Ways we can work together

I am currently prioritising contributing to the research, process-design, resource curation, and documentation elements of cooperatively-stewarded projects.

If you are interested in how I can contribute to your project as a collaborator, consultant, or peer-supporter, please explore my offerings and reach out for an initial conversation.

Collaborating

I foster intentional high-trust collaborations with peers while also practising commoning along with whoever shows up to participate with me in the projects I care about.

Areas of work I am looking for intentional collaborators for are:

• Developing appropriate governance tools for intentional small-group collaborations
• Designing processes that facilitate collective governance practices
• Supporting community organisations reduce their reliance on extractive digital tools and adopt more values-aligned alternatives

Consulting

I am currently offering the following contributions to other projects in exchange for money and/or a form of distributed reciprocity arrangement within the context of solidarity economies.

Concept Smithing

Concepts are the material I work with most. I specialise in examining the collective uses of concepts within and across specific contextualised practices.

My expertise in conceptual practices began with my doctoral research, where I learnt to ask questions about how and why concepts are being used as goal-directed tools.

I continue to ask these questions because I care about the unintended miscommunications that can emerge when we use the same term to refer to different concepts, or use different terms to refer to the same concept, or use interdependent concepts for diverge goals.

Ways that I have contributed to projects through this practice include:

• Analysing contested concepts within their historical, philosophical, sociological, and technological contexts
• Synthesising insights from studies on a given concept from a diverse range of knowledge domains
• Assessing how appropriate a selected concept is for an intended goal
• Preparing summaries of the key concepts being used within a specific context

Curating Contextualised Resource Sets

Preparing resource sets for specific topics or events is the contribution I am asked for the most frequently. My approach to these requests is to gather and assess resources for relevance and prepare a contextualised entry-point for further explorations - see more details and examples.

Process Design and Documentation

I have contributed to designing and documenting the emerging processes that help structure collaboratively-organised projects. This includes describing guiding principles, and forming agreements around responsibilities and expectations, navigating conflict together, and other aspects collaborative practices. I have also been responsible for auditing the use of specific tools within projects.

I can support small-groups design and document their emerging governance practices and/or use of specific tools. Approaches I take to this type of work include:

• Gathering perspectives from participants about their experiences within the project
• Preparing a descriptive report of current practices within the project
• Contextualising a descriptive analysis of current practices alongside:
  • the project goals, vision, and values
  • existing agreements within the organisation
  • best-practice advice within the relevant knowledge-domain
• Facilitating a space for participants to reflect on their current practices, and explore potential changes that better align their practices with their project vision.
• Drafting an initial set of guidelines for participants to use when aligning emerging practices with project goals, vision, values, and other agreements.

Qualitative Research Design

While my core research practices are embedded within the projects I participate in, I welcome research-collaborations and can contribute in a support role for other research projects on request. For examples, requests for support I’ve accepted so far include:

• Advising on how to choose tools for collecting and analysing qualitative data that align with the goals of the communities involved
• Providing peer-support and/or supervision for researchers leading the qualitative components of mixed-method research projects
• Assisting with research projects as a secondary analyst (e.g., to test the robustness of analytic categories)
• Co-writing grant applications, research publications, conferences presentations, industry reports, resource-sets, and community processes
• Eliciting and analysing qualitative data as part of mixed-methods projects

Software Development Testing

As a non-technical collaborator on multiple software development projects I have gained a broad range of technical literacy in the field - see more. While my programming skills are still entry-level, I have experience with git workflows and can confidently offer software projects contributions that include:

• Testing and editing technical documentation
• Testing UI designs
• Helping to maintain and query databases
• Contributing to strategy and design decisions
• Research and product design

Peer Support

I am also practising contributing to peer-support arrangements in specific contexts. This includes direct peer-support exchanges where there are compatible offers/asks, as well as asymmetrical peer-support arrangements that contribute to distributed reciprocity flows.

Examples of areas I can offer support include:

• Soundboarding support while making decisions under uncertainty
• Resourcing support while learning qualitative research methodologies
• Accountability support while navigating intentional relating practices

Examples of areas I am currently welcoming support opportunities include:

• Design support to convert my long-form resources into more visually accessible formats (e.g., flow-charts)
• Technical support to present structured-data in ways that work better for assistance technologies (e.g, text-to-voice software)
• Soundboarding support for designing small-group facilitation practices
• Accountability support while navigating intentional relating practices
• Systems-administration support