This is a great post, thanks for writing it. I’ve thought about this topic a lot, specifically about the value helping others in the movement—I used the term “soft impact”, because it improves coordination and community and interconnectedness. These actions often are illegible, but don’t have to be.
EAs do this a lot anyways, but making the value of such action explicit or trying to track it could be really useful (and I think more of the following would only help!)
Examples:
connecting people to each other with the goal of them collaborating, one person getting advice, or just having shared interests.
providing detailed feedback on projects, posts etc.
sending people relevant resources
encouraging someone
maintaining connections with people whether that’s in person, email, at conferences etc.
To track soft impact, you could send a message to people you know (maybe annually) and ask for feedback. Some people send out feedback forms so that it can be anonymous and people can give honest answers.
I currently have kept a list of introductions I have made and update it occasionally. I also track projects where I have given feedback. I will need to send out feedback forms at some point and see the actual impact, but even if only 1⁄5 introductions is very useful, I think this is worth the few minutes it takes to make an intro.
I’d be curious to know how much time people put aside to do these kind of things—especially for people who aren’t very involved in meta stuff.
This is a great post, thanks for writing it. I’ve thought about this topic a lot, specifically about the value helping others in the movement—I used the term “soft impact”, because it improves coordination and community and interconnectedness. These actions often are illegible, but don’t have to be.
EAs do this a lot anyways, but making the value of such action explicit or trying to track it could be really useful (and I think more of the following would only help!)
Examples:
connecting people to each other with the goal of them collaborating, one person getting advice, or just having shared interests.
providing detailed feedback on projects, posts etc.
sending people relevant resources
encouraging someone
maintaining connections with people whether that’s in person, email, at conferences etc.
To track soft impact, you could send a message to people you know (maybe annually) and ask for feedback. Some people send out feedback forms so that it can be anonymous and people can give honest answers.
I currently have kept a list of introductions I have made and update it occasionally. I also track projects where I have given feedback. I will need to send out feedback forms at some point and see the actual impact, but even if only 1⁄5 introductions is very useful, I think this is worth the few minutes it takes to make an intro.
I’d be curious to know how much time people put aside to do these kind of things—especially for people who aren’t very involved in meta stuff.