From CrisisCommons Wiki

Welcome to this CrisisCommons Wiki Page. We want to let you know this content is OUT OF DATE. We want to direct you to Organizing_CrisisCamp for processes that have been established based on lessons learned from past events. This page will be Archived April 10, 2011. - Heather Blanchard, Co-Founder, CrisisCommons

Purpose

1. Explain volunteer opportunities (talking points)
2. Provide content to be re-purposed for wiki pages, presentations and slidesharing, volunteer video introductions
3. Tell our story better
4. Recruit new volunteers
   

Learn About Us

Who we are

• Vision, Mission, and Governance
• potentially combine parts with London_Governance_Discussions
• Volunteer Technical/Knowledge Worker Community
• Using our knowledge and time to help the helpers (NGOs/NFOs) for crisis, emergencies and disasters.

Types of volunteers

We have many types of volunteers:

• Technical - Software developers (Python, PHP, Ruby, etc), web developers, web designers, user experience/user interface experts, geocoders, geo mappers, GIS experts, technologists, beta testers

• New Media - Bloggers, vloggers, videographers, podcasters, photographers, social media trainers, social media users, collaborators, crowdsourcers

• Organizational - Organizers, open source community planners, project managers, emergency response planners, crisis communicators

• Other - Researchers, lawyers, trainers, technical writers, event planners, translators, innovators, entrepreneurs, anyone with a laptop

You don't need a title to volunteer! If you know a language in a crisis region, you can translate. If you've volunteered at a couple of crisis camps, you can train new people.

What you can do

When a crisis strikes, we need people to help respond to the crisis. At other times, you might help improve and expand our tools or develop infrastructure so that in a crisis we can respond better and faster. You can:

• code
• social media outreach
• test tools
• translate
• communicate
• collaborate
• brainstorm
• research
• analyze
• report
• create content
• edit content
• document processes

What does it mean to be a volunteer technical community

Volunteer
We donate our time and skills. Volunteering enriches us by helping us to grow and develop, often by being exposed to people and learning to use tools that might not otherwise cross our paths.

Technical
We use our knowledge and technical abilities to help out.

Community
We work together. You don't have to take on a huge task by yourself. We help you find the right place and ways to use your skills.

Volunteer communities can get things done quickly when working together. Think of a barn-raising - an entire barn can be built in one day when enough people work together. In a volunteer technical community, you probably won't be getting your hands dirty, but you can see results quickly.

How to get involved

You can become involved in a variety of ways.

The first step is to familiarise yourself with this full volunteer startup package as well as the highlights of the rest of the CrisisCommons wiki. Once familiar, you can choose one or more of these avenues to participate:

• Work on simple tasks or projects (outlined on on the front page of the wiki )
• Join a local camp or future cafe camps
• Join a virtual camp
• Start a CrisisCamp in your city/town
• Ask a question via email or on the IRC main channel
• THIS SECTION IS REQUIRED: create link to learn more about our community page (Crisis Commons team: content page/wiki to be created)

1. join our community (crabgrass)
2. read our blog, follow us on twitter, see our videos, flickr group
3. see great presentations: Ted, Ignite, others podcamp (NEED: directory of content)

What are the benefits

• Contribute your knowledge to "help the helpers" or a "local community in need" during an emergency
• Learn new skills, share your skills
• Grow your leadership skills by mentoring, teaching and sharing
• Embrace the power of the Internet: crowdsource, opensource, collaborate across cities/countries/continents
• Meet great people in your community, nationally and internationally
• Meet peers within your discipline who also believe in the power and beauty of volunteering technical skills
• Create social media, new media content
• Join a movement, tell your story/our story
• Spread your wings: apply your volunteer communities or even your workplace

How we use collaboration, crowdsourcing, and open source

Collaboration
Collaboration is the act of working on a project together by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. We collaborate on projects and developing infrastructure, both in person and using free online services (Evernote, wikis, IRC, etc). We also collaborate with CrisisCamps in other cities to leverage their knowledge and experience to meld with our own.

Crowdsourcing
Leveraging the mass collaboration enabled by various technologies to achieve common goals is crowdsourcing. Collective content is put into "the cloud" to be used as needed. Crowdsouricng enables us to pull in resources from anyone, anywhere.

Open source
Open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the source material of the end product - typically, the source code. When we work on projects at a CrisisCamp, there is no one owner for the work produced. All contributors are releasing rights to their contributions into the ether for the greater good

Types of projects

All projects are open source and built using collaborative methods.

Examples of some projects that we work on include:

• social media, networking, search engine optimization (SEO)
• software and web development
• open street map and other geographic information systems (GIS)
• infrastructure for CrisisCommons

Examples of past and ongoing projects/partner Volunteer Technical Communities include:

• Open Street Map - which goes where Google Maps doesn't exist or expands on existing information to include up-to-date crisis related information, such as finding clear routes
• Tweak the Tweet- to build a collaboration network to promote Tweet-friendly hashtag-based syntax to help direct Twitter communications
• Tradui - the first ever English - Kreyol translator applications for iPhone and Android
• Haitian Voices - Researching and sharing the personal stories of people from the Haitian crisis community
• CrisisCommons volunteer starter kit (this page)

Click here for the current list of new and active projects.

Tools

CrisisCamp uses a variety of tools collaborating with partner Volunteer Technical Communities including:

• GeoChat - Send an SMS and see it on a map.
• FrontlineSMS - Turn a laptop and a mobile phone into a central communications hub.
• Ushahidi - Crowdsource crisis information. Submit crisis information through text messaging using a mobile phone, email or web form.
• Sahana - Collaborate and coordinate to help with problems during a disaster from finding missing people, managing aid, managing volunteers, tracking camps effectively between Government groups, the civil society (NGOs) and the victims themselves.
• Open Street Map - Update this freely editable map of the whole world. It is made by people like you.

We also use tools that you might already be using, such as CrisisCommons Wiki, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and SlideShare.

Legal expectations

To be added by the Crisis Commons Founders

As part of working in a collaborative environment on open source source projects, you acknowledge that by making contributions to the cloud, you forfeit any right to the content, images, code, or intellectual property. You will be required to sign a waiver.

You also acknowledge that anything you contribute is of your own imagination or construction, and have all rights to add such contributions. You must not submit copyrighted work.

Get Started

Waiver

• to be added by crisiscommons founders

How to sign up

Notification for camps and discussions are distributed in various ways, and volunteers are encouraged to sign up for all of these services:

• Google group
• Twitter
• Facebook page

For each camp an event listing on Eventbrite will be set up, and volunteers can register based on their skillset. This will help the planning committee to develop a project plan for the camp. Look for a city near you or virtual location to find out how to sign up for your city or to sign up for virtual work.

Levels of involvement

General Volunteer
All volunteers that come out to a CrisisCamp will spend a few sessions as a general volunteer. This is a mutually beneficial process so that the volunteer can get a good idea of what happens at CrisisCamp, as well as for Leads to get an idea of your strengths. Volunteers will be assigned to projects based on needs, experience, and interest.

Project Manager
Project Managers will manage the resources for individual projects and maintain the project timeline.

Lead
A Lead is part of the planning committee who makes executive decisions for how the city camps are run, soliciting feedback and contributions from all volunteers.