afterword
Writing this handbook has been a process of not over-thinking it. In deciding to do it post-by-post, day-by-day, I practiced sharing as I went, posting to a narrow audience (thank you bluesky) in case anyone had a chance to take a look.
I've wanted to write this handbook for a while because of another handbook, and the experience of using it: Discuss. Decide. Do. The value of engagement as a decision support tool by Nicole Swerhun and Vanessa AvRuskin. less computer borrows generously from this handbook, both in structure and in content.
Discuss. Decide. Do. made me a believer in bringing repeatable methods to difficult situations. It has always been available free online because the authors' intent was to share the methods as far and wide as possible in case they were helpful to anyone. And to offer them up for adaptation and revision. I'm doing the same, in the spirit of the same purpose. After letting this very rough draft breathe for a minute, I'll edit and finalize it and add more examples. I'll also package it up neatly so it's easier to pass along as a whole (some kind of download next year).
A few things related to the process of thinking about/writing less computer:
In part of my career, I facilitated public meetings. Those public meetings were generally part of a required if not regulated process where governments were seeking input from communities for decision-making. The decisions we make about computer use rarely fit this shape of a process BUT so much of the structure of a good decision comes from the structure of a good conversation. This is the thread I hope to carry between these two topics.
It's arguable that a decision is the unit of democracy. The ways in which decision-making is being tied to computer use is another place where I'd like to bring facilitation thinking to technology decisions. When we reframe discussions about computer use as discussions about decision-making, suddenly we have a much longer and older history available to us - we've been making decisions together, in societies, for a very long time. This provides an important counterweight to the impacts of novelty that come along with conversations about computers.
On a personal level, writing this handbook is a way for me to share some of the ways of thinking and working that have been effective in doing public interest technology advocacy work.
Like all good work, it happens with other people. Thank you in particular to Nicole, Ian, Saadia, Nasma, Sean, and Julia for the time we've spent in the work together.