Intersection of initiatives with 'matching' component

Thanks for bringing it into Loomio. Here is an email comment from Jeff that is relevant to this conversation.

The way I'm thinking about ConnecWNC (especially what we're working on with Elastic Search) is as technical augmentation to word of mouth. In that sense, its more about giving individuals (or groups) access to what other groups or people are doing around WNC/Asheville without them having to already be part of the specific silo that the group serves.

In that sense, moving from silos to a network of networks might be a good characterization.

I also would really like to see what we're building be an agent for economic and social leveling in the area (technology historically being a great leveler). One test for this would be can we connect people as diverse as:

An NPO board member
A rural factory worker
A black teen in AVL
Any number of others
With resources that meaningfully address their needs for technical assistance, education, community, or job placement.

I also really like the idea of freelance focus groups targeting local issues, and see a lot of synergy there with what we're thinking.

I would say though that we should also figure out how to engage members of the communities so that what we build reflects their needs and builds or reinforces technical competency in their communities as well.

Since technology is not my gig, I would love to play in the area of outreach to people who would benefit -- the people with needs, people with ideas they believe would help everyone flourish, organizations with needs, employers, etc. I would be delighted to work with a subgroup to help identify how we jumpstart this! Tracy mentioned having something on the website for people to list, an add in the MtnXpress. It's going to take a lot more than that to get marginalized communities and nonprofits working with them to join with us. I'm up for that!

It strikes me that Rand's taxonomy project should figure in to this effort to incorporate all those who would benefit. It would be the glue that makes it possible to add disparate groups into this emerging architecture, in such a way that everything plays nicely, is searchable, and so on.

In my work on bringing medical access to under-served communities we have taken a two-pronged approach using both 1) outreach and 2) technology. Basically, we had outreach workers take the technology out to the people (using tablets), and then walking people through the process(es). Admittedly, those people had to then use technology again in order to follow up with the relevant medical systems, but the INITIAL connections were made using technology outreach efforts.

I hate to be the one to say this, but (imo) it is simply impractical, if not impossible, to really assist people who themselves do not have access to the requisite technology. To me, this means that making sure community/shared technology IS available is paramount (via libraries, outreach, etc.).

But technology is not the only thing to which this dilemma applies. It is important to note that the previous paragraph also is true for "currency" instead of "technology." This is why creating alternative currencies is of crucial relevance. Taking out an ad in a local newspaper could be done using local alternative currencies instead of scarce federal dollars.

Inevitably, we will end up with several systems and processes operating in parallel. Taxonomies (tagging) and matching algorithms will operate in various online tools we can build. Alongside that, social programs can seek to build connections where we notice that there are gaps and needs, in technology, in currency, and in any other relevant tools and mechanisms.

Hope some of that helps :-)

I'm not a technology person, but I don't understand how the conversation about Rand's taxonomy relates to the topic of the thread, intersection of initiatives with 'matching' component.

If the "matching" component is a technical solution (and why wouldn't it be), then in order for the matching to work, the system would have to know about each initiative. The system will have some kind of schema that makes it possible to capture what's important about an initiative - what it's purpose is, who the contacts are, where they're located, and so on. I think it would be wise to base such a schema, to whatever extent makes sense, on Rand's taxonomy. Make sense?

It does, but we're talking about is not a system to match people with initiatives, rather different initiatives that have a matching component, and generally what got decided was that each initiative would figure out its own matching system (and not all of them are technical/online), and then there would be some standards that would allow interoperability. (I'm not a technical person, so if this doesn't make sense, it might be my explanation.)

Oh ok. Still, it might be worth thinking about. It seems like it's right in the wheelhouse of what Rand was proposing.

yes, initiatives applying the kind of thinking you're talking about makes sense.

Similar to discussions around the web site, we need to further identify our audience(s), many in Cheri's comment above, their needs and what value we intend to bring. Certainly taxonomies and other tools/techniques will be valuable downstream but I'm confident more fleshed out needs will drive the appropriate use and timing...