MN New Member: Difference between revisions

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We do use Google Docs for collaborative document creation. When something needs to be heavily edited, reviewed, and rewritten by a group then Google Docs is the place to do it. We DO NOT send spreadsheets, presentations, or documents around via email for comments. Using email this way causes a complete loss of control and the work is often not collaborative. Please use Google Docs for this kind of work.  
We do use Google Docs for collaborative document creation. When something needs to be heavily edited, reviewed, and rewritten by a group then Google Docs is the place to do it. We DO NOT send spreadsheets, presentations, or documents around via email for comments. Using email this way causes a complete loss of control and the work is often not collaborative. Please use Google Docs for this kind of work.  


When you create a Google Doc, please add it to the appropriate document store in BaseCamp; it's hard to keep track of random Google Docs. Once a document is stable then it should migrate to either a native BaseCamp document or a page in this wiki. If we need to leave the document in Google Docs, then ownership should be transferred to the MakerNexusBayArea Google user.
Once a document is stable then consider migrating it to a page in this wiki. If we need to leave the document in Google Docs, then try to find an appropriate place in this wiki to link to the GDoc. Also ownership of the doc should be transferred to the MakerNexus Google user.




[[Category: Maker Nexus]]
[[Category: Maker Nexus]]

Revision as of 13:56, 13 January 2019

Overview

Welcome to team Maker Nexus! You have joined us in a great adventure to open a new makerspace on the peninsula. There is so much going on it's often hard for a new member to know where to start. Well, this page is the place. As you come up to speed we're sure you'll have one of those "I wish I'd known this last week" moments. When you do, please either update this page or put a note in the discussion section and another wiki editor will incorporate your idea into this page. We all need to do what we can to help the next person to join us.

Collaboration Tools

We have several tools that serve different needs. We have standardized on the following tools at this time. As you work with us, we do not want to splinter into a plethora of other tools. Please use one of these or engage the larger group on Slack to discuss a new tool before starting to use it.

Depending upon your interest you may want to use all or none of these.

email

info@makernexus.org Someone from the steering committee monitors this email daily. If you need something or have some question, don't hesitate to send in an email. Please try to put something descriptive in the subject line.

Slack

Slack is a group chat system. It is for contemporaneous communication. It is organized into "channels". You can read any channel. If you "join" a channel then you will get notifications every time a message is posted there. It can be overwhelming. You can turn off notifications for each channel you join. If you are away from Slack for a few days, you might have 100 little notes to read; you might want to just skip them and get back into the conversation at the current point.

The Wiki

This wiki is a repository of slowly changing information. Here we try to document more factual things, after they have been hammered out by a group. This wiki is public. Anyone can read what is here. Anyone can contribute. You can sign up for a wiki account in the upper right corner of this screen. This wiki contains information about Maker Nexus. It also serves as a knowledge base for the larger community of makers around the world - you can see that on the home page of the wiki.

MN Website

The public face of Maker Nexus, the website is the entry portal to our world. It should have current information about the Maker Nexus organization. Only our communication team can change the website.

Google Suite

We have a full G-Suite account. Every paying member of Maker Nexus will receive an email account in our domain. This email account will give them access to our team share. All documents that reside outside of this wiki should be in a Google Doc format.

NOTE: As of January 2019 we are still using a more generic GDrive shared folder. We will be moving all these files into our G-Suite account in the near future.

The Team Share is where documents live when they are being developed and not ready for world wide publication.

The Public Share is where documents live that need to have rich format, beyond what this wiki offers. Documents in the Public Share are available for the world to view. They often have a link to them from a page in this wiki.

The Board Share is where we keep documents that are only viewable by board members. This can be private MN contracts, donor contact information, etc.

An Example

As an example of how these all might work... Someone thinks we need a privacy statement (good idea!). On Slack the start a new #privacystmt channel and posts in the #general channel their interest and ask people to join them in the new channel. After some lively discussion the group realizes that this is going to take some group work and longer term focus. They chat in Slack and decide to create a new folder in our GDrive to capture their ideas. They gather some existing privacy statements from other places on the web. They create a new Google Doc and begin assembling a privacy statement. They involve the steering committee, since this policy will need executive approval. Eventually we have a privacy statement we can all support. It's added to this wiki to document it. That new wiki page is locked to prevent random editing. A link to the wiki page is added to the website. The folder on the GDrive is Archived.

All that could have been done in a day by one person without any of these tools. However, if the issue is contentious or very complex, the tools help the team converge on a solution.

Tools We Are Testing

Trello

We have a few people using Trello for To-Do list management. Ask and you can be added to the group.

Tools We Do Not Use

We specifically avoid the use of desktop files that are emailed to each other. If you've ever done this before, and who hasn't, you know how easy it is for those to get out of sync and suddenly no one knows what the latest version consists of.

BaseCamp

We tried BaseCamp but found that it did not add a lot of value. It had poor integration with G-Drive. It hid too much information from users.

Asana

It is only free for 10 users. We need tools that can be used by the entire organization for free - or very, very, very low cost.

One Drive

We want to limit our toolset and One Drive duplicates GDrive.

Drop Box

We want to limit our toolset and Drop Box duplicates GDrive.

Microsoft Office

We have GSuite from Google for free to all members. We want all our documents in native GDoc formats for easy collaboration. If you originate a document in a Microsoft format, please import it to a native GDoc format when you add it to our GDrive.

Documents

We do use Google Docs for collaborative document creation. When something needs to be heavily edited, reviewed, and rewritten by a group then Google Docs is the place to do it. We DO NOT send spreadsheets, presentations, or documents around via email for comments. Using email this way causes a complete loss of control and the work is often not collaborative. Please use Google Docs for this kind of work.

Once a document is stable then consider migrating it to a page in this wiki. If we need to leave the document in Google Docs, then try to find an appropriate place in this wiki to link to the GDoc. Also ownership of the doc should be transferred to the MakerNexus Google user.