Just in from Nikki Lee... Caryl From: [email protected] Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:49:07 -0400 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [support-gang] Fwd: Caught in a Ponzi scheme
Planning and infrastructure are necessary when you are trying to get something done. Even if the task itself does not require it, you need a system in which new recruits can be effective. Far too often university students, who are genuinely interested in OLPC, are left with crummy ways to volunteer. For the majority of the time that I was actively involved in OLPC, Support Gang was the only structured way to contribute, and the rest of the time was when SG did not exist. Take it from someone who started and ran a university chapter - it's incredibly difficult to find useful, meaningful ways to contribute. I spent a lot of time feeling like I was misleading chapter members by pretending that anything we were doing was going to be useful to the children that OLPC aims to help. Our chapter has finally progressed to the point where we are involved in a pilot school, but the vast majority of our volunteering has been G1G1 related - SG, repairs, local "grassroots" get togethers... Meanwhile, OLPC finally offers an opportunity to get involved directly through OLPC Corps, and the students involved feel like they've been tricked, or hung out to dry. They are probably mostly paying their own way (a $10K stipend is listed for the project, but I got the impression earlier that students were expected to seek out funding from their schools; it certainly didn't sound like a good deal to anyone in our chapter at the release time), they only have 100 XOs, they are not particularly well trained, they most likely have never done this before - it's an overwhelming situation to be in. If you want students to help out and become long-term volunteers, you have to give them something accessible and concrete that has direct, measurable outcomes. While it may work just fine to say "yay you're making the world a better place" for some, you'll attract a lot more by the show not tell principle. tl;dr: Even if OLPCorps "succeeds" by current metrics, if the students volunteering feel bitter and disenfranchised afterwards, you are doing it wrong. And as a side note, why is the activation energy barrier for students with specialized skills SO HIGH? You think it would be easy for a group of motivated engineering students to contribute to an open source technology project in a meaningful way. Nikki
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