From tech at futurecourse.com Sun Mar 22 23:14:51 2015 From: tech at futurecourse.com (Terry) Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2015 16:14:51 -0700 Subject: [Courses] A "Thank You" and a Request to Practice Your Skillanthropy Message-ID: <550F4CEB.70904@futurecourse.com> Hello All, This is being posted to all the lists with permission. When I first joined LinuxChix, I joined for the reasons given on the ?About? page - http://www.linuxchix.org/about-linuxchix.html. In short, I have a deep and abiding fascination with all things computing and was scared to death to ask questions on lists and forums because I?d been slammed before. And to make matters worse, I wasn?t an official geek. I had no training and never had a job in computing. I?m self-taught and answers like ?Didn?t you learn that in programming 101?? frankly made me angry. I had the heart of a geek and a nerd. Was I destined to struggle through geekdom and nerddom alone? It sure felt like it. Where could I go? I didn?t know but somehow I found LinuxChix and the first thing I saw was ?Be polite. Be helpful.? I joined Techtalk, Newchix and Grrls-only and my eyes were opened. I asked some questions, participated in a few discussions. People were polite and helpful. And I was hooked. Now, because of some things going on in my personal life, I have some time to volunteer and hopefully, I can use my career skills to help the people and organisation out that have really helped me out by giving me confidence in my computing skills, lending an ear and offering me the opportunity to shout ?Me, too!? because I can *relate* - I?ve had that experience in the workplace or online or wherever. I think, ultimately, that ?Me, too? is the reason I remain. So a sincerely, deeply heartfelt thank you to everyone for many more reasons than what I've listed here. My decision to volunteer to be the Volunteer Coordinator, I guess you would call it, is not entirely unselfish. It's actually very selfish. I get to: - interact with new people and hopefully make new connections - learn some new skills - brush up on some skills - help others learn some skills they might not have - have something to add to my CV - reconnect with the world - practice my patience and tolerance - feel useful - relate to others - feel understood There's a lot more but enough said. So you're probably wondering what the heck is skillanthropy and why is she making this request? The Urban Dictionary defines skillanthropy as a "person or professional with a skill or skills that donates their time, effort, skills but not loads of money to a cause for the betterment of not only society but the world in general." LinuxChix needs more skillanthropists. The ones we have do a fantastic job, but they could sure use some help. Before you say, "I don't have the time or skills" and decide not to become a skillanthropist or, if you're currently a volunteer and thinking of stopping, please read on. I hope to convince you otherwise. For me, it's true that I've gotten more out of LinuxChix than I've put in. It's also true that now that I'm putting more into it, I know I'll be getting a lot more out of it. Maybe that will work for you too. I'd like to create opportunities for you to practice micro-skillanthropy with no advanced skills necessary. For example, the website pages need to be reviewed. You can use your skills to review just one page! No need to join yet another list, get a Drupal login, etc. Nothing. Skills needed: 1. Reading 2. Clicking links 3. Sending an email What we'll give you: 1. A task list that forms the basis for the task with steps, a generous time frame for completion, what you need to report on and who you need to report it to. 2. No grief. 3. My undying gratitude. What the task entails: 1. Read the content. 2. Evaluate the content, including: - Are the links valid? - Should the page be archived? (ie content no longer relevant or timely) - Should it be rewritten? Are there any spelling/grammatical errors? - What would make the page better? 3. Email a short report back to.... well, I'm still working on that part. *****Please note***** While this is a real task that needs to be performed, we're not quite ready to start it. I'll send out a call for micro-skillanthropists as tasks become available. Now, if you want to be more involved, you certainly can be, and it would be very welcome. All I have to offer is my undying gratitude but maybe I can get some others to chip theirs in as well. In that case, you might need to join the project we have going over on Meistertask.com. Send me an e-mail with the subject "Join Meistertask" and I'll send you an invitation. I've already heard privately from some people with questions, so here's the broad plan: 1. Conduct an informal "organizational" review to figure out exactly where we are today. Who are the current skillanthropists? What are they doing? Who needs help? 2. Identify current needs. What needs to be done? 3. Decide where we want to go, who wants to take us there and what that will look like. There'll be an email with more about the plan later. If you've made it this far, thank you for reading. Comments, thoughts, ways to improve the process are all welcome. If you're interested in practising your skillanthropy, please contact me directly and I'll provide you with some more information. Also, consider joining the Volunteers list. Not mandatory for micro-skillanthropists, but very helpful. http://mailman.linuxchix.org/mailman/listinfo/volunteers Happy skillanthroping! -- Terry