Week 4 Communities — Definition: Everything’s coming together
This week was about working out the devil in the detail as our 6 charities prepare for their first Show and Tells next Thursday.
The needs of the 6 charities working on the Communities — Definition programme are different but the common thread running through all is the need to focus on developing and nurturing communities.
At the start of the programme we sent all 6 charities a copy of Get Together, an awesome book written by former community builders at Instagram, Facebook, IDEO and others (recommended to us by Erica Neve). I found myself using this book for both my projects this week.
To allow us to go deeper and provide better support, each charity lead now has a dedicated project lead at SIDE Labs. I’m working with Charlotte at IMM and Kat at The Margate Bookie.
Last week, we asked Charlotte, Kat and the leads from our other charities to work up their skateboard ideas.
Here’s how each one has progressed:
ACRE
We’ve started making things with Phil. We’re developing an open directory of digital tools used by ACRE members. Work being done:
- Prototyping with Coda. We’re also exploring Notion and Airtable as possible solutions to capture and present information.
- Figuring out the best way to categorise digital tools. Possibly building on something that exists, like the Charity Catalogue categories.
Back Up
Alice and Chloe have started exploring how to leverage Donorfy (CRM used by the organisation) and Mailchimp integration (already set up).
- Alice is setting up a meeting with Janet (Comms Team) to discuss current email communications setup with clients. Current use of Mailchimp isn’t great so it’d possibly be the same as using MS Forms and manually inputting into virtual day clients data into CRM.
- MS Forms may be used as Back Up is transitioning all applications to MS ecosystem and in the long run looking to be the better option; discussed current process with internal team.
- Alice waiting for go ahead from clinic regarding video content for learning platform; and use other platforms other than MS Teams for the Virtual Day.
- Process flow has been created in Miro.
IMM
Charlotte (CEO) has had a hectic week launching and promoting #IntergenerationalWeek. We’re catching up tomorrow to decide how best to design the pilot event linking paediatric to dementia wards through music.
- One concern is that choirs and orchestras don’t always work well online. The Choir Choir Choir case study (Get Together, p 47–50) is a useful reference to share.
- Plan to arrange chat with Back Up as may be some cross-over learnings between IMM’s pilot event and Back Up’s virtual day.
Margate Bookie
Kat has set up a new Slack workspace in order to trial writing groups using a combination of Slack, GoogleDocs and Zoom.
- First writing group has started trialling this new format.
- Two trials with different groups planned for next two week sprint.
- The “cultivate your identity” chapter (Get Together, p 86–99) is a nice reference for naming and building this new community.
- We’re working on: what to put on a website landing page, how to design a (soft) launch event and conversation topics for the #general channel.
- Kat’s a natural when it comes to content creation on Slack. This week, she shared an interview she’s done with the Upping Your Elvis podcast. It’s all about how *everyone* can benefit from creative writing. This idea went down well on our Communities — Definition Slack!
MEWSo
We’re exploring how to help potential clients discover MEWSo’s services. For next week, Audrey and Ellie have prioritised two tasks:
- Putting all their events on Facebook. Will this be a way to reach more potential clients?
- Sharpening and translating their services page.
WellChild
Catherine and Chloe are moving towards changing the Facebook group type from General to Parenting.
- Parenting group type will allow them to have anonymous posts, badges for members and a mentorship program. It also allows units (now called guides) to organise information and resources.
- Questions and rules need to be set up for members requesting to join the group and somehow link to their sign up form on their website.
- Dummy group has been created to test out group functionality and features (feel free to join)!
- Once we’ve implemented these improvements to the structure of the page, we’ll look at whether there are ways to format social interactions and, in particular, to encourage lurking users to interact.
- WellChild have started writing Weeknotes 😊 . If you’d like to delve deeper into the work they’re doing with SIDE Labs, see WellChild’s Definition Project, 121 with SIDE Labs and Week 3 already!
Next week, I’ll report back on our 6 Show and Tells, and share some screenshots of work completed so far.
It’s been great to see our 6 charity partners develop their ideas — and good that enthusiasm levels still seem to be high.
Long may that continue!
