[Note: Candidates were limited to 300 words for each answer.]
What do you believe are the 2 most important tasks the OTW has accomplished in the past two years? Why?
Externally, everything Legal Advocacy does, but very recently they’ve raised a call to action to contact your MEP (if you have one) to stop Article 13 of EU Commission Copyright Plans.
Internally, we’ve gained new communication tools that have fundamentally changed the workflow and culture of committees that I am a part of or interact with frequently as a tag wrangler and staff. We are now able to ask questions in real time and openly communicate across committees in ways that build community and make it easier to use the combined knowledge and experience of volunteers to find solutions that aren’t readily obvious. On-boarding new wranglers and making sure they learn in a way that’s best for them is more possible now, and I really love the one on one training we can do now.
I also just really enjoy talking about kinks and tropes. Wranglers have no shame; it’s a lot of fun. With the new chat platform, we can just plop fun finds into our room and freely enjoy them together. I am hopeful that easier communication and the new social aspect alleviates burnout or frustration among volunteers.
Name one way that you think the OTW needs to change in the next few years. Why is this change important for the organization?
I’d like to look into reorganizing our information to make sure that everything is as easy as possible to find, internally and externally. I think that we could increase goodwill and volunteer numbers if people could readily read about what we do and how we do it. For internal users, volunteers would get a better understanding of the non-profit they work for as a whole, and not just the information pertinent to their committee.
It would help build a smarter, friendlier culture that encompasses the whole organization and that would help volunteers feel like a part of the bigger picture and they could better talk about what they do for the OTW. Being able to articulate the OTW’s mission and their part in making it happen means they could add their work experience with the organization to their curriculum vitae or resume. (I did and got into graduate school!)
For those outside of the OTW, I would hope being able to easily learn more about the past accomplishments, informational posts, and inner workings of the committees would answer outstanding questions people have about the organization and would encourage more people to volunteer. We have great FAQs and articles; I’d like to see them expanded and brushed up, and some of our internal information become external (like staff position descriptions and how certain committees relate to each other, like the difference between the purview of Tag Wrangling and AD&T, Support and Abuse, etc.)