Alternatives to Zoom:
Jitsi, open source, a bit more buggy but certainly usable.
Google, not a great option but one many already use, has a product
called Meet, which has mostly the same feature set as Zoom.
Wire, open source, focused on encryption and security
BigBlueButton, another open source solution
Jami, open source, distributed (like bitcoin or bittorrent) and secure
Tox, a secure distributed protocol for which multiple open source
clients are available
I also don't personally understand why everyone continues to intend /video/ chat as the standard of communication; it seems to me solutions such as Slack, Zulip, RocketChat, and many other collaborative non-voice/video groupware options are effective and offer better ways of tracking and storing work, progress, and ideas. For me, even mailing lists such as these are an acceptable way of collaborating.
I do understand people have been desperate for contact in these restrictive times and we need solutions for that - I feel like that's a separate issue to group decision making, though.
Regarding funding, we diversify ours. We wouldn't have any operational budget these days if we didn't. We sell bikes, accessories, parts, and accept in-person donations. But when the mission is to be accessible to the entire population, including people with literally no money (about a third to a fourth of our participants), you will inevitably operate at a loss unless you develop connections to grants and endowments.
I've also been thinking more about Winter operations under pandemic conditions, and how difficult that will be with clean air circulation as a requirement. Unless we relocate operations to completely different workspaces with preinstalled efficient HVAC systems, we're going to need to get very creative with how to solve that problem. No strong ideas yet on my end, hopefully this encourages brainstorming out there.
~cyclista Nicholas
On 2020-08-06 21:37, Robert Grossman wrote:
Thanks for sharing Nicholas,
I was looking to understand what different shops feel is the important issue at hand now that it has been a couple of months since the initial workshop and almost six months into the pandemic. Couple that with the world taking closer looks at equity, or the lack thereof. The intent is to use that as the foundation for a Scenario Planning workshop in which participants come together to determine what possible future scenarios could look like so that they can consider how to adjust how their individual shops are dealing with that issue.
I hear your frustration around funding. The idea of scarcity can definitely lead to orgs withholding resources. Personally, I've never been a big fan of relying totally on grants. I think they are great for allowing a shop to expand service, reach new communities, or even develop themselves at a faster rate. Sounds like you've got some challenges around that. I'd like to learn more about them.
What alternate do you suggest over Zoom?
On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 12:03 AM Cyclista Nicholas cyclista@inventati.org wrote:
I'm guessing you're fishing for topic to include in future roundtable discussions, but ima prolly totally fail at attending the next one just like I failed at attending the first (also btw Zoom sucks), so I'll pose both some problems I've seen and my thoughts on solutions as my response.
I'd say funding, but that's the eternal challenge for us all, I suppose. I wish there wasn't such a proprietary/hoarding status on the part of people seeking grant sources.
I think we all assume these sources should be a business secret, since we are acutely aware that each of these sources has limited funds and we need to feed our programs. I'd rather there were a public and up-to-date database of sources, for instance bikecollectives.org creating a section similar to the shops listings, but instead being for funders. It might list names, grant cycles and deadlines, contacts, tips about submission processes, geographic or use-case boundaries, and amount requests allowed.
I think we each harbor a fear that if we broadly proliferated knowledge of where the money is, there would be be a mad rush for it, and we'd get left out. In the meantime, I do not have time to hunt out sources of funding while also running the day-to-day operations at the shop, and I know many other community space startups that have fizzled because of relatively small economic shortcomings. While in some cases funding only has to be discovered once and updated yearly, in other cases it is far more complex or intermittent. I think that it is absurd that there basically needs to be a person at each shop whose entire job is being a funder bloodhound.
The other challenge is our momentary one, the roundtable discussion of which I have been reading the results of here and appreciating very much. Thanks a lot for these thoughts and discussion, everyone, all the discussion has been relevant and enlightening. Since I failed to participate in the roundtable, I'll post my thoughts on it here:
If I had a blank cheque to create a program deferring to the pandemic, it would be, simply, to have drastically more space, better ventilation, and an unlimited supply of masks to give out to people who "forgot" theirs or didn't have the means to obtain a well-fitting and usable one.
Programs could pivot to being staged in outdoor settings, choosing initial or different property based not on indoor footage, but outdoor, with the indoor area being used only for securing portable equipment. The aforementioned would of course limit in-person programs to clement weather. Or, it could mean much larger, warehouse-size spaces, bearing in mind that the larger the indoor space, the more massive the amount of air necessary to exchange, subsequently the more heavy-duty and potentially expensive a ventilaton system would have to be. In extremely cold or hot weather, when air cannot be brought in directly from outside, or temperature cannot be wasted through direct air exhaust, the air must be recirculated and appropriate (and possibly expensive) filtration systems would be necessary.
This would also mean that well-regulated occupancy limits would need to be part of standard procedure. Hands-off teaching techniques would also need to be prioritized, and in general participants might be required to spend more time alone with their project. Possibly this could mean greater priority given to onsite use of teaching media, decreasing the amount of time required for close-proximity instruction. For instance, even before the pandemic, I often used a method whereby I set up the repair process with the participant, providing a detailed description and some examples, and then walk away. The goal was to increase the chances of the participant having agency and authorship over their own growth, but it has utility now for distancing purposes. When using this method, it's necessary to keep an eye on them from a distance to make sure they are on the right track and aren't getting stumped for too long at any juncture, but it's still far more hands-off than standing beside them the entire time.
These things are very basic, and probably not the revolutionized methodology some of you may be trying to envision. I personally do not think the models of community shops require a complete rewrite unless they are based primarily on cramming as many people as possible into a small space and coming into constant physical contact with one another, neither of which should really be necessary in the first place for our operations. We might be unduly tempted toward thinking a complete rewrite is required because we exist in a progressive and revolutionary-minded setting.
Also, we're often forced to operate out of fairly random spaces due to financial constraints, but I think that is a separate matter. Brainstorming how to run a bike program in an indoor space the size of a single-car garage during a pandemic would be to take a single component and classify it as critical, when ultimately a good solution might require simply switching that one component out.
~cyclista Nicholas
On 2020-08-03 17:29, Robert Grossman wrote:
Hello Everyone,
If you were to look into the future to develop a solution to a current challenge, what would that challenge be? One that stood out from the Safe and Effective Operations Workshop is around the capacity to provide services where shops are facing an increased need from communities while facing internal challenges to be able to safely help. In other words - An inaccessible resource is not a resource.
I understand that there are some serious social issues around equity and diversity that may be more important to be addressed.
What does your shop's team find to be the most pressing long term challenge at the moment?
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