Romyilano

Joined 14 March 2013
5,048 bytes removed ,  18:48, 30 April 2017
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= Philosophy =  
= Philosophy =  
I go to hackerspaces to make things and hack. I would like to please many people and do my best, but I cannot always make everyone happy. Everyone has different motivations for doing things, and I'm learning to be compassionate, even when people who mean well do negative things.
I go to hackerspaces to make things and hack. If I'm not hacking at a hackrrspace, I must ask myself, Why am I here?
 
Anytime my involvement at a hackerspace stops involving hacking, I need to stop, reconsider why I'm there, and the motivations of everyone involved. People ask me to do a lot of stuff, but in the end there are dozens of unfinished, half started projects on my github, sudoroom and noisebridge's github and the wikis of both places. 
 
It is really best to focus on completing cool projects instead of trying to convert hacker animals, women and small children into politicians, social workers or teachers of children.
 
Best wishes!
 
== Collaborations between tech/education/non profits at the HackerSpace ==
 
I've noticed a lot of interest by education folks in hackerspaces.  It's overall a great thing.
 
Some constructive suggestions:
 
* Enable hackers to help you find creative solutions to your education or social work organization. They will come up with a lot of great ideas!
* Although SudoRoom is conensus driven, most hackers and creative people aren't thrilled at the idea of meetings and bureaucracy. There is a small group of people who are really into meetings who like hacking politics - they are awesome! But most people do not enjoy being blocked from doing basic stuff, they tend to like iterating here. A little sensitivity would help out a whole lot, as education and non profit industries tend to favor talking a lot at meetings, lots of conensus on basic tasks, and caution regarding experimentaion and innovation
* Encourage cross-collaboration between areas not traditionally thought to "match" -in the past you would take personality tests and be advised against working in math or science if you were good at art.  I remember being very good at math and science as a child and was automatically pigeonholed into science tracks as well. The culture has changed a great deal and now those barriers are removed. this is your time to encourage new experiments and ideas! Many of the programmers here are also avid painters and sculptors and vice versa.
* Hacker culture is much more decentralized compared to non profit / education / social work culture. Enabling people to "branch" ideas and experiment is encouraged.
* Women at hackerspaces aren't necessarily thrilled about being pigeonholed into traditional female roles in teaching kids, education, non profits, or social work. Be sensitive to this. Many people have had to overcome prejudice, social and cultural considerations to become more technical and learn how to code or get into engineering. Help push women into areas outside of kid's education, it will make the world a better place! conversely, there are many great men at hackerspaces who are eager to work with kids and don't usually have the opportunity because they were told they were "too technical" Please, please don't ghettoize women and force them to talk about childcare topics or lead small groups of kids. it's sexist and depressing!
* Incentivizing DIY and personal initiative in your own organization is one way we can help. hackerspaces are all about people doing stuff without being asked to. In general they like to do stuff especially hen you ask them not to do it, which is pretty fun in and of itself. ;)
* Hackers are natural self-education types. They take like fish to water on self-directed learning, as you cannot possibly be a decent engineer nowadays without doing constant self education
* Most hackers are into social good projects and non profit work - they just hate the restrictions and bureaucracy. Remember, say it ten times over and over again "People who build stuff are allergic to meetings!" I've been in situations where well meaning social good groups will block even a simple blog post update or site design page without 10 argumentative meetings  - remember, every experiment can always be rolled back! 
* Dev Boot Camp graduates and students - if you send your student here, try to have them integrate themselves into the wiki / github as soon as possible. Hackerspaces flourish when people are building ideas and building! it's nice to talk about your life story, or about the job search, but this is an opportunity build something that exists outside of the for profit or non profit system just for the sheer fun of it. Even if you can't code, adding to the wiki and making creative things is generally the best way to go. You'll become a better hacker / coder / writer/ artist because of it!
* Hackers are generally open minded about religion but there are many atheists - if you are religious, please be diplomatic about proselytizing. It might be wiser to discuss religion as long as it's in a historical context or as a cultural and artistic force. Be prepared to have people question your religion or be into religious such as paganism
* Have fun! the focus is on fun. While you may be part of a crusade for greater good, your point of view is often fun. You don't always have to be serious!


= Events =  
= Events =  
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