Event:2014/05/05 Communications Committee Meeting

Details

• Monday, May 5 @ 7pm @ 2141 Broadway (Public School Room)

Notes

intros / what are you interested in?

• Elaine
  • Verbal narrative
  • Fundraising experience
• Danny
  • What we need to tell people, and what they want to know
  • Business writing
• Alana
  • Being sensitive to rhetoric and what might be called “advertising” in words and images
• Matt
  • “Who is your daddy and what does he do?”
  • Internal, external communications: especially interested in internal communications, i.e. wiki, and other internal infrastructure, bring experience from Sudo room as a development ground to Omni Commons. Communication within the OMNI should be inclusive and empowering.
• David
  • “Playing bad cop” i.e. bringing up risk and exposure
• Ashley
  • Concerns about reception outside of the Omni collective
• Joel
  • Communication design as a living—wants to contribute skills and experience
• Ahnon
  • Experience with corporate communication and social media
• Jenny
  • Heavily invested in communication tools that enable collaboration and facilitate people able to contribute their voice to conversations. Aspiring to create a “public facing” document that we can all refer to and collaborate on and fine tune.
• Jordan
  • A number of outstanding critical concerns on the website that have been expressed but not implemented, wants to adjust the website before Friday. Interested in making the website a Gittup page. We don't need that many pictures. There is body politics regarding who gets represented.

Agenda

1. Questions & Misconceptions (15 mins)

• Preparing to be open (rather than we are open)

2. Concise details & photographs (15 mins) 3. Framing - what can we tell folks, what's appropriate, timeline, scope (15 mins)

Notes

• Danny is stating that he wants our communications work to be more centralized so we can have a unity of production.
• Jordan suggests we use Github to consolidate communications material.
• What is the purpose of the OMNI website?
  • David says that one of the main functions of the OMNI collective is acting as a profalactic, so there is an anodyne element, to be friendly to the community, and be aware of a few core things that should not be said, in light of the sensitivity to blog posting and non-profit status.
• Joel: Valuable to communicate the images of the website in light of fundraising. And the three audience s - tailor to officials, donors, comrades
• Danny: Credible, legitimate, message to authority figures, financial backers, and the surrounding community. Asks what everyone's concerns are and what the discrepancies are.
• Matt: Think of things in terms of flows - city officials to view & move on; radicals to be aware of how to get into the building & join groups. donors to invest, etc;
• Alana: Get in touch with collectives to asks for photographs and text
• Joel: Proposing we work from the template that Matt created
• Elaine: It's important to have pictures of the building, and seeing what the space looks like with people in there
• Jordan: Wants to create the work flow more fluid through Gittup
• Joel: An action item to synthesize all written documents into something concise for the website

1. Questions and Misconceptions What/why/how there needs to be a public commons We can define the commons to pin it philosophically. What is a commons? The levity, brevity of the message is important. How are we different from other collectives within the community? Joel: The current website has large images of each collective and potential uses of the space. A call to action which gives you to the donate page or....The focus point is introducting people to the collectives and pressing the donate button. What is the most vital piece of information when coming to the website? Elaine: What is OMNI Danny: What do I get? Elaine: Why is the OMNI needed? answers that question Danny: How do I get it? Jenny: Communicating our langauge in the form of an invitation Joel: We're not done, we're not an institution - this is a living, breathing thing we invite you to Alana: How do we maintain our integrity and our mission while also extending this invitation? Joel:Hierarchy of information for the website

   What is the OMNI?
   What do I get? The variety of collectives and participation in them
   FAQ: possibly linked to the Wiki
   Pages for each collective
   Jenny: Food Not Bombs
   Elaine: Tooth
   Joel: Salta
   Alana: Baps
   I didn't get e
   

Mission

• Focus on publics-facing communications (web presence, messaging, outreach, press, public/city relations) as well as internal communications (inter-group collaboration platforms, wiki, mailing lists, and other tools for communication and collaboration). Communication with and within the Omni Collective should be an inclusive and empowering experience, with levity and brevity at heart.

Goals

• First duty is to knock out a website and press release by Friday
• Solicit more FAQs
• IT infrastructure
  • Publics
    • Messaging
    • Outreach
    • Press and Public relations, communicating with the city and the state
  • Internal Communications
    • Intergroup collaboration tools
    • Wiki
    • Mailing lists

Agenda

Website

• Making website a Github page
  • Concern: Overemphasis with photo-heavy material

FAQs

• Can I join? How? http://wiki.omni-oakland.org/w/Join
• What's the Omni?
  • History of this building
  • Groups that want to turn the Omni into a commons
• Who are these groups?
• Why is the Omni collective needed?
  • Philosophical/political motivation
  • Defining Commons & tragedy of the commons; undervaluing of civic society at the expense of the state and the market
• What is a commons?
  • Etymology
  • Resources to learn more about the commons
• How does the Omni sustain itself financially?
• What kind of events and classes are available to the public?
• How does the Omni make decisions?
• Levity and briefness is important!
• Extension to the surrounding world - who are we similar to? Who are we aligned with? How committed is each collective to opening its doors to anyone?

Currently on the site

• Large images of each of the collectives
• General descrip of the project
• Potential uses of the space
• Call to action --> Donate / Get Involved
• Page for each of the collectives

To put on the new version of the site

• What is Omni?
• Why is the Omni needed?
• What kinds of resources, events, classes are available to the public (me)?
• How do I gain access to these things?

Ideas for Site

• Descriptions of the collectives bounced off the front page
• FAQ for longer-form answers
• Analytics
• Inflow: What is it?
• Outflow: What do I get?
• Calendar of all of the collectives' events +++
• Prominant CTA to join announce list

Outreach to Existing Member Groups

Description of collective, history/CV, plans for the future, calendar & any media they'd want to post:

• Jenny to Helen from Food Not Bombs
• Joel to Andrew from Backspace
• Elaine to Sweet Tooth from Black Hole
• Niki to Kazoo from Creative Empowerment Project
• Joel to La Commune
• Danny from Peak
• Joel to Backspace
• Jenny/Matt/Jordan to sudo

IT Infrastructure

• Using Github:

Action Items

• Consolidate shared docs into a discoverable repository [Danny & Jordan]
• Consolidate points from the meeting and fine-tune mission [Jenny]
• Add remaining collectives to website & revamp (by Friday) - (Jordan, Matt, Joel, Jenny, Alana)
• Put website on Github and send out before Thursday meeting (Jordan, Matt, Jenny and Joel)
• Blog [Jenny, Joel?]
• Analytics [Matt]
• Social Media [Jenny, Joel?]
• Press release for Friday (to be sent out to announce list an posted on site)
  • PR huddle - journalists, merge contact lists
• Review from delegates of images put on the site [All, but related to posting]

Next Meeting

• Folks to work on language during Finances mtg @ Speak tmrw - send out proposal at the end of the night

Gratuitous Link Dump

• Omni Talking Points: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nOBMCe_OsTL-eZK4mZOS0-RrSw-DaE29-uwtL6AETbc/edit?usp=sharing
• Communications references, including biz model brief: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r06FUNnN6ENQJr928Ok4GXvDolHd-XaOl2DQW-TkXmM/edit