Social Ruggedization

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

You didn’t see any blog posts from me last week as life was busy and disrupted due to the coronavirus. Don’t worry, I’m fine, its just that there were a lot of changes.

I, my girlfriend, and a lot of people we know are working from home, which is a huge schedule change. We’re in a shelter-in-place order here. Then there’s the collapsing economy and so on.

You’ll understand the lack of blog posts and the large amount of junk food consumed.

So now a lot of us find ourselves in a disease crisis, not leaving home, and worrying about the state of the world. We’re all working to stay connected, stick together and make it through. So I wanted to talk about “social ruggedization.”

I’ve heard people use the term “ruggedizing” to refer to dealing with climate change – we need to make our cities and supply chains rugged in the face of disruption. The same goes for our social systems, from our world to our countries to our own social groups.

This crisis has shown the need to build resilient social systems. That’s not just my job, or your job, it’s everyone’s job. So here’s what I’m doing and a few suggestions from what I’ve learned.

Connect Regularly: People need some kind of regular checkin to connect. This could be a regular event like a weekly call. It could be a regular tool people use for communication like Discord. Sync up.

Overcome Space: Right now we’ve got to overcome the space between us, but remember there’s always space between us. It may be the space of a schedule change, or someone is laid up, or simple distance. Be pre-emptively planning to connect with people.

Share Events: There’s doing things together, but you can also share events passively. A lot of my friends and I do viewing parties where we just hang out, watch TV and do our creative projects, and so on. We’ll move those online – and streaming and so on make it easier.

Check In: Reach out to people to see how they’re doing regularly. Right now I post a daily update to some social media and check in with a few people via text messages. It’s a way to let people know you’re OK, hear from them, and encourage them to do the same.

Pool Resources: Start getting ready to share resources now. It could be food, it could be technology, or something. Start getting into the habit of helping each other and covering each other. We need it and have always need it.

Built The Society You Want: Focus on building real connections and social structures you want. Have a vision. Make it work.

Share and Promote Ruggedization: Share and promote making serious, surviving social structures. Share tips like this. Share technology that works. You want a stable society, share what you learned in making your own little stable society.

Meet New People: Go on and meet new people. YOu might make new friends and make new connections. Sure, be selective and have standards, but see who else fits them.

Connect People: In these tough times, I’ve been working to introduce people to each other. This way folks make more social connections and find allies and resources.

I hope you’re doing well in surviving these crazy times. Reach out to me with your thoughts and your ideas – or just reach out.

Steven Savage

Remote Cons?

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

With the coronavirus again in the news, I was talking with fellow author Dianne Dotson about COVID-19 and conventions. Obviously some cons are threatened by this disease and it’s going to be with us awhile. This led to a further discussion of how could cons go remote?

That at first sounds kind of impossible for large cons. I mean, how do you replace a get-together for 20,000 people? I’m not saying we should (I may blog on that at another time), but let’s look at how we could do it.

Let me theorize.

General

In general you want the con “feel.” That would probably mean:

  • A central website.
  • Communications tools like chats and forums.
  • Scheduled events.
  • Guests.
  • So on.

Really, none of this is impossible to achieve. But we think of cons as geospecific gatherings – we need the internet equivalent. Besides, that’s a central clearing point for other things . . .

Dealer’s Rooms

Well that’s pretty easy if everyone has an online store or can set one up. You make a list of dealers and perhaps arrange some con discounts.

But you could do more. People might have their own chats or discord servers. You might even be able to route things through an app so you can literally browse and socialize.

There would obviously need to be pre-screaming and so on. On the plus side, it means there’s less physical limits.

Green Rooms/Host Rooms/Parties/Social Events

These can be done easily as well – there’s many social programs folks can use. It wouldn’t take much to have these simulated with chat rooms, etc.

Of course they’d need to be moderated, but that’s something you can do easily – and by holding people responsible of course.

I’d strongly encourage these kinds of socializings at “Remote cons” because that’s part of the point!

Panels and Events

A lot of these can be done, again, with social media programs and chats. There’s things like Zoom, Webex, and more. it’s not hard to do them at all – I know, I’ve done them. Plus you don’t have to have physical limits of space.

These would need schedules and so on – just like other cons.

Guests

Well meeting guests and getting autographs and the like is kind of out here. People can hear them speak and see them, but it’s not quite the same. They can have events, but yeah some stuff might not work.

Maybe autographed stuff can be done by mail or something.

Costume Contest

That’s tough, but it could be done by video or with pre-submitted video. It might be fun to at least try, but I think people would have to experiment to find the best way to get this to work.

Membership

This may be challenging. Cons need to be paid for, and that’s memberships – so how do you make sure con events are exclusive?

I suppose membership access, passwords, and the like could be made for various things. The tech has to be there, using it on the other hand . . .

And That’s It

Really, I can’t see any reason not to try a virtual con. The thing is, there would be challenges.

Even though I’ve enumerated the tech and methods, I think this would have to be tried out. Maybe a minicon could be done, or another con could be partially online. There would need to be experiments and so forth.

But perhaps it’s time we experiment

Steven Savage

The Benefits Of Work From Home

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

With COVID-19 being an obvious issue at the news, there’s stories of campuses, businesses, etc. doing work from home, study from home, etc. This has made me think more about working from home, and I wanted to share some insight.

This has long been a part of my life – I was doing telecommuting experimentally back in 2005. Over the years I’ve seen more and more telecommuting, and the latest health crisis has made people much more interested in it.

I’d say it’s about time. Of course I live in the Bay Area which is dense, has lousy traffic, and in my experience people love to infect each other. However the latter may be due to bitter past experiences – OK it is. I’ve heard “I/my kids were sick but I/they aren’t infectious,” and then two days later I’m curled up in bed because my body is a virus theme park.

So as we find working from home (WFH) may become very vital let’s talk about the positive sides. Let’s talk the benefits so you can pitch it!

Benefit One: Realizing we can do it.

Note how I just ran to discuss why WFH is good? That’s because the tools are already there and have been for years. So first of all realize this isn’t “how can we do it,” the how is there. Trust me.

Benefit Two: Disease Mitigation

Let’s get to the obvious at this time – when more people work from home they make each other less sick. If anything, I think near-mandatory or increased WFH during disease seasons would make people’s lives much easier.

But also there’s another benefit in that people have more time to work out, exercise, etc. Healthy meals can be there in the kitchen. It’s just good in many ways.

Plus, again, disease mitigation. I mean you may get sick, but you’re not spreading it

Benefit Three: Less Traffic

Again, I’m biased because I’m in the Bay Area. It may not be as bad as people think, but once when I was moving there I was in a hotel, reading about the slowest intersection at the time, and realized it was outside my window. That was memorable.

If we get less people commuting, we get less traffic. Any geographic area could probably engineer a decrease significant enough to make WFH pay off in better commutes.

This means more time, more sanity, and less stress. Plus, it may mean less crowding on public transit which means an easier time and less disease.

(BTW, I’m for free public transport as well to really benefit a community).

Benefit Four: More Time

Obviously WFH means people have more time. But I find it’s more than you think – this goes back to my old experiences in fact.

  • Working from home usually means more is at your fingertips and you spend less time walking around, going to the cafe, or trying to find the bathroom in a giant office (been there). Your house is a time-saver.
  • Working from home reduces your routines. Check your email while you eat breakfast. Start dinner and then go back to finishing a report. Shower while numbers crunch.
  • It’s easier to timeshift as you’re near important things like your doctor or a store. You can also be there for deliveries.
  • Working from home obviously saves you commute time. I saved that for last.

Benefit Five: Better Techniques

Working from home will require you to rethink things like how you do work, how you schedule meetings and so on.

Take it from the Agile Program Guy, a lot of our plans, meeting, techniques are just there. We don’t question them. We do this “because.” Work from home is a good shake up because it asks you to do whats important in better ways.

It also asks you just what is important. Trust me, there’s probably more pointless stuff than you realize (or you don’t want to admit it).

Benefit Six: Appreciate those who can’t

If you can WFH you might find others can’t. Good. That’s going to be a way you find who else should be paid more, treated better, and otherwise respected.

It may also mean you can figure how to give them the WFH benefits eventually.

Benefit Seven: Saving money

Office space is expensive. Tech is expensive. That automated coffee machine you got that is more advanced than your laptop is expensive. Maybe you’re overdoing it.

On the other hand, having people work at home, etc. saves money. Period.

However, let’s note that money should go somewhere. The savings should be spread around, people should benefit. Maybe that always-breaking coffee maker could be ditched so people got better computers.

Also, people should be reimbursed or supported for their new expenses from work from home. Keep that in mind.

Benefit Eight: Mental health

Commuting, being stuck in the workplace, etc. can be taxing. Having more time, less commute, and so on is often good for people. It might not be good with the isolation, so let’s get too . .

Benefit Nine: Thoughtful socialization

When there’s more work from home, you also think of how to connect with your co-workers better. Being in the same place a lot can really make socialization less fun – that’s one reason I and some people I know like to make fun events. You know the real kind like “eat a lot of food.”

So iif we work from home more, we find better, new, and appropriate ways to connect with our co-workers.

So What’s Next?

Well, what’s next? Let’s home we start working from home more, using the benefits, and learning how to lead our lives differently. Disease aside, there are lots of other benefits.

Let’s also keep in mind this doesn’t sove a lot of other career issues people have, from low pay to locations with few opportunities to college debt. There are many, many other issues to solve, this just solves some.

But maybe a change helps us think about other problems and solve them.

Steven Savage