In other words, if you are a new brigade, it seems like you can choose whatever you want, and just stick with it… it won’t make a big difference.

If you are an existing brigade with at least some name recognition in the community, you’ll probably be better off continuing to build up and clarify your brand. Unless of course your brigade has had some issues and you need to escape a stigma associated with the existing name.

So perhaps the thing is … the name issue is being used as a scapegoat for explanations of why it is hard to recruit people?

I imagine all the cases where someone has asked me “So, what does Code for BTV do, anyway” … my immediate reaction is “oh we should use a different name that is more self explanatory,” but then I think about the options and the only names that are self explanatory for what a brigade really does are … really long. And if our name does start a conversation about what the brigade does, that may be a more useful recruiting tool than just clarifying the name itself.

[carlvlewis]

Via one our most popular IG posts of all time:

‘Open’ means more than ‘open data’ or ‘open source’ or ‘open government,’ though it means all of those things. Open means a catalytic shift in mindset about the way we tackle the wicked problems in our communities and our nation at large. It means less private philanthropic band-aids and more tackling the root cause of our ills by fixing the social safety net that has let too many fall between the cracks. It means public solutions created with and for the entire public. Help us make it so in 2019 and beyond.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bry1Rh9HeVH/