Open Source Comes to Campus/Meta-organizing/Meta organizer
- What's a meta-organizer?
A meta-organizer finds workshop organizers and venues so that lots of workshops can happen in a given locale. Since we have 1-2 workshops a month in San Francisco, we spread out who's doing the heavy lifting of running each workshop.
- How we meta-organize in San Francisco
In SF, we have a spreadsheet that lists out our prospective organizers / venues, the status of each upcoming workshop, and which of us was responsible for making sure that worskhop took place. This helps us keep track of who's doing what, where, when.
- Workflow:
- At least once per quarter, get together to brainstorm and send emails.
- Comb through the past volunteer and organizer lists to see who might be willing to organize again or for the first time.
- Look through our list of companies who have previously offered to host or that we have contacts at and decide who to ask.
- Send out a bunch of emails to potential organizers and venues.
- Follow up with those who have questions or are up for it.
- Connect volunteers and venues to pick a date for their workshop.
- Strategies for Recruiting Organizers
The path often looks something like: student --> TA --> teacher --> organizer, but that's very rough and often steps are skipped. Lots of teachers don't start off as students, for instance, and sometime students are ready to jump right into organizing!
- Places to look for organizers
- Look at your recent volunteers list, and see if you have repeat volunteers. These folks might be up for stepping into the organizer role for a workshop.
- At the beginning of the workshop, announce that there will be a table at lunch of people talking about organizing a workshop if anyone is interested in that.
- Ask! And when you ask, ask for nominations as well. They might know someone perfect.
- Information & Skills Needed
These are the things you need to know and be able to do to be an effective meta-organizer.
- Growing the Potential Workshop Organizers List
Information needed:
- A list of past organizers, friends, volunteers, and anyone you can think to ask to organize
- Other humans' suggestions for who to ask
Skills needed:
- Ability to ask for help convincingly
- Participation at events where you can recruit people to the list of potential organizers is hugely helpful
- Recruiting Venues + Sponsors
Information needed:
- A list of local tech companies; often but not necessarily RoR shops
- Space / tech requirements for a workshop
- Benefits to hosting a workshops
Skills needed:
- Research skills to find new venues
- Ability to email people you don't know
- Remembering to follow up
- Following up
- Keeping track of who you've asked, so you can follow up
- Actually recruiting workshop organizers
Information needed:
- A brief pitch of what organizing is and why they should do it
- Prior experience organizing goes a long way in explaining what it entails
Skills needed:
- Ability to email people you don't know
- Email writing and follow up, remembering to follow up, following up, etc.
- Ability to keep track of who's been asked, when, and what they said (spreadsheet!)
- Matching venues with organizers
Information needed:
- Venue's and organizer's availability
- Where to announce / post when workshop is scheduled
Skills needed:
- Tolerance for email back-and-forth to determine date of workshop
- Hosting organizer kick-off meeting
Information needed:
- Who is organizing
- General stuff about organizing, to answer their questions
Skills needed:
- Ability to schedule drinks/coffee with all the organizers and hopefully the mentor
- Excitement for RailsBridge and workshops
- Ability to answer questions about organizing
- Making sure the workshop is actually being planned
Information needed:
- Date of the workshop
- Whether or not the organizers are planning the workshop
Skills needed:
- Ability to follow up with organizers to make sure things are going okay
- Judgement to determine if one of the organizers is doing all the work
- Communication skills to help resolve issues with organizers / mentors / venues should they arise