tell repeatable stories
for groups
This tactic focuses on the stories you tell and the materials you use to support your conversations about computer use. This tactic is a way to implement the strategy of computer as culture, and if computer is 2 what is 1, among others.
Telling repeatable stories means telling accessible and understandable stories. This is critical because the mystique of computers is dependent on two core and related features: novelty and inaccessibility. In order to reduce the negative impacts of these features, you have to use language and stories that are compelling and familiar. Critically, you cannot make talking about computers dependent on someone learning all kinds of new technical jargon. While this approach seems intuitive, it traps people in a technocratic frame where education becomes synonymous with adoption, and literacy is transformed into training. Rather than including education about the computer in your stories, include education about the consequences of computer use. What happens when computers are used, not how does the computer work.
If you are unfamiliar with a topic, you are not inclined to come to a public meeting about it. This is the same for a meeting you are trying to hold at your organization or within your volunteer group. There are few better ways to stop a conversation cold than to try and orient it around a term like open data. Who is going to come to a meeting about digital public infrastructure?
If you continually repeat the narrow and specific language of computer use, you continually repeat the people that see themselves as part of a conversation, and you keep getting the same outcomes. Beyond being anti-democratic, this is a predictable and easily contained way to organize dissent. It's not to say that these approaches don't have a role to play, but these aren't the kind of conversations we're trying to convene. We're trying to reach everyone else to broaden and expand a conversation beyond its expected boundaries.
When you create materials or work on invitations for participation in decisions about computer use, it's ok to start with open-ended questions that ask people how they feel about a topic. This can help in the co-creation of materials and research to support said topic. Rather than thinking you need a full story, imagine working more on the invitation to take part in a conversation that is still very much open and up for grabs. How can you convene people and build their confidence in the need to talk more about the impacts of computer use? By starting from the place they're familiar - define the primary ground - is it a classroom? is it a customer service interaction? is it the way public parking works? is it how you provide training to volunteers? it is how you write communication briefs?
It's also sometimes hard to believe/remember how disconnected from reality a lot of computer conversations are. Norms have settled within the computer industry that are dependent on people not raising challenges to how things work. Norms have also settled within the relationships between government and industry that have removed any friction of anyone asking hard questions about social impacts of computer use because the economy. The general public has every right to believe that businesses that sell them things are making defensible claims, but unfortunately this isn't always true. The point here is that if you rush too far and hard into taking computer use at face value and explaining how the computer technology works, you skip the window of asking whether it's true, or whether anyone likes it being used.
In these contexts, it's easy to over look the need to use conversations about computer use to not only identify what is or isn't working and what to do about it, but also to build support for existing processes that are working well and need protection and expansion. There is also a serious professional and reputational downside to being understood as the complainer, squeaky wheel, etc. So rather than take that on (unless, of course, you can weather it well), remember that you can help organize conversations around a shared sense of purpose, rather than on the personality game of being the innovative and forward-thinking community member/worker/manager/teacher/executive etc.
The simplest version of this formula goes something like this: x thing matters to us (safe streets). x thing is already facing some challenges, like a (old street design), b (lack of budget for changes to the streets) and c (varying levels of agreement about what to do to get to safer streets). In addition to challenges of a,b,c, we also have some new action on the scene to think about - computer use (speed cameras). Let's gather to talk about all these things! If you start by organizing the conversation about a technology product, you will also end up in a binary type of use it/don't use it situation. Sometimes this is fine, but sometimes this excludes people that know of alternatives, or have ideas about different conditions for the use of the technology.
Sometimes, talking about the technology is the draw, people want the invite to name the technology. That can work too - if you make sure you use the topic as a handle and immediately surround and situate it with history, context, and familiarity. There isn't any one right way to do this, other than to make sure you are paying attention to not creating an island of novelty and jargon. There is also only so much words can do, the culture and tone and warmth with which you conduct your conversation convening and hosting can go a long way too, including using a lot of the genuine humility required to move with people through uncertain territory.
Three core parts to telling repeatable stories are:
a) developing key messages/questions
b) thinking about the types of responses you are looking for
c) deciding which mediums you'll use to support your conversations
Repeatable stories are a long part of narrative tradition where the purpose is to be able to reach a wide audience and convey a simple message. If you are structuring your conversation series in phases (3 phases are recommended, 2 at a minimum), you'll repeat this exercise for each phase.