Organising the Open Working Programme — Take Two!
The Open Working and Reuse Medium Publication was created to go hand in hand with the Open Working and Reuse programme run by Third Sector Lab.
It’s my second time organising a cohort of the programme, and I’m really pleased with how it went.
How it started
At the very beginning of the programme, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Our last group were all part of a community with Power to Change, funders and grantees working together.
I wasn’t sure how to foster that kind of collaboration with organisations across the country working in different fields — I even wrote a blog post about it.
The programme didn’t begin how I pictured it would; plans changed at the last minute, and some programme attendees seemed confused. I had a few people email me that they had gotten the impression that the course may not be for them.
This is a struggle we face a lot at Third Sector Lab. Many CICs and social enterprises perhaps don’t feel our services are for them, because “third sector” and “charity” can be so synonymous.
However, after a few one on one calls, I was relieved to find people were keen to stick with the programme. Despite their different organisational structures, every attendee found they were doing work worth writing about.
How it went
As the weeks went on, it was lovely to see everyone’s confidence grow. I found that the group responded well to the prompts I set them, so I thought really hard about them each week.
Some attendees even came to me for editing, which was a service nobody had taken me up on before. It was heartening to be able to develop the confidence of the cohort with my direct support.
Each week, we wrote for 30 minutes about our work. Building this practice in on top of workshops with experts like Sophie Badoux and Giles Turnbull really helped to make writing a habit.
What was the result?
Our final session of the programme was lovely — after eight weeks of writing together, there was a real sense of goodwill amongst the group. Our focus this week was not just what we had learned, but how we’ll use it.
We have a high success rate in the programme of people taking their learnings and continuing to share in the open. However, there is a real risk that people enjoy the course, and then leave it behind.
In the midst of a busy schedule, writing can fall by the way-side. We encouraged the current cohort to consider what they’ll write about going forward.
The feedback that we got was really promising. Everyone there was keen to use the skills that they’d learned to improve their internal and external comms.
What would I change?
Reflecting upon the course, I would spend more time preparing participants for the programme, and perhaps do a short intro to Medium at the very beginning, including a tutorial on how to publish to the Open Working and Reuse Publication.
People developed these skills throughout the programme. However, hopefully by sharing that knowledge explicitly at the beginning, people could get into the flow of open working more quickly.
If you took part in the most recent Open Working Programme, thank you so much! I’d love to hear what you think in the comments.
