{"id":3665,"date":"2017-10-04T03:37:39","date_gmt":"2017-10-04T10:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/?p=3665"},"modified":"2017-12-26T14:10:55","modified_gmt":"2017-12-26T22:10:55","slug":"human","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coyotecommunications.com\/coyoteblog\/2017\/10\/human\/","title":{"rendered":"Re-creating offline excitement & a human touch online"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Back in 1998, an effort that became the nonprofit Knowbility<\/a> started a hackathon competition before such events were called hackathons. It was called the Accessibility Internet Rally<\/strong>, or AIR<\/strong>, and in one day, professional\u00a0<\/span>web designers and web design students volunteered their time to build web sites for nonprofits in Austin, Texas – web sites that are fully accessible<\/a> to people with disabilities and people using assistive technologies. Designers were divided into teams, and each team had a nonprofit to build for. The teams were all on one floor of a training center that donated its space and computers for the event.<\/p>\n

It was crazy, fun, exciting and, at times, silly. I was at\u00a0that first competition, and at the events in 1999 and 2000, representing a partner organization, via the Virtual Volunteering Project<\/a>. I helped greet and register every participant as they came in. I also ran through the hallways, into the training rooms, shouting deadlines, like \u201cTwo more hours! Just two more hours!\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>We got donated food from a local Subway shop and various grocery stores, and teams wouldn\u2019t take a lunch break, despite our pleas for them to do so – they\u2019d run into the room, scarf, then run back to their computers, ready for more designing. Austin-area corporations donated their branded swag that they had leftover from conferences in the past, or that had old logos on them, and we were able to put together goodie bags of memo pads, pens, frisbees and more to hand out to all participants. The second year, several corporate teams returned – this time with custom t-shirts they had made for their team especially for the competition! The event was so energizing and fun that teams came back year after year.<\/p>\n

I still use the crockpot that we used to provide nacho cheese for teams\u2026<\/p>\n

The AIR competition has continued, and is still awesome, but a few years ago, it became an entirely online competition. It\u2019s now called OpenAIR<\/a><\/strong>. The event is not limited to Austin, Texas – it\u2019s global! Instead of one day, teams now have five weeks to develop new accessible\u00a0<\/a>web sites for participating nonprofits – and the web sites are far more sophisticated than they were\u00a0back in the 1990s. A team\u2019s members are all onsite together, at the same company or in the same web design class, for the most part, but they aren\u2019t in the same room with the other teams, nor the nonprofits they are supporting – all interaction among teams and clients is via phone, online conferencing, email and shared online spaces. Another big difference from those early years is that, now, most of the participating nonprofits already have web sites, so their material is already digitized – we don\u2019t need to scan logos or photos anymore, because it\u2019s already done.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost 20 years after that first AIR competition, and I\u2019m back with Knowbility, this time as a consultant, in charge of recruiting nonprofits to participate<\/a> and supporting them through the entire process. And I have a goal: to find ways to recreate that craziness and fun and excitement and personal touch from the offsite, in-person events of the past online<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m supposed to be the virtual volunteering expert<\/a>. So this should be a piece of cake for me, right? Afterall,\u00a0I have ideas for creating a personal experience for working with online volunteers in The LAST Virtual Volunteering Guidebook<\/em><\/a>. I\u2019m using those recommendations, as well as looking through research I’ve curated<\/a> about organizations working with online volunteers, information about virtual teams, remote teams, ework, telecommuting, etc., to come up with ideas\u2026 but I need more!<\/p>\n

Here are my ideas so far<\/strong>:<\/p>\n