[HacktionLab] Picnic table zoom

[sam at bristolwireless.net]

If you wanted FOSS video conference software with breakout rooms then  
you might like Big Blue button;

http://docs.bigbluebutton.org

https://github.com/bigbluebutton/greenlight

There’s an open instance here: https://bbb.jitsi.world but I’m not  
sure who owns/ operates it

Maybe Disroot or someone would host an instance?

2p

Sam

Quoting Michael Reinsborough <m.reinsborough at qub.ac.uk>:

> Hi Hacktion,
>
> How is lock down treating you?
>
> I wondered what kind of comments people had about software and use  
> of software for online meetings/discussions/organizing
>   Or even online organizing (!!break the rules! The rule that tech  
> groups only talk about tech and never tech as a social relationship)
>
> I think at first the lockdown has shut down the left, or certainly  
> curtailed much of activity that was based on face to face meetings.   
> Although in some other ways things have taken off, like Facebook  
> mutual aid groups.  Momentum, for example, was already mostly an  
> online organization before this and is now organizing workshops  
> about online-organizing (zoom, whatsapp, slack, airtable).
>   I do think it is pretty important that our  
> anarchist/lefty/feminist/eco-or-whatever types of stuff that we do,  
> doesn’t just take a hiatus.  The entire economy is shutting down,  
> small business and independent contractors first, the handouts  
> designed to hold capitalism in place (placeholder) til it can get  
> back to normal except worse (greater acceptance on online  
> surveillance aka public health protection, greater state role  
> overall at the same time as fiscal policy of Tories will want to be  
> claiming back as much of their placeholder expenditure, austerity?).  
>  Economic crisis like 2008 or worse.  Within 6 months of that autumn  
> 2008 crisis beginning to reveal itself we had 10,000 people at the  
> Bank of England (in a different type of lockdown- a kettle, but the  
> governors knew people were mad and organized and willing to break  
> the rules).  We’re potentially looking at 18 months of lockdown  
> before a vaccine.  Confronting the total inability of the economic  
> system to deal with civilization threatening climate change has been  
> shelved in favour of the more immediate life-threatening inability  
> of the economic system to care enough about care workers (or service  
> sector/renter/lowly economy) to protect us from death/generational  
> eclipse/gera-cide/genera-cide of the 60s generation/pre-babyboomers.  
>  Yet at the same time the transition from automobile manufacturing  
> to ventilator manufacturing by factories at short notice shows  
> clearly that (if the social relationship dictates the technology  
> then) we can have socially useful production: A green new deal of  
> the titanic proportions necessary to confront climate collapse is  
> possible!
>   But this isn’t going to happen by itself, especially with BoJo  
> coming back to life on Easter Sunday to do a sermon on the mount  
> about Tory reverence for NHS workers.
>
>   Physical distancing, social solidarity
>   So practical question – what types of software, training, practice  
> etc. do we need to provide as techies to support online organizing?
>       Are there relevant  
> security/privacy/cooperation-when-you-aren’t-face-to-face trust  
> issues that we could solve?
>       Is it better to emulate geography in virtual organizing, i.e.  
> do “local” organizing that can both now (mutual aid groups) and  
> after lockdown (square off against austerity round-two) translate to  
> the streets?   Streets are always local, local to someplace.  Or do  
> we have meetings that are people from every-anywhere?  Or mixed?
>       How does the British direct-action community deal with  
> lockdown?  Is there a special type of lock down organizing for this  
> (our) community or does it just play scrabble (online) for 18 months?
>       Should we be trying to build new software that better does  
> what we need or do we work better with what is out there already?   
> Remember in organizing you can bring the people to the mountain or  
> the mountain to the people.  Wouldn’t most of us say it worked badly  
> trying to bring millennials internet 2.0 kids to the  
> encryption/secure communication mountain? Or is there still debate  
> about what went wrong with our abstentionist strategy?
>       So, here is an example of what a tech conversation might be  
> able to answer: How would we do picnic table zoom?  The  
> direct-action community has in the past used large scale (200 people  
> or so) consensus process meetings [or consensus/dissensus - in most  
> circumstances there is no need to agree about everything (‘diversity  
> of tactics’) in order to participate in mass action against  
> capitalism/capitalist globalization/militarism etc.].  And one  
> social innovation (social technology!) to do this was using picnic  
> tables arranged in a circle with a swivel chair in front of each  
> one, facilitators at the centre of the circle, and each group at the  
> picnic table was an affinity group.  There were proposals with lots  
> of time for each picnic table to discuss among themselves, then all  
> people still sitting in place turn their attention from their picnic  
> table conversation to the circle of picnic tables and a feedback  
> session begins.  Each picnic table has a person in the chair at the  
> front of their picnic table who speaks from their table in the  
> circle of tables conversation.  So 200 people in a 20 picnic table  
> circle has only 20 persons in the speaking circle doing a  
> facilitated conversation about specific proposals- but everyone can  
> hear, tables can talk (quietly) among themselves, advise their  
> speaker, or even swap out who speaks from their picnic table (so its  
> 20 persons in speaking circle at any given moment but not  
> necessarily the same 20 persons throughout). If a new proposal or  
> synthesis comes out of the circle of 20 speakers (plus facilitators,  
> scribes, notetakers, etc) the tables can go back to individual table  
> conversation to discuss among themselves before returning to the  
> circle of picnic tables conversation to finalize what the group of  
> groups agrees/disagrees.  After which all can enter the mass action  
> knowing what others will be doing (although not necessarily  
> controlling what others will be doing).
>   I know zoom and other software have a ‘breakout groups’ function.   
> Is there a way to adapt this for picnic table zoom or would we need  
> different software?
>
>   Picnic table zoom is an interesting example.  But just more  
> generally: what types of software, training, practice etc. do we  
> need to provide as techies to support online organizing?
>
> Social Solidarity and Autonomy, (physical distancing),
>   Michael 😉





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