Workshop Proposal: Organizational Change

Posted

Updated 2023-05-05: rejected.

I just submitted the proposal shown below for a workshop at the US-RSE conference in October 2023; fingers crossed, I’ll see you there.

Workshop Proposal: Organizational Change

A lot has changed in the last 25 years: open access journals have proven that they can work, most scientific research is powered (at least in part) by open source software, and there is greater awareness and discussion of equity and inclusivity shortcomings. But a lot of things haven’t changed or have gotten worse:

Advocates of openness, fairness, and truth often act as if being right was enough to guarantee victory, but this has never been a winning strategy. While systemic change starts with like-minded idealists working together it only has impact when people take on the hard work of organizing in the large to build a larger and more active constituency for change.

This half-day workshop presents practical advice for doing this drawn from the author’s experience and from works in other fields. Working in small groups, participants will develop and share plans inspired by the following rules:

This workshop can accommodate up to 30 participants. Group sign-ups are particularly welcome, since people are more likely to follow through on their plans if they develop them together.

Each segment of the workshop will consist of a 5-10 minute presentation, 10-15 minutes of group work on one of the points above, and 10-15 minutes of whole-group discussion.