Mapping People & Projects
Updated 5/24/2022
What’s our story so far? What questions are we answering? What do we need? Who’s missing? What’s missing? …
How to best create an open invitation to new people to join our efforts, while we continue projects already in motion?
How best to use what has already been created to help onboard and orient people
We are pursuing a database structure that allows each contribution - a person’s experience, passions, resources, projects, groups, etc - to be connected in many ways. Creating a networked map removes the silos and allows for that ultimate flexibility. Unlike many tech experiences that are built on hierarchical structures which by design force people to pick the one best place to put something, this allows for the one thing - the contribution - to be networked to and accessible from multiple “parents,” searchable through many different category systems. Then, in addition, each response is connected to the associated person, organization, resources, etc. to enable easier retrieval and unlock creator potential for collaborative action.
Individuals are requiring features that allow for the flexibility to use and 'view' data in a variety of ways, to best serve their own communities. One immediate challenge has been in providing people who are less technically savvy a way to navigate through the network in a way that makes sense to them, where they can begin to think in a systems way and understand how they might assist in creating the network and engaging in the system. This community collaboration is why meeting the requirement for a 'simple map of projects and people’ quickly becomes incredibly complicated.
Our guiding questions:
Schema: What data types do we want to collect?
Inputs: Where will the data be coming from?
Outputs: What do we want to do with the data and/or what visualizations would we like to have?
Infrastructure for Group Communication
AirTable Base
A few Maps for Meta
Vision in Flow Chart in Miro - all possible inputs / outputs for Airtable
Map Weavers Group page - on Catalist
Check out our call repo ‘Calls’
Map Weavers Channel - in Mattermost; for chatting and asynchronous discussion
AirTable Base - specifically to experiment with data for Meta
Member Directory for Meta to allow people to connect
Information from the chat streams where people have shared info, and from people completing profiles in other groups on Catalist
Also created views for editing your record, and a form for adding a profile
Next: Add clips of the 2 min shares to each project / person
Information from the 2-min shares during a Wednesday meeting and related projects shared in other groups on Catalist
Each person has access, can edit or update, can easily add through a form
Next: Allow members to add and edit their projects
Inter-connections - mostly assigned manually within Airtable
People are connected to Projects
Both are connected to all comments by others, during and after the 2-min share
Projects are connected to Societal Sectors (Main, and some subsectors)
Projects are tagged with Type of Contribution
Next: Allow people to edit Sectors, Types and other tags to their Projects
Each distinct from the other, Interoperable
With a Kumu showing their interrelationships
Image of First Kumu Map of Projects, organized by Societal Sectors, so we can see what we have and what is missing from major sectors in society
Starting to look like this Diagram, proposed to Meta Project in March as a basic way to map the projects & people and begin to see the fractals
Here’s an example of a more detailed Kumu
After an event for The Press Conference
Consideration: Interface for map weavers vs. Interface for everyone
Next Focus: Add more detail to the card for each project within Kumu
Demo shows a grid view that shows people and their projects at the intersection of the contribution type with the societal sector
Allows editing and adding - Integrated with the Catalist platform is ongoing, enabling the use of external editors to provide live refresh of the map as users edit their personal data and add resources for the community.
Full Design Concept
Next Focus: Add enhancements
Typeform Poll: What is the next thing to map for Meta?
Results - showed pretty even distribution. In order:
Create visuals/maps from the data we have
Collect and curate more Profiles & Projects from existing Meta Project members
Expand data collection from Meta Project members to include ideas, passions & suggested resources
Provide the data we have formatted in different ways to be exported to other projects/communities
Collect additional fields of information that allow us to do matchmaking
Meta Open Issues / Open Loops in AirTable, grid view
Issue Entry Form for new issues
Kanban Charts - for Importance and Status
Questions table - listing outstanding questions that can find answers, features or solutions
Needs 1 - mapped in Seriously (from May 11th meeting)
Needs 2 - mapped in Seriously (from May 11th meeting)
Challenges - mapped in Seriously (from May 18th meeting)
Standard visualizations for the Meta Project
Ways to continuously improve and evolve the database and visualizations
Guide for enabling anyone to map and integrate with what's happening in the community
Increase Community Engagement with maps
Top down
Overall vision so people know they're in the right place; what's available to do right now; relationships available to integrate next steps
global
Maps to host emergence so that the system can see where it's going
Cooperatively organizing and elevating the projects & initiatives towards the Meta Goal
Forever seeking for and asking whatever is the next right question... So people & groups can orient themselves to that in order to take collaborative action.
group - maps to host potential for collaborative synergies and open opportunities
An ask of everyone participating to add aligned groups/projects/projects
Curation of info / composting / harvesting / repository
Cooperatively adding & editing pieces
individual - maps to connect people with their right next step within the system
Create visuals for navigation - help Meta members identify what and understand how to take collaborative action towards the Meta Goal.
Mapping is a key to see synergies/needs/offers in different areas.
Bottom up - needs / offers database; right alignment / effort in the right places; available support (expertise / funding) to meet my need(s); permission from a welcoming environment to contribute
Processes using maps
Map Tours: Regularly provide tours of maps that already exist and/or have been created for Meta so everyone can be oriented and learn from them.
Process for ambassadors to reach out and fill the gaps
Process for onboarding to help people introduce themselves and find their place within the organization
Publishing Standards
Database structure
A few continuously improving standard visualizations
Data interchange... and interoperability / how we work together with other people... heading towards some kind of fork and pull model…
Independent group that certifies visualizations as accurate reflection of the data - and other groups...
Prioritizing / Scheduling
Heat map of timing, connections, recognition by multiple people and values all to help make collaborative decisions
Identifying and choosing urgent use cases
Mapping problems / bottlenecks...
Aggregating / Crowd-Sourcing data
The graph aspect (or airtable filter) is to map not just by number of "vouches" but the expertise area of the "voucher". Surfacing important efforts that might not be well-known/popular. Weak signals! 🙂
Super users of different functions…
Interoperability → these concerns belong in Flotilla
Supporting / coming in under / working with others to create new interoperability.
Enable interoperability across multiple trusted sources of truth / wisdom... maybe covering different ways of thinking, stages of emergence, etc.
Meeting May 25, 2022
Flexible schemas
Kumu template
Input data sources
Seriously design of outputs
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