Workshop Proposal: Organizational Change
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:
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A handful of large publishing companies continue to extract exorbitant rents for “allowing” us to read our own work.
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Academic life is increasingly arduous, insecure, and under-funded, and “awareness” and “discussion” are only rarely translated into effective action.
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The tools that have allowed researchers to share ideas have also helped foster and spread anti-scientific disinformation on the climate crisis, vaccines, and hundreds of other topics, leading directly to the loss of millions of lives.
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:
- Be sure this is where you want to focus your efforts.
- Start by playing in someone else’s band.
- Ask those who will be affected and listen to what they say.
- Be specific about the change you want (but not too specific).
- Figure out who actually has power and what they care about.
- Build alliances.
- Test the waters.
- Keep it visible.
- Collect data but tell stories.
- Learn how to run meetings and make decisions.
- Celebrate when you can, grieve when you need to.
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.