Meetup Orientation¶

If you’ve already been to a Code for Maine meetup_ that’s awesome! Hopefully you’ve come away excited to start helping make your community and government work for the people.

Online Orientation¶

If you found us online_ that’s fantastic. Your first stop should be to sign up on Meetup.com for our Meetup group, where in-person hacking events are organized.

Beehve¶

Beehve is an alpha-level brigade collaboration tool. Built by members of Code for Maine, the tool ties together all the above tools and exists as our brigade website. The dashboard provides a quick overview of individual projects, recent meetups and the health of various projects.

From Beehve you should be able to get an 10,000-foot view of what’s going on in our brigade. When starting a new project, create the project in Beehve, add a github and waffle.io URL and start assigning tasks. Tools to integrate with Meetup.com and Todoist are coming soon.

Github¶

Primary tool for contributing code, and document development.

Waffle.io¶

Primary used to manage individual tasks, Waffle.io provides a kanban-style workboard for Github Issues.

This is very handy for projects like our operations repository which collects and builds the documents and policies that govern our brigade. Users who are unfamiliar with the Github Issues interface can use the Waffle.io workboard to more easily scan the current status of issues and places where they can join in.

Google Apps for Non-profits¶

As with most things in the 21st century, CfM uses Google Apps heavily. A team email address is managed using Gmail, and we often share simple, non-governance documents via Google Docs. Many civic organizations and government agencies still communicate using MS Office document formats, and Google Docs allows us to easily collaborate.

Todoist¶

Outside of Github Issues, Todoist is how we assign tasks to operations level volunteers. This tool is mostly used by leadership, though anyone can request to be added to our Todoist account and view what tasks have been assigned and completed.

Slack¶

Slack is a communication tool for working outside of meetups. In our distributed brigade, chat is often where a lot of discussions take place, so you’ll want to request access to this sooner rather than later. For those interested, Slack even allows you to connect via IRC.

Mission¶

The Captain role in the Brigades is to set leadership goals on a quarterly basis, provide support to the leadership team to do their job effectively, and communicate with the national Code for America organization.

An effective captain will keep a pulse on what members of the leadership team are involved with on a weekly basis and be responsible to the strategic plan.

Goals¶

todo: Fill in Captain goals

Resources¶

todo: Add resources for the captains

Mission¶

The Delivery Lead role in the Brigades is to know the Brigade’s projects really well; their stack, their status, and their needs. Delivery Leads help their Brigade have more impact in their communities. They do that by setting up tools and processes to facilitate project health and to shepard new and current members towards projects where they can have the greatest impact.

Goals¶

1. By the end of Q4 the goal is to have a directory of projects and a simple health metric established.
2. By the end of Q4 I will also have a directory of members that lists their strengths and contact details.

Resources¶

• [Spreading the Word About Your Code](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/05/how-to-spread-the-word-about-your-code/)
• [Overview of Delivery Leads from CfA](https://groups.google.com/a/codeforamerica.org/forum/#!topic/open-asheville/FE-k-DbqlOE)
• [Delivery Lead Kick-off @ CFA](http://www.codeforamerica.org/brigade-training/brigade02-12-2014/)

Jennifer Pahlka’s Welcome¶

• Organizational structure not setup to account for user experience when you write law and legistlation
• Prototypes, tested with users
• Not just immigration, college-readiness that needs new tech approach
• START WITH USERS, not just how we should be making technology, how we should be making government
• Go out, talk to people, ask if things are really as they seem
• How we should work in local gov, not done for the people, done by the people
• Cultivate the Karass – Jake Brewer

Libby Schaff, Mayor of the City of Oakland¶

• Create an opportunity pipeline
• Provide the opportunities of technology to those who need it
• Government has not always served people equally, now we have the tools to improve
• Mission-driven
• #techquity
• Properity of the technology age has to be shared equitiably

Jake Solomon, Health Project Manager at CfA¶

• Delivery, continual process of understanding and meeting user needs
• CfA has spent the year to learn how to deliver SNAP

Harlan Weber, Brigade Captain, Code for Boston¶

• equal parts: Mission-drive startup, Advocacy group, Tech meetup, Social club
• Worked with problem owners to develop their problems over two meetings

Karen Boyd, City of Oakland¶

• Equity, Simplicity and Trust
• Equity means reaching ALL people
• Simplicity means providing simple instructions in plain English
• Trust means making sure employees and citizens trust the government
• Oakland has a “Digital by Default” strategy
• Opening a Civic Design Lab space
• Process provides an open data policy and digital standards
• The Digital Front Door project

Panel: Building a 21st Century Transporation Network¶

• Transporation is a land-use issue, not just movement
• Land isn’t free, public pays for access to the road, and companies that make money need to trade equitibly

21st Century Tools¶

• SimpliCity product, provide answers to common questions
• CityVoice app to solicite feedback with phone numbers and signs
• Understanding your users

Building Data Standards on Github¶

• Mark Headd, Philip Ashlock, and Renata Maziarz
• Not a compliance exercise, about making data more accessible, not just for public, but also decision makers
• Better Data, Better Decisions, Better Government
• Machine read-able, platform independent
• Who are thes stakeholders?
• Maziarz: Be open by default
• Have a plan for responding to feedback
• Got criticism about lack of response to responses ... need handlers/people responsible
• Don’t get cold feet
• Ashlock:

Ideas from 2015 CfA Summit¶

• Improving food stamp process
• Mapping pedestrian and bike traffic
• Providing a digital front door for users to get off on the right foot
• Find simple ways to answer user questions (first need the data)
• Look into what it would take to implement CityVoice in Bangor and Portland