I’m running to represent the NY Tech community on the Executive Board of the NY Tech Meetup. This post is my second in a series on how to address the problems of the NY tech community. Visit my campaign site at http://votenoneck.org
This is the single most important question you should be asking yourself… Do we have the freedom of choice? Now that we have an executive board, event organizer and community committee, do we, as the community, have the agency to solve the community’s problems?
Unless we gave up our sovereign rights as nurds, geeks and dweebs… HELL NO WE DIDN’T!
So how do we solve them? How do we engender a disparate community to decide its future actions?
First, we need to understand the programming environment before we can code a solution. (See yesterday’s post.) Then we need to ensure that transparency and readability lead to literacy. We need to know what the board is doing and in turn, the board needs to know who we are and what we want. If our meetup organizer, who’s just learning how to program, build a voting system “overnight,” then I KNOW we can find resources to extend that idea into an “anywhere application” that extends NYTM literacy and collective action.
How will this happen? Not easily.
Second order of business, let’s ensure that every meeting is publicized and is open to all.
Third, let us ensure that the executive board has empowered the community to figure out how to solve NYTM’s hardest problems. These volunteer committees should be self-selecting, self-governing, open and transparent to all, and be accountable to the larger community. Each committee is in charged of documenting the problems and opportunities AND creating 3 to 5 solutions. These committees should be empowered to tackle our largest problems – Ticketing – Membership Survey / Development – Diversity / Affiliate Meetups – Educational / University Relationships – Executive Board Governance – Government Relationships – Elections – Internal Technology – just to name a few. WE, the community, needs to lead this organization. Fundamentally, the two community board members should represent our voices, not our ideas.
Fourth, address these issues in an open forum where the community decides…
As Tony Bacigalupo was telling me tonight, “this meetup and its board is already a cruseship." There are NO agile democratic solution to 16,000 "members.” No ONE person can solve the problems of 16,000. As I said, we need to understand the programming environment before we can code a solution. Eventually, we will have the governance, knowledge and tools. Until then, the community needs to elect TWO people who will always listen to them and fight for what needs to be addressed.
Visit http://votenoneck.org/vision for more of these ideas and vote “Noel Hidalgo” at http://vote.nytm.org