15 Community Organizing with Open Savannah
We're joined by a panel of folks from [Open Savannah](https://twitter.com/opensavannah) for a conversation about how their brigade started, how they communicate, and how they approach community organizing.<br><br>### Resources and Shoutouts:<br>- [Open Savannah Website](https://opensavannah.org/)<br><br>##### Music Credit: [Tumbleweeds by Monkey Warhol](http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Monkey_Warhol/Lonely_Hearts_Challenge/Monkey_Warhol_-_Tumbleweeds)
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Transcript
Hello. I'm Ryan Cook, and this is Civic Tech Chat, a podcast about the civic technology movement. We seek to harness the power technology has to improve the delivery of public services to people everywhere. Welcome to another episode of Civic Tech Chat. Believe it or not, but this now marks our twelfth full length episode. When I started this project, I wasn't sure we'd make it this far, but I'm glad we've been able to go on this journey together. So thank you for continuing to tune in. If you've enjoyed the content so far, please go ahead and go over to the iTunes slash Apple Podcast Store and leave us a five star review. Doing so increases our reach and helps us produce more high quality content. Speaking of which, this week we're joined by Open Savannah for a panel discussion about how their brigade started, how they go about community organizing, and a little bit about their overall organizational philosophy. This conversation is quite a treat. Now I do need to point out a little bit of a disclaimer. Some of the audio quality we had to work with in a pan in this panel discussion, required a little bit of finessing. So there might be some points where it gets a little quiet. So I hope you can, put up with that a little bit and enjoy the conversation. So with that, let's go ahead and hop right in.
So to get us started, let's go ahead and have each of our panelists introduce themselves a bit. So could each of you introduce yourselves and tell us a bit about what you do with OpenSavannah?
Hi, Ryan. I'm Carl. I, so I guess I sort of you could say I started this, whole Open Savannah thing about fifteen months ago, after I moved back to Savannah. And I really wanted to do it because I felt like there was a huge gap in the city trust here and that there's things that we could do about it, technically, to fix that.
So, yeah, that that's me. Hey, Ryan. I'm Nick Colombo. I'm the neighborhood association outreach lead for Open Savannah, and I am the connecting force between the rich and vibrant neighborhoods of Savannah that exist here, and the organization itself. So Savannah has a culture of neighborhood associations that are all volunteer or nonprofit organizations, and there are over a 100 identified neighborhoods in Savannah, Georgia itself. So my job is to try to connect this organization with all of them and inform them about what we're doing.
Hey, Nick. I'm Aaron, the community lead with Open Savannah. I actually was at Carl's initial sort of kickoff presentation for what Open Savanna was, and it really sort of resonated with me being able to apply technology skills and design skills to civic problems. So I immediately volunteered and sort of worked with them a little bit on the initial documentation and sort of do community onboarding stuff, kinda just fit in wherever we have holes for the most part as far as, like, running running our, our events and whatnot.
So continuing on the theme of getting to know each of you individually a little bit, one of the things we ask about in this podcast a lot revolves around personal why. So could we go around the table here and go into what each of your personal why is, for for example, like, why you get up in the morning and do the work you do?
Well, I get up in well, this is Carl, by the way. I get up every morning and do the work that I do chiefly because I think that informed and engaged public is vital for democracy function. And that's been really the the guiding principle behind my entire career, really. Previously, I was a journalist. I was actually a data journalist. And, actually, my first job out of grad school was actually here in Savannah. I was, the data digital editor at the Savannah Morning News, which is a daily newspaper. And I kept coming up against these walls when I would request data from public agencies. And, that's one of the things that gave me the idea to start this whole incident thing because, when I came back, I was just thinking to myself. I was like, there's gotta be something we can do to make this data that should be public be actually public. Because I think that knowledge is power and that, that sounds cliche, but, I think that's very true and that there's a dearth of knowledge, when it comes to civic issues here.
Hey, Ryan. It's Nick. I think I do it because my entire life, if there was one theme to pick, it would be that I believe there's a duty for each person to contribute to their country, to their community, to their neighborhood. In some ways, small, and then in large ways, if you have the opportunity to do so. And I got involved in this organization because I'm a firm believer that, you know, corruption hides behind data. When government's locking it away, it's not for a good reason. And this is an organization that's dedicated to the truth. And the more that we can get this information out into the open, the better that our government can perform its capacity for the people.
Aaron, community lead. So I really love both your answers. I wish I had something so profound to say. You know, largely as as a designer and a developer, you know, there's a responsibility for what I put out there in the world. And that accountability yeah. I wanna through that accountability, I wanted to leave the world a better place than I found it. And I think that work that I've done in service design, you know, there's a lot of practices that we do in service design and development design as a whole that really are applicable to the challenges in government. The way they're operating, you know, the way they're interacting, you know, how they're procuring things, technology that they're producing, and whether or not they're taking a user centered approach or not. Anyway, a lot of those skills and certain philosophies, I think, apply to improving that. My experience in Savannah really has been has always kind of been at arm's length. Like, they I feel like as though they keep the residents at arm's length and, you know, I I guess I just wanna apply my skills to sort of helping them understand what a more positive relationship with the residents can be Mhmm. And how to sort of facilitate that. I I think both reach solutions that are equitable, and I can just provide a better service too. So because I can, I want to, I guess?
I I really enjoyed each of your answers there. And now if you'll allow me to plagiarize a question from one of my earlier episodes, in particular, the voices of summit episode, there was a question there that I asked everybody that seems simple at first, but gets really varied answers. And that is the question, what does civic tech mean to you? So could I get that answer from each of you here on the panel?
So civic tech to me, it's actually I don't think it's the best term, but it's the best term that we have. But it's applying the principles of modern technology in the way that modern software is built and service design to machinery of government. And not only to make it more efficient, but to make it more equitable and to reduce silos and to give more, voice to those who are voiceless. So it's it's the civic it's the civic part that is more important. The tech is like it can be misleading at times. I think that we need to think of a better term for it, but I can't really think of one. So
build build on that, Nick.
I think I mean, civic tech means so many different things. Just one facet of it for me. You know, I I spent five years working in the federal government, and, we had a computer back then. It was called it was WAN computers. I mean, that's how ancient it was. Part of civic tech and part of our organization is somehow, it's it's fallen to us, the, the volunteers to try to lead the government through the process of technology, getting over some of that fear that is inherent seemingly in government about technology itself, getting them to adopt it, and showing them that there is a better way through outreach and technology. You can and will reach more people if you embrace it.
I like to think of civic tech that I think is a more of a philosophy, like engaging the sort of new and emerging sort of disciplines, especially around design and technology, has a new capacity to change or apply to government. And even to get it to sort of reorientate to, like, what how society is in chain is changing in relation to technology. I think it it does definitely describe an applicable sort of, resource and application relationship like Carl explained, and I think too, it definitely connects to the, kind of the ethos that you're talking about, Nick. But I think that's, like, yeah, I think relation to things like the philosophy of we we have new capacities coming coming to bear or sort of what I think coming to an Apex maybe, like technology and all these designers and stuff. The relation to agent Internet, the way we communicate, the way we see things. What's their expectation? Got it. Yeah. Well, it it and then we see this large institution. Where does it exist? Like, how is it related? Is it is it connecting with us in the right way? Are there new opportunities?
We see that and wanna bring that to bear. I think there's a symptom there too where the the public is outpacing its own government in technology, in speed, and in its demand of the things that they want. That's led to a great deal of friction.
So sometimes it's And, like, we've seen that in the like, as an opportunity. It's like if you wanna volunteer, if you have that sort of civic ethos, you know, you wanna you wanna volunteer and you should and you wanna make things better. Like, there's new opportunities. It's not just about, you know, being a politician. You know? And I say that in a very sort of almost naive generalized way. What does a politician do? But, like, there's just there's skill sets along that. Like, I have many assumptions that suit government. But now thinking about, well, how does design work design work in here? How does cocreation work in here? Like, how do I facilitate these practices to improve not only interactions between, government units and offices, but with the constituent groups or people they need to serve?
And there's a lot of opportunity in that, that. So it's kinda interesting to see. So I have a quick confession, and I'll be real quick. I used to be a a what you would call a techno optimist. I thought that technology would empower everyone's voice to be heard louder. You know, we would have this more perfect democracy simply by virtue of having new technology. The technology would save government. But as we've seen, in recent years, maybe it's to the way around, actually, maybe it's instead of technology saving government, maybe it's, like, the values of public service democracy that are inherent to our government saving technology.
Yeah. I mean, well, anything new. Like, they're we're gonna make mistakes with it. And I think that's something else is that these new things were science to some degree as technology goes. Begins to sort of uncover in our in our social order and our social interaction or even our institutional sort of order operation and interaction and how we relate to, like, these sort of news. What does it mean sort of morally and ethically? Sorry. That sounded a big thing. But, anyway, like, how it how it does sort of uncover new dilemmas, like, within our our space or just being, but,
trying to build up No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No
Absolutely. And I I can tell from this first exchange that as we get a little bit deeper in the weeds as far as, like, organizational philosophy, for you folks that we're gonna be in for a really interesting conversation. And kind of leading us in that direction, I'd like to first talk a bit about, OpenSavannah in general, as well as kind of it's how it started. So Carl, could you start us off on that by maybe telling us a bit about the story of how the organization began?
So I was on it was a Friday night. I had no social life. I was on meetup.com, and I was just ahead you know, like, you teach me up sometime. It's just, like, thinking about what the future democracy will be because it having previously worked in publishing newspapers, I worry about what's gonna happen whenever we do lose those newspapers quickly in that capacity. But I worry about what what's what's gonna happen. We don't have a necessarily transparent society. And I was up one night late, and I started a meetup group. I called it Open Data Savannah. I thought it would be something I started and never followed up on, and I just, like, kinda did. Just, like, didn't do anything else with. I looked up the next morning, I think 20 about 20 people had expressed interest. So then I was like, well, shucks. I guess I've got something into something new. Three or four weeks I think three and a half weeks later, we had we had our first kickoff meeting, and, I believe we had about 50 or 60 people there. I guess. Then Nick was there. I'm glad to be with her, actually. So, yeah, there was clearly a need in demand here for some sort of, intermediary.
And I got involved because, I'm specifically active, but, I got tired of being the youngest person in the room all the time. When I came to this first week, I I really I can't tell you how exciting it was to see other people my age or maybe even younger than me. And, you know, I was like, wow. I'm not the youngest person in the room before, you know. But there were other, there was a certain sense of camaraderie that there were other people out there who were interested in tackling this problem, and they had skill sets that I can only dream of. I'm not a coder. I am not I that I just wasn't born with it, but I do have a deep sense and appreciation for the people that do. And we have the ability now more than ever to do really compelling things in our government and in that work that we could just never have thought of being possible before. And I look forward to that potential. It takes your skill sets too.
It's not just Well, yeah.
Yeah. Still wanna think of. For sure. And in, I guess, kind of related to that that beginning story, I noticed in, a blog post that they fixed it kinda provided for me to get me up to speed. That one of the things that is mentioned in there is the observation that Savannah is perhaps not the prototypical location for the sort of, thing to to occur to be founded in. Could one of you expand upon that a bit and maybe talk about your thoughts on why it's managed to work out despite those things?
I don't know. Well, from my my perspective, I mean, Savannah, like, the way they operate, it's not very open. Right? I mean, like, they they they don't seem to really listen to residents. It's it's the oldest city in Georgia. As a What do you know the city's in the picture? I mean, as an organization that sort of says, like, open this opens to. Creating transparency. Creating connection to residents. It's interesting that our our mission and and sort of in that direction has connected and resonated really well with the city because I think they recognize an internal need to connect with residents more. And they have engaged us on a number of fronts, for just more budgeting projects, transportation projects. I'm jumping in the budgeting. Something in the works right now. And it's certainly more having a presence. Yeah. And and it's certainly resident residents, but, like, it was I've been very impressed with our work over the last year about how much time we've not only had with the mayor, the city council, our city manager, and other sort of and other departments budgeting, information officers. So, I think I can't really answer to, like, why is Savannah, like, the prototypical like, why why it's sort of not the place you would expect this to happen? But I think that experience of it did not it being relatively okay.
Savannah doesn't have a major research university. It doesn't really have, a huge creative class, I guess you would say. It's a very old city.
People are very stuck in their ways a lot of times, especially in government. It does have a lot sorry. A lot of a fair amount of creative class. It's just transient in the sense that there's an art and design school here. The kids come. I don't think they see a lot of opportunity
and stay. Yeah. But anyway, cool. So yeah. So there there there's Like, there's no investment in this city side. There, but it's not intact into Yeah. Properly yet. We're starting to complete yet. Sorry. So, yeah, I'm just kinda articulating why I never I didn't think there would be capacity for something like this to ever happen, but, could have been people who have offered up their hands, and it's been awesome to see people like Nick in here.
I have a theory. I mean, it's it's a little out there. But, I mean, Ryan is right. There's a 150,000 people here. Why in in Savannah is this well, 300 in the metro area, but the city itself, there's a 150,000 people here. So how can, a small city like that sustain an organization like this? And sit Savannah really has a culture of civic activity. People can participate. And the reason why, as I think, is the foundation and the principles of the city itself when it was founded in 1733. And there's, if you come to Savannah, there's an equal amount of public space to private space, and there's an enormous public domain. We have 22 squares. We have parks, trees. I mean and it's it is for everyone. So I think it's almost you're born into it when you spend time here. And when this belongs to everyone, you care more. And that's extended itself in many different ways. This organization and many others, And I would love to see if there's some kind of way to measure the civic quotient, in a place in this amount of civic activity because there's so many groups and nonprofit organizations here that are participating in the city. It is remarkable.
That's, that's really interesting. I'm definitely hearing a couple of themes there in what you folks are saying. One of them being that that that sick fake engagement piece that that you just mentioned there as well as the kind of access to, policymakers. And in a similar vein, a theme kind of emerged again from that post that gave me the sense that perhaps your organization wouldn't buy into the kind of civic apathy trend that's talked about a lot, perhaps at the national level, maybe not so much at the local level. And I believe you used the example of, two different public forums going on. One of them being your own and the other being for a local school district as a way to kind of compare and contrast that. Could we talk a bit about, I guess, that that particular comparison and a bit about how your group kind of acts as a conduit, for that type of civic engagement?
So first of all, I wanna say that was notes and integration whatsoever to the school board. It was actually the two events were held in the same evening. If I had known there was gonna be a forum about the school board superintendent that evening, I will reschedule a heartbeat because that's a very important issue. I didn't even know it was good until the following day when I saw this paper, and there was an article about how no one came to the forum. So just thinking back about that, I was thinking trying to think, well, why do people show up for this event about the civic engagement not show up to something that's arguably more much more directly impactful to their to their lives having superintendent of schools. But why they shift to one and not the other? We had the internal decision about why that might be. It's that people don't trust the government as much. There is a there is a a lot of civic distrust and distrust because of past leadership and because the gap in your standing.
I think you can feel it when when your own local government wants you to come out first when they're holding, a meeting just for, you know, because they're compelled to or they have to.
So that that goes, a lot into it. Mhmm. Oh, actually, that that that's a really interesting take you you have there. I guess, what would you say are kind of some of those indicators that would let you know that they want you to be there versus we just are kind of doing this because we have to?
I think your general demeanor, I mean, meeting sometimes. When it's announced, where it's announced, how it's announced, like Yeah. But, like, too, it's really about value. Right? If you if you go to make your time as a resident to a council meeting, whatever meeting, you don't expect to have some outcome. Yeah. To see the value of your time. But and and that could even just be them listening and acknowledging. Thanks to you so and so for whatever you said. And I don't think that is the sort of that's that's not the operating procedure of of what those meetings are. They can be in an open Savannah form. Even if we have conflicting points of view, they're still heard and people still react to them. And I think people have a different sense, a different sort of value takeaway from that. And I I think it really my my experience is that it's it's that type of interaction that that really applies to you.
Awesome. It's like, pornography, you know, when you see it. You know, that's the, that's how you find it. You you know it when they don't want you to participate. They'll they'll place it in a location that's inaccessible, or it's only accessible by car. They'll hold it during the daytime, during work days. They'll only publicize it in the back of the newspaper and that little tiny font, I don't even know how they get it that small, only when they have to. And I know, you know, right now, we're dealing with that, or they'll hold them in quick succession. Like, there's a tax proposal, right now that's being held, and they're compelled by the state of Georgia Georgia to hold three public meetings. Well, they're holding one this Thursday. They're holding them back to back right after each other. So, technically, it's three, but Wow. Is it really?
Yeah. So I hope that Well, and
it it it gets just bigger larger question. We need to change the way we think about what public feedback is in 2018 because it doesn't doesn't have to involve people physically showing up to the location, and that's good. That's always a beneficial thing to do, but people can't necessarily take off if they have two jobs and kids can take care of.
Make making it a physical requirement to be there and not to exclude some people. You know, it's funny. I thought you were gonna go in the direction of, like, how people don't see feedback. Like and I and this is sort of very hyperlocal. It's like, how will we talk about how how our government counsel ever receives feedback from the public, and it you know, sometimes it's just generally I just don't wanna hear it. Mhmm. But anyway, I thought you're gonna know it. And they'll say that too. Yeah. Yeah. Because it is something. I mean, you have to do I think It's the orientation. So, like, receiving feedback, negative or positive. Positive. And how do you do that? How do you Well, and how do you how do you couch that feedback to
associate them personally?
I don't know what you said, though. Like, as far as technology, like, there's we can we can see opportunities for equity in its application.
In in a in a similar vein to the to the theme you folks are on, I I I'm hearing a bit about inclusivity in in kind of in what we're talking about here. I noticed that there is a, a sort of headline that that you describe. Again, back to that that post I keep parking back to. And that that the headline is inclusivity will always trump experience. What does that mean to each of you?
Yeah. So the the line you mentioned about inclusivity will trump experience, when I wrote that, I had a specific quotation in mind, from Jane Jacobs, famous work, the, death and life of American cities. And the question was, there is no greater expertise than mortality knowledge. And when I read that, it just, like, it very much hit home. And I think it's very true that it comes with it plays Savannah a lot. But when we talk about data and the importance of data, some of the most important data that's out there is the data that's in the minds and in in the memories of residents who live in specific neighborhoods, data about, you know, the elderly person who lives down the street, data about the neighbors who might have a dog that's in the roadway, data about the dangerous parts of that. Mhmm. What's the best place to do in the car? Mhmm. That sort of information is not something that you can easily put into it of the data for. So to me, I think that having all those those diverse voices and having that inclusive that inclusivity and having that locality knowledge, not just technology knowledge, but locality knowledge. We can call it local knowledge if you want to take the locality part out. Just call it local knowledge. But having that local knowledge is invaluable. I don't think that any organization that, calls itself a civic organization can function truly without it.
Well, what, Karl? I'm hearing applause. It it seems your answer is pretty well liked there, Karl.
Inclusivity trumps experience Yes. As like a You can you can you can teach things, but you cannot teach that. Way of articulating, like, the premise of human centered design in the Yes. Space. I mean, also, like, this whole notion of, like, designing with enough work. Like, you can have all the experience you want in the world and try to design things for people. But, yeah, is it gonna hit the home? Is it gonna solve problem? You know, the inclusivity sort of translate into locality knowledge. Like, that's really what's gonna drive or inform anyone wanting to sort of volunteer and create something, what the needs are Yeah.
And how they exist and, like, what form they take. Like, do you an excellent person or a designer, but if you don't have empathy and understanding and try to reach out to
some degree, if you don't have the subject matter expert, like, the person in the space that Yeah. Or the people let's say the people in the space Yeah. To talk about the problem and how it affects them in various ways. Like, how are you what kind of solution can you really design? What what can you really make? And maybe it's not and I I think I'm guilty of just saying, what can I make for them? But, like, you know, what which what can you make with them? So, like, what's and practicing cocreation with with that group, like and you get into change management or or sort of introduction of anything new. You know, if I make it for you or, you know, it's it's hard to stop.
And what it means to me, I think about that and, I think about all the times that I've thought myself personally that someone else is doing it. So what's the point if I get involved? Or, wow, they're you know, they put forth this amazing product or they're this great leader in the community or this they gave a great speech. How can I ever top that? But somebody has to be the next big thing. Somebody has to be the next best thing. And some of the biggest barriers we put up, we we do it to ourselves, you know, of what's the point, what contribution can I make? And please, for anybody that's listening out there, you know, come off the bench, And you have something that you can contribute, and be valuable in the community even in just tiny little ways. You'd be so surprised
at what you can do. We have stickers that say that the next big thing will be a whole lot of small things. And, Coke America is actually adopting that as well as their their marketing campaigns, this fall. So,
it's kinda cool. Little heads up.
I'm getting the sense both in the reading I did about your organization as well as hearing you all talk about that subject that there's a pretty deep acknowledgment that a lot of civic tech is ultimately about community building. Can we delve into that, a little bit and this maybe contrast it to the idea of creating things as opposed to creating community?
Well, I think that's something that really I more more steps from our experience in in trying to address what we need to here in Savannah. Mhmm. I think knowing knowing looking at our group and what we have involved, where we started with our skill sets, and maybe the fact that we're not experiencing some of the problems or the inequalities that we want to address. And I think that's where at least for me, I'll speak for me then, like, where where that that sort of notion of less less than sort of seeing civic the civic tech community is not being here in focus. I think I think intention is there. You know, it it it does come down a little bit to, like, what's your orientation and approach to these balances? Is it human centered? Is it user centered? You know? And those produce very different things, as they're very they're fair they're very different approaches, I think, to design and finding solutions, which, you know, one produces product and one produces solutions that are cocreated with a long term change. Systemic or sustainable, if you will Yeah. Solutions, which I think in a social space, that's really what you're looking for because it's never it you know, problems aren't aren't prescribed or cut and dry. You know, there's not just one condition or one symptom that creates something. It's it's probably it's this thing leads to this for me, which then leads to that for me and be it economic justice, love, whatever. Like, there's a lot of things connected. So we always have to think systemically.
One of my memes that I always repeat and everyone hates
is, We don't hate anything we could cover. It's process, not product.
Yeah. And it oh, I've been asked actually in a lot of, events, you know, so so what project should you guys working on? What app are you guys working on? And while there are answers to that, I kinda wanna just say community. That's our killer app.
I mean, this is a super hard thing to achieve. I mean, you think well, I mean, for me, like, not being a community organizer. Like, you know, I am fairly used to working in groups and talking to people and facilitating, but, like, really, it's sort of building community and getting into
deeper problems, things that I don't experience, places that I'm uncomfortable. Like, that's it's a difficult space to be in. And that's right. You gotta put constantly push yourself. The objective is to always put service above self. Yeah. And I think back to, when I was a kid and I took some piano lessons, and I hated practicing, like, the hard part. I would only do the good part over and over and over again, but that doesn't do anything for anyone, especially not for for anybody listening. Yeah. That would have been pretty painful. But the objective is we can get caught in a rut of self-service or even ideation, just the constant rumination, the talking about the things that we're going to do or, but it's getting out there and getting your hands dirty and maintaining that objective of doing something better
each day and being better than the previous one. And I think that I love the fact that you mentioned service. Like Yeah. Service orientation. I mean, across so many levels, like, specific service or service design. Like, you know, that orientation, you know, you're you're really talking about giving and delivering, and considering that value.
And related to that, I get the sense that in order to, kinda operate that way, that a lot of thought would need to be given both in how one communicates as far as the mediums, as well as what messaging one uses when talking about the community, the work, and kind of that outreach to try to reach those things. Can we talk a bit about how, OpenSavannah kinda takes that consideration and works with different communication mediums and maybe how it then, communicates through them?
I think you've touched on our great debate overall. Do we use GitHub? Do we use It's our biggest pain point. Yeah.
It's a it's a big strength and our also our biggest pain point because I think that we have done a really good job of engaging first cross section. At the same time, when we do that, you've got five different audience levels you're comparing to. And you can't just say, oh, well, let's all use Slack communicate, which is not everyone has nine to five jobs within Slack. And there can be next to you. A little bit. Yeah. Or you get the sort of use of Slack. Or or yeah. And, like yeah. So, like, we had we had to be very use as many many platforms as we have to, use as many mediums as we have to. And, that can be taxing. It can be very taxing. Trust me. But we have to use different language too. But, It is a constant point of conversation. It it's How are we talking to so we never really finish. Yeah. Well,
it sounds like, you know, did you finish? Like you know? Like, so we're we're even do our best. We're even talking about, like, how are we expanding out and getting, like, touching base with other neighborhoods that that we haven't seen yet. Yeah.
And, you know, we're gonna have to consider what what's our orientation and approach to that. Mhmm. I I think one thing I'm hearing there is, again, back to that theme of trying to get a little bit better each day.
Am I hearing you guys properly there? Yeah. I it is this is the constant process of of iteration through what we're doing. We learn from one thing, I think, from one meeting or one event to the next.
And I would be curious as as a follow-up, still about communication there. How have you navigated these different mediums so far in relation to someone wanting to be involved in, say, like, leadership decisions and having a voice in how things happen at the organization? Have you run into any hiccups, and, have you tried to address those?
We've definitely run into hiccups, and I and that I'll take full full blame for them. But, yeah, because we've assumed that, just because, we're gonna have a meeting of the leadership team and just we assume or I've assumed that just because I posted on Slack, that everyone's gonna find out about it. Well, no. That's not actually the case. I need to be intentional. I use it on a calendar invite multiple days in advance, and a lot of people actually some people maybe get text back. Yeah. It takes intentionality. It takes, thinking through the way different people, the level that they are on and making it, I mean, where they are. And that's, for instance, I guess, for everyone. It's a tough task, and it can be draining. It it often it often can be, let's say, at times, it can be disheartening, but, ultimately, it's rewarding, I think, when you stick to it. Like, you gotta stick to it. And you gotta be committed, and you gotta, like, not lose,
morale. The watershed moment for me here in Savannah, I serve as the president of my neighborhood association here. Each year, we have to do an annual registration, and it's a paper form. It is not online. And this year, I received it, in the form of an interoffice memo, a Manila folder that that one of the city employees walked to my house and dropped it off for me. And I was just astounded that it was still, like, here is this in the way that happened was the city employee said, oh, I I know where Nick lives. I'll I'll just go and drop this off at his house. And it wasn't sent through the mail, and they just showed up on my doorstep. And I was just I was amazed that this is still the way that some people communicate. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but so many things that I just hadn't accounted for the way that other people communicate. Yeah. So sometimes you have to pick one. Sometimes you're gonna have to blast it out there to every different medium possible, if you wanna reach everyone. Know your audience. You have to know your audience. Mhmm.
Sometimes I love it. I love that story because it yeah. I mean, because it I mean, that that does get at the heart of it. I think even, like, Savannah in a large way is, like, relationship to know each other. We always talk about, like, how Savannah feels as, like, like, a small, like, a small town almost, like, and how much we know, like, who we know in our our sort of intersection. Certain people know each other. Yeah. There's a lot of people True. But, like, still, like, there's a lot of intersections, like, in the sort of social fabric of of Spanner. And it's it's and it's interesting because it it is like, there is it's all about coming together and talking, but not, like, really identifying, like, methods of efficient communication that are appropriate to not only the message, but the audience that was receiving them. Am I considering, well, how much do I really need to spend? Do I need how much effort is being expended here?
So out of curiosity, will it, I guess, what what is your kind of list of different communication mediums right now that you're using?
Should I mention specific technologies? I guess yeah. So that's utilized some. Email is always a good way to go back to. We have we recently started, like, a Facebook group because it actually does reach people. But, really, yeah, you're gonna meet up. But, I mean, again, it's really just about trying to hit as many as you can. Mhmm. I don't think it's about anyone
that's gonna be, like, the That that's pretty much our communications for staff, if you will, like,
social media. Well, that would be clear with our messaging and intentionality with it. So when we do, you know, to not message that we, you know, use the right language and we have graphics with it. We've also been at local events.
Like, so we we table at things too. So that's something that's a nice thing to do where we kinda tap into more of the the the handshaking and talking to people directly about what we're doing.
And it's a real struggle too because we're at a point in in the world's history really where, we don't just have that one predominant medium to communicate. You know, whereas years ago, it would have been just the telephone. Before that, it would have been mail or a calling card. Now there's hundreds or dozens of of people you know, ways people communicate. So it's finding ways to reach them all as efficiently as possible. And if if they're not on any of them, either teaching them about it, and I have to learn that sometimes. Or sometimes I just wish, you know, there's a the show, The Office, there's a character, Ryan Howard, invests an application. I have that. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
How old does that have to show you? It does it all. It does it all. Yeah. Even a fax. It's true. It's alright.
Right. Yeah. I think I think even sometimes our communication stack is even is even changing, like, where as we bring in new audiences. Yeah. It it's gonna have to change as we have new people No. I audiences are pretty well defined, though. I think Slack and Meetup really sort of captures That that captures most of it. And then now now I think emails are more
less committed people who are Yeah. Well, they just wanna see what's going on. Because there's, like, 400 of them. Yeah. I know.
I know. But, like, I didn't like, really sort of those are those are two sort of spaces that blanket, like, tech design in a large way. Thank you. Oh, no. It does. I've got it. I'm just yeah. Hey. I'm just seeing who's there. Yeah. Yeah. So then yeah. Yeah. Those other other methods emails. I think that reach out beyond that too.
And going up and showing up places.
Yeah.
I I really appreciate your, openness, with that answer. I can definitely appreciate it in part because, I myself am someone that's trying to take kind of a small brigade and grow it over the end of this kind of been my work for the past few months. As I know, there are probably many others out in the audience that are trying to do similar work, and it's nice to be able to sit and kind of listen to you, talk about your experiences with these sorts of problems and to perhaps learn from them ourselves as well, in particular kind of the process and the thought that's, clearly behind the choices that, you're making day to day with this. In in some of the again, the reading I had done about your organization, something, stuck out to me. And that there was a few questions that, it was mentioned that you would pose to any civic technologist. And one of those was, how might we spark civic interest in the work we do among people living in the margins? What observations have each of you made so far that maybe starts to point you towards an inkling or direction of an answer to that?
Oh, wow. Yeah.
Asking the deep questions on civic tech chat. Oh, interesting. So
so we you're talking about reaching the the margins of society, people who who Yeah. The most opted out
or or, almost disenfranchised. Just you almost disenfranchised.
Well, I mean, this this sounds really tired, but it's meet them where they are. You're not going to get them to come out to an unfamiliar place or place that's far away or to meet strange people. Mhmm. So it's it's trying to trying to ease people into it slowly. Mhmm. And, you know, there are a couple of old standbys that will always, you know, get people to come out, and that's, food.
Can you do that? That is that is huge. We meet in a sort of essentially located part of town that's not, like, fluid or has negative complications. It's either
Right. No. It's it's fairly in the middle. Right. I think they will offer a genuine opportunity, the fact that Mhmm. When you come, that something can happen.
In a lot of cases, it does. So that was one of the big things that I wanted to incorporate from the very beginning is this idea of participation and that participation being a form of engagement, and and vis a vis empowerment. So, like so the first few that Sweden had, we basically just set it up with a Google spreadsheet, and everyone contributed. If they could use a spreadsheet, they could contribute to to production in this app. And they felt a sense of purpose and, like, ownership of it. Mhmm. Even though they didn't actually build most of the technology side, they contributed to it it. And, so I think that's really important to keep in mind as we do similar technology projects.
That's a great example, actually. I think the way everybody that walked away from those projects were were significantly engaged in its production,
its output as well. Yeah. And I think too, it's a resiliency of the organization. You're not gonna have a huge turnout or an outpouring of support the first time off the bat, but you have to keep trying. Because people who are disenchanted,
really, you're you're gonna have to prove it to them that you are different. Mhmm. And that's gonna take time and energy and effort and commitment. Yeah. And this is this is actually a perspective I think we're taking we are taking with our outreach to neighborhoods that we haven't sort of been in yet or that we've even talked to is that, you know, we need to offer opportunity to them first. Mhmm. Like, not come with an ask, but say, essentially, here we are. We wanna you know, we're here. Here's an opportunity. We wanna do something.
One thing that definitely sticks out there, is that idea of contribution. I really liked that that was brought up. I know that whether it's professional work or things you do in your free time, one of the things that can really drive satisfaction in what you do is being able to kind of see, touch, hear, and feel that contribution and kind of see value in it. How is that, I guess, acknowledgment that I'm hearing from you folks kind of informed what you do as people come, say, for the first time, to one of your activities? And, how does that end up working from your lessons learned?
I think that's something that we're actually, you know, learning at at we still go. We, actually just recently had, started sort of to better structure our onboarding process for for new people to come because we realized that we're having new people come every single time we had a meetup, but, we weren't we weren't necessarily coming back because we weren't, like, explaining what what we did, who we were, why we did it, why it was important. And I think that's something that we should explain every time, even if it gets repetitive. Like, make make it short that, you know, hammer that home every time for people who are new. Because if they're coming in afresh, it could be lost. We need to be very clear and intentional about the ongoing process. And also just do stuff to, like, make it more social, not just about building things, not just about work.
Yeah. For anybody that's listening and and just starting out with this, you know, start practicing right now, who you are and what you're doing and why do you wanna do it. We ask everybody in The United States, I mean, part of our culture, like, what do you do? And you probably got that answer down to about sixty seconds flat. So do the same thing for this organization. What do you do? Who you are? Who's a part of it? And what your mission is? And as you go along, it's gonna be, it's gonna be rusty go of it when you start out, but you'll get better and better over time and keep at it. I I just say, go out there and and get started with it. You know, there's somebody who's listening right now that's got it down on paper, and they're thinking about testing it out, and they don't know exactly how. Just go out there, organize the meeting, and put out there and see who else is going to show up. You know, how many bands out there were formed by an old ad in the back of the newspaper somewhere? I think, like, Kiss was formed by that. You know? Was for I mean, I mean Yeah. Like, please, you know, it's just people getting together that share. You never know until you put it down there. Yeah. You know? So that's the greatest barrier. It's just putting it on. Be willing to put yourself out there to say, you know, I'm I'm interested in this. Yes. I I I'm interested in this. I wanna find out other people who are also interested in this. We get together and start working here. I know exactly what Carlos is doing. Mhmm.
I didn't think anybody would be interested in it. I just cannot, like, get it because that was bored. Yeah. But that's good. That's really good point. Because, I mean, even, like, the overall sort of thread or the thing that we've been talking about is, like, what we've tried and how we're sort of constantly iterating. That's what you're gonna do even if you don't don't know what what to expect or what to do. Start it. Start talking to people because that's that I think that's where Believe in your own agency and your own your own ability to inspire collect. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. It's your own agency.
I have to say I'm also I'm I'm greatly entertained by that statement, Carl said. I I started this because I was bored. That that that's pretty good. In fact, I can relate to that a little bit. Things here in Uptown were were started, like, because I was bored and hopped on the meetup as well. So I I think we have a little bit of a kindred spirit between our organizations and and boredom being the bottom of that pyramid.
Yeah. That's right. It wasn't like I just had this, like, flash moment where I was just instantly, you know, brave. So I'm like, oh, let's do this. Let's let's have this brand thing. That's good. So, like, when capacity comes to action. I I've been to a couple of meetings. Yeah. But, well, I mean yeah. But so I was in Saint Louis before I moved to Savannah, and, I had been to a couple of, they they hadn't quite formed their rebate yet. They were still, they were called, Open Data Saint Louis, I believe. Now they've actually got open STL going on there. But, I've been into a couple meetings of that, and I was interested. I couldn't really get that involved because my work at the time, was apparently a conflict of interest, I've also said. So,
yeah. You asked your boss? Well,
I didn't ask my boss, but You mentioned this one. I worked in Germany. I worked in The US. Mhmm. So data, there's some overlap there. Yeah.
I I could see that could be a little bit of a complicated relationship.
Yes. Because in in journalism, you're acting in adversarial relationship toward public servants almost sometimes by nature due to the job. And in civic tech, you are doing it more more collaborative.
Cool. Now as we, kind of draw to a close here, one of the things that we like to do on civic tech chat is to give our guests an opportunity to leave the audience with what they would like to leave them as far as parting thoughts go or concluding thoughts. So could we go around the table, one last time and kind of go through what you'd like to leave our audience with?
Well, I'll throw throw this out there. Eventually, if you're listening to this now, you're you're interested, in it. And eventually, at some point in your life, you're gonna get tired of waiting for things to happen, waiting for things to get better in your life. But, you know, this is falls into the mantra, but, no one else is coming. There's no one else is going to swoop in and and be the white knight and save the day and and do all of the work and innovate their local government and get them to fix the sidewalks or paint the crosswalks or whatever it may be, the small things and the big things. So if you're listening right now, just go out there and and do it. Go out there and start it, please, because we need you. And,
you know, leverage your experience as a as your initial point of inquiry to solving these problems, but never forget the people that are actually experiencing experiencing them. Because those those are gonna be that's where your insights are is with the where the problem collide.
And the big thing about small things is that they add up. So never think that your actions are too unimportant or too minuscule or your agency too small to have an impact. Because I certainly didn't think that I would really have any influence. But, if you stick with things on that, change will happen.
These are collection of some fantastic parting thoughts, And I wanna thank each of you for for coming on the program and and taking the time out of your day to talk to us. I know that I myself personally gained a lot, hearing your experiences and how you've operated as or as an organization as well as how you've kind of forged this philosophy based on those lessons learned. And I have no doubt that there's gonna be a lot of folks out there in the audience that will have a similar experience. So, again, thank you so much for coming on.
Yeah. Thank you.
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