WORKSHOP - Building strong networks (Draft 25July2006)
From CouchsurfingPhoenix
Contents |
European CS Collective Workshop Building a stronger network
- Led by Mike (openmic) with assistance by Bruno (bbudo)
- Participants: Larry (larry81), Sonja (kaoxoni), Antoine (superyami), Steve (hungrysteve), Stephanie (Steff), Sergei (h'Appalone), Ingrid (Isi), Birgit (desaparecida), Casey (THE Casey), Sergei (yv2005), Aditya (Ady), Marcus (Bontour), Konstantina (dini16), Jurgen (Jurgen), Ben (Byu), Vincent (Peiro)
This workshop emphasises on the techniques and features we should implement in Couchsurfing 2.0 to help building a stronger community. We believe that by creating a strong local community, the following can be accomplished:
- more complete profiles
- a central point of contact for a certain area
- recruitment of new, dedicated talents.
- A more robust and dedicated number of core members.
Why ?
The central idea is to build strong local CS communities, like the ones we talked about during our sessions. Active members from the Paris and Vienna communities were present to share their experiences. Both Paris and Vienna are considered very active communities, with events hosted on a regular basis.
The first advantage of a strong local CS community is the creation of bonds between the local couchsurfers, giving them several possibilities:
- To create a real local couchsurfing spirit they will be able to share with their guests and the couchsurfers visiting their community
- To create a local couchsurfing experience that members can take to their respective countries (Ex. a Nigerian may go home and spread the word)
- To create a network, so its members can rely on each other if they encounter a problem (Ex. inability to host an incoming guest, sharing important groups of CSers coming for an event, …)
- To promote local projects or initiatives and sharing information more easily
- To keep the community alive and active, even if the central system is unavailable.
- To recruit expert members from all over the world that can help the community (Ex. A programmer, a financial expert, …)
How ?
Creating meetings and social events has a great importance in the life of the local community. Organisation of these events, local initiatives and meetings still remain everyone’s prerogative. It is however necessary to have someone who is dedicated to coordinate these events. This should help build the community using its local enthusiasm to make it more active. Much of this has been proven by the active European areas.
We then introduce the role of Local Coordinator (LC)
Let’s just redefine this local meaning with a geographical explanation within the existent terminology used on CS :
. Global (worldwide)
- Region (continent, region defined on CS)
- Country (country) Country coordinator (responsible of the homepage ?)
- State/province (area of country) or city : Local coordinator
We will there focus on the Local coordination. For example, for Paris and her surrounding area, the title will be : LC - Ile de France
The Local Coordinator (LC)
A local coordinator is person who facilitates the organisation of members in an area. Specific tasks include :
- To make sure meetings take place on a regular basis (Europeans agree that a monthly meeting the first Saturday of the month is a good start).
- It would be perfect if other members initiate these meetings, but if not, it’s the local coordinator’s duty to organise them.
- To greet new members of your area and invite them to join actively the community.
- We think a new member should first be greeted at his arrival by an ambassador. A greeting from an ambassador from a distant country would be ideal (a man from Fiji greets a Peruvian), because CS is about travel! Then, within 10-14 days, he should be contacted by the local coordinator who will introduce him to the community spirit and activity of CS and invite the new member to the next meeting.
- To post to the local groups, and to moderate them, or to supervise their moderation, assigning these tasks to other members
- To maintain a local database of members
- We learned it from the crash. Even the bonds between local members, their ability to meet and communicate depends on the CS website. In order to ease communications between local members and maintain a local activity (even if the CS website is unavailable), the local coordinator will maintain a local database with contact information and phone numbers from each member. This database should not be obtained by an extraction from the CS database, but asked to the member face to face, and be kept outside of the system (Excel file or similar).
To obtain the position of local coordinator, a member will have to apply and fill a form and be approved by an ambassador. This form should have at least these questions :
- Why do you feel you would be a good local coordinator (LC)?
- Why do you want to apply for this position?
- Have you organised an event before? Which one(s)?
Here are ideas of requirements:
- Must be verified.
- Alternative methods of LC's who fit the job profile but cannot make a credit card payment due to (Localtion asia,africa,sout america,financial reasons)
- Must be vouched for at least 5 times (this rule may be bent if a potential LC lives off the beaten track).
Attending questions or suggestions :
- Huge areas should have more than one local coordinator. How many? Between 3 and 6?
- Retirement, replacement, time away of a local coordinator
- Should the local coordinator be ambassador level 1(subject dealt in the “ambassador’s role” workshop)?
- To organise or help put in motion inter area events, like couch invasion from an area’s member to another (Several CSers from Vienna surfing Brastilava’s couches)
links suggested ( by Dante ) regarding decision making : http://beethoven.tronicplanet.de/ding ( decision making software developped by friends in germany - could be implemented in CS ? )
On Open Organizations : http://www.open-organizations.org/
http://www.open-organizations.org/view/Main/SystemsViewOrganizations http://www.open-organizations.org/view/Main/LCDWP
What we need from our programmers:
- A Local Coordinator icon: May be a graphic or simple icon designating this function.
- Additional field for this title. Ex: Local Coordinator - Ile de France
- A local homepage
- We think an important feature would be to create a homepage for every area (country, state, city eventually). This homepage could include description, history, useful advice and information, customs, meetings and events. It should include the name of every local coordinator and local ambassador.
- Moderation tools
- First, we note that there are not any moderation tools for groups. These tools should be implemented. The LC should be able to have access to these tools so he can moderate or help moderate local groups. He should also be able to replace inactive moderators or promote people as a moderator on the local groups.
- Additional administration tools
- The local coordinator has to be able to see the new members of his area, and to know when they have been greeted by an ambassador, so a local greeting can be sent within 10-14 days. A LC must also have tools to build the local homepage (wiki admin tools ?)
- A big hug! We have put a lot of work in this and hope our programmers like it!!!
