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Transitioning to

a Remote Organizing Team

Italians sing out from balconies during coronovirus lockdown

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Chat in

  • Organization
  • What you’re excited for in today’s session

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Social Movement Technologies�Who we are

  • a non-profit, unionized movement partner, proud members of Pacific Media Workers Guild (TNG-CWA)
  • online organizing strategy, training and staffing to engage members and win campaigns in the digital age
  • trained staff & leaders from 2,400 groups in 7 years
  • worked with 70+ movement orgs for assessments & campaign support

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Introductions

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By the end of the hour, you’ll be more knowledgeable about

  • Running effective online meetings
  • Apps for connecting visually with people not at computers
  • Useful practices and policies for remote teams
  • Tech stacks for remote teams
  • Digital security considerations

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What we won’t cover today

  • General working from home recommendations
  • Maintaining our sanity recommendations
  • Organizing now

Next session:

Organizing now: creative all-digital organizing actions, and offline community-building actions that incorporate the need for physical distancing.

*A “good use of time” expectation*

*Sound good to you? Raise your hand*

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Polls

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Choose an icon and drag and drop it to mark where you are on the spectrum:

Lots of

Experience

with being part of a remote team

No Experience with being part of a remote team

Very

Nervous

Very

Confident

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First name A-M: “One thing we need to improve on my team...”

Double-click any shape to edit

Compassion fatigue/ burn out

virtual restorative circles

We recently hired multiple new staff before having to go completely remote and need to figure out how everyone’s work intersects so we don’t over work ourselves

Consistency in meeting times and organizing big grouips

Not miss the small details of updates when we don’t see each other regularly

Keeping staff motivated and holding them accountable when working entirely from home.

How to engage youth in a more creative way.

brainstorming and facilitation in team meetings

Norming how to work digitally

feeling empowered in our roles

consistency and accountability

Communications. Team-work.

Get to know the multiple options available and what best fits our goals

Supporting one another remotely

Connecting young people without tech access

Helping our youth to engage their base

Working as a team in and out of our space. (Being a unit)

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First name N-Z: “One thing we need to improve on my team...”

Double-click any shape to edit

Access to technology

communication about meetings being rescheduled.

Uneven technological skills and frustration

Reducing workload to create spaciousness

Communication about tasks getting done / what each person is doing each day

Incorporating more breaks and rest to avoid burnout

communication

Getting team to share ideas and run with them

Getting ‘in sync’

Learning and adapting to new technologies. Cohesiveness with members

cohesiveness

accountability

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First name A-M: “My favorite tool I use in my team that I want to recommend is...”

Double-click any shape to edit

Facebook Messange

Trello

Facebook workplace

Trello, zoom

motivational interviewing

signal, zoom,

slack

Virtual Games to get people moving

Google Docs

Google docs; slack

Asana, slack, whatsapp, google drive, zoom

canva

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First name N-Z: “My favorite tool I use in my team that I want to recommend is...”

Double-click any shape to edit

slack

Fun slack channels : pet/plants, chef (cooking), streaming, parenting (pics of kiddos!)

Asana

google hangouts, docs, sheets

Monday, Mural and Zoom

Canva

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Why does good campaign management

& team communication matter SO much...

even more so when working remotely?

  • We can waste a lot of time and energy - affects our movement work and our personal lives
  • Feeling inefficient/unorganized can lead to stress and burnout...more if we’re alone
  • It can discourage leaders/volunteers from getting more involved
  • If our tools & systems make it easy, work can feel more joyful!
  • We can make better decisions
  • We can work better as a team!
  • We can absorb and engage supporters effectively and grow the movement!

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A business marketing tech stack

showing evolution with changing needs and tool development

Tech Stack: Combination of tools, apps and platforms used in your org to manage data and communication.

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Tech for productivity at home

  • Internet speed - get the fastest you can afford
    • Reboot (disconnect modem for 1+minute) 1-2x/week
    • Is organization in position to pay or help pay for faster internet at home? Is it worth it to you?

  • Notifications
    • What’s useful
    • What’s distracting

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Smart time management

to be more productive and feel better

Take Back Your Life!

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Effective use of online meetings

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Online Meeting tools

SMT Video Tool Comparison spreadsheet

Toasty - fun tool for people to get to know each other in small breakouts

Small mtg use:

Google Hangouts - free, up to 25

Meet - free with Google Suite - live captioning, no breakouts

Zoom - free and can record & do break-outs, but only up to 40 minutes

Issues with misleading privacy claims Intercept article; detailed article on encryption lies/flaws in Zoom

More secure alternatives to Zoom: jit.si meet, BigBlueButton, article about alternativesSetting updates from Zoom April 2020, avoiding Zoom-bombing

Larger mtg use:

Zoom paid account ($15/mo) - Unique link, can be used without someone logging in with correct settings

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Zoom Tips + Features

Zoom helpful features:

  • Paid accounts can hold up to 300 participants, and even more with the webinar feature; when creating paid accounts for your staff have 1-2 Admin for onboarding
  • Create up to 50 break out rooms for participants; only hosts can assign
  • Generate reports for your paid account on organizational use
  • Screensharing + Annotation (drawing/writing on the screen)
  • Download the Zoom Scheduler extension for Firefox or Chrome for easy scheduling in Google Calendar
  • Access Zoom through the phone app, website or Desktop app

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Useful practices for online meetings

  • Yourself: lighting, position, warmth, distance (extra light w/a diffuser)
  • Krisp for keyboard sounds and background noise on computer & phone ($35/year/person)
  • Turn off notifications!
  • Note-taking app that is searchable (“Notes” on mac or “OneNote” microsoft)
  • Hosting calls with more than a few - plan ahead for how to engage all. Be clear about outcome you want. Start on time.
  • More

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Facetime with members who

aren’t sitting at computers

Do what’s easiest for them for 1:1s -

For larger meetings, people can get used to using Zoom phone app - very user friendly, or on computer.

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Conference calling tools

Use case: create a standing number & access code if you want people to be able to dial in with or without a host to the same number.

Otherwise, simplify your tech stack and stay away from these.

  • Freeconference.com
  • Uberconference.com (feature: can call participants for you)

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Remote Team Practices & Policies

  • Hardware and internet speed minimums - resources to help staff with this?
  • Community-building activities via video (lunch, meditations, breaks…)
  • Coworking blocks
  • Overlapping work time
  • Webcam on default, including for quick unscheduled meetings
  • Communication channel protocols & plan to implement
  • “How-to” board with Loom recordings (chrome extension)
  • “Staff Start-Up” board
  • Time tracking (Clockify best value)

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Team Communication Protocol

“What to use when”

  • Avoid email
  • On-the-record use: in-app project management convos
  • Quick ping (either to group or as direct message 1:1): Slack - threads useful
  • Urgent: Whatsapp/Signal/text
  • Meetings: Google Hangouts / Zoom video
  • Rapid response group chat: Signal/Whatsapp
  • Large community of engagers: Slack/Google group/public board of project management tool/ P2P or broadcast text messaging

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Scheduling meetings efficiently

  • calend.ly (free)
  • paid version ($10/mo/user - ask for 25% discount for nonprofits)
  • with Zoom or Google Hangout link
  • add custom question: person’s cell phone
  • teams that often meet
  • Your busy/free time - multiple google calendars - family, personal, work (example)

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Remote staff meetings

    • chair/host welcome people and make sure any intros happen; be on camera as much as possible
    • start on time - especially important to respect that people juggling to make it on time
    • joint planning doc, with someone sharing their screen (split screen can work well)
    • build out your project management board (Trello, Monday.com, Asana, etc.) - during or after
    • Link planning doc on the board and come back to it

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Campaign Management Tools

  • Leader/member public boards
  • Board of directors board
  • Staff start-up
    • SMT board in Monday.com
  • Staff how-tos
  • Campaign management
    • Trello example
  • Individual staff board
    • SMT Monday.com example
  • Managing your deadlines and your team
    • Monday.com “my week”

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Digital Security

  • Password Manager - LastPass - Team account (1 admin $40/yr)
  • Cell phone - level of protection?
  • Computer - level of protection?
  • VPN*
    • TunnelBear ($35/yr/person)
    • IVPN ($60/yr/person)

*NYT article, Slate article

Ways to share sensitive data remotely

  • Signal upload instead of via email
  • Onetimesecret - to share with collaborators who don’t use Signal or same password manager
  • Password manager or Signal/WhatsApp

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Slack channel

About all topics related to remote work teams working on organizing, and organizing under physical distance constraints.

For: staff and activists of organizing groups.

Get join link

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Tools4All Coop

Students lead pro-democracy rallies in Thailand, March 22, 2020

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First A-I: Type your name in one of the boxes, then drag & drop yourself to where you are now:

Name

Name

Ana Godoy

Camila

Name

Name

Name

Eric

Cindy

Name

Name

Raina

Imari W

Kristi

Name

Irene

Hernan

Kathia

John P. Channing

Christina E

Carter

Name

Name

Erika

Name

Angeles

Angely

Abe

Andrea

Name

Training for Change slide template

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First J-Q: Type your name in one of the boxes, then drag & drop yourself to where you are now:

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Kasey (ICS)

Jenny

Name

Maura

Name

Lisa

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Kate

Keri

Brigette

Marsha

Training for Change slide template

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First R-Z: Type your name in one of the boxes, then drag & drop yourself to where you are now:

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Peg

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Rashanda

Yesenia

Name

Selina

victor

Name

Name

Name

Name

Name

Trey

Chester

Valeria

Name

TeAusha

Training for Change slide template

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Evaluation Poll and Q&A