Hi Miranda, you can see my response to Michael which addresses your first point.
For example, I try to introduce UChiEA members to members and organizations outside of us, but maybe ~50% of the time it just reinforces centralisation (I am āthe personā to contact).
Thanks for raising this. Could you possibly provide an example of this happening? Iād be really curious to know of a specific example you have in mind, and what exactly happened. I donāt have a good mental model of why this is reinforcing you as the key contactādo the members not interact with non-EA organisations? Do they have a one-off conversation but not take it further? Are they afraid of networking themselves?
Also, what do you mean by being āthe personā to contactācould you give an example of this? Itās not clear to me if this meas that people from outside of EA see you as the person to contact, or community members themselves (or both /ā neither /ā something else entirely).
On a related note, itās unclear to me how distributed we want intergroup networks (i.e. a network including your community + others) to be and what cost this comes atāI think we could be more distirbuted than we currently are. I think the challenge is that Iād want people who are pretty committed engaged EAs to do thisābut those are the people who are most likely to be have fairly insular and relatively closed networks.
Thanks for responding! I will note that I havenāt gathered data on this so my original comment is misleading, since I didnāt note that this is just my impression (that my attempts reinforce centralisation).
Here is what I think is happening more often than not when I connect a member to someone:
They probably schedule a 1:1 but do not develop a continuing relationship (which is not per se a problem, since itās likely that this is because the relationship is not helpful)
However, the member does not reach out to anyone else in EA as a result of this relationship, either
I keep offering to connect them to other contacts and they will agree, leading to more one-off calls like the above
(This is the most speculative part) This is, in a way, reinforcing the impression that I will flag when there is someone I think they should talk to, or in some way reduces the visible importance of taking the initiative to develop a network
Re: āthe personā to contact, Iām referring to the perception of my group members. My bad for the lack of clarity!
Hi Miranda, you can see my response to Michael which addresses your first point.
Thanks for raising this. Could you possibly provide an example of this happening? Iād be really curious to know of a specific example you have in mind, and what exactly happened. I donāt have a good mental model of why this is reinforcing you as the key contactādo the members not interact with non-EA organisations? Do they have a one-off conversation but not take it further? Are they afraid of networking themselves?
Also, what do you mean by being āthe personā to contactācould you give an example of this? Itās not clear to me if this meas that people from outside of EA see you as the person to contact, or community members themselves (or both /ā neither /ā something else entirely).
On a related note, itās unclear to me how distributed we want intergroup networks (i.e. a network including your community + others) to be and what cost this comes atāI think we could be more distirbuted than we currently are. I think the challenge is that Iād want people who are pretty committed engaged EAs to do thisābut those are the people who are most likely to be have fairly insular and relatively closed networks.
Thanks for responding! I will note that I havenāt gathered data on this so my original comment is misleading, since I didnāt note that this is just my impression (that my attempts reinforce centralisation).
Here is what I think is happening more often than not when I connect a member to someone:
They probably schedule a 1:1 but do not develop a continuing relationship (which is not per se a problem, since itās likely that this is because the relationship is not helpful)
However, the member does not reach out to anyone else in EA as a result of this relationship, either
I keep offering to connect them to other contacts and they will agree, leading to more one-off calls like the above
(This is the most speculative part) This is, in a way, reinforcing the impression that I will flag when there is someone I think they should talk to, or in some way reduces the visible importance of taking the initiative to develop a network
Re: āthe personā to contact, Iām referring to the perception of my group members. My bad for the lack of clarity!