TSI Volunteering Announcements: February, 2009

[James Hogan]

TSI Volunteering Announcements

February, 2009

Hello, seasteaders!

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TOPICS COVERED IN THIS MONTH'S ISSUE

- Overview

- Volunteer program update

High-priority roles:

- Website Development Manager 

- Volunteer Recruiter

- Ephemerisle Research

- Website Product Managers

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-- OVERVIEW

These monthly newsletters generally cover volunteering opportunities at TSI that are either new or particularly high priority at the time.  Please take a moment to consider whether you know anyone who might be interested in these, and pass the word on.  Finding us a qualified volunteer can make a huge difference.

Interested parties can inquire further by e-mailing volu...@seasteading.org.

As always, a complete list of all of our open volunteer positions can be found here.

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-- VOLUNTEER PROGRAM UPDATE

This past week has been phenomenal -- between our recent press coverage in Wired and CNET, and our networking at the BIL conference, we've doubled the size of our active volunteer team from about 10 to 20 people.  These volunteers are helping with website development, writing, community relations, outreach to potential partner organizations, and more.

This is really great news, because growth in the volunteer organization translates directly to progress against our vision.  There are only 3 of us employed here; we can set the strategy, but we need volunteers to help us do the work, and we are still small enough such that each person makes a significant difference.

The cost of fast growth, though, is that it can be difficult to manage.  We're going to look especially hard for volunteer coordinators/managers in the near future, so please give extra consideration to whether you know someone who might be able to help us out in this capacity! 

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-- HIGH PRIORITY: WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

The TSI website is a cornerstone of our strategy to grow the seasteading movement over the next several years. It is one of our primary ways of communicating our message to people unfamiliar with seasteading, and it serves as a community hub for enthusiasts active in the seasteading movement. There's a lot of software development and maintenance involved in making it the most effective community-building tool possible.

We're looking for a volunteer to manage our website development team. Our team currently consists of 8 (and growing!) volunteer developers, product managers, and sysadmins distributed across the globe. The role would entail delivering software projects, helping manage site bugs and operational issues, and maximizing site uptime. In addition, it would cover personnel-related areas such as recruiting (we have volunteer recruiters to assist), retention, and generally making sure volunteers' needs are met.

Interested individuals should send a resume to volu...@seasteading.org.

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-- HIGH PRIROITY: EPHEMERISLE RESEARCH

Ephemerisle is a floating festival TSI is considering organizing in Summer 2009. Ephemerisle could serve as a proof of concept, and create awareness for, many of TSI's goals, including floating communities and experimentation with different systems of government. To make Ephemerisle happen, we need some people who can help spearhead preliminary research in two areas:

Legal research:  This would focus on questions of what activities are legal, and who will be liable for injuries or property damage at the event. We're interested in the letter of the law, and also very interested in practical applications, e.g. things that are not illegal but might generate concern and involvement from the Coast Guard. We have a friendly contact at the Coast Guard to help with this.

Infrastructural research:  This would focus on an engineering analysis of building a floating community center for the festival, including: Requirements definition (size, transportability, comfort, etc.), design options, cost analysis, etc.

There also a lot of interesting discussion going on at our Ephemerisle planning mailing list -- feel free to join in!

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-- HIGH PRIORITY: VOLUNTEER RECRUITER

This is an important role because it's highly leveraged. With only 3 employees, most of the progress against TSI's vision comes from volunteers, and we need recruiters to help us effectively scale our volunteer organization.  

The recruiter would primarily help sourcing candidates, screening candidates, and respond to volunteer inquiries.

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-- HIGH PRIORITY: WEBSITE PRODUCT MANAGERS

So many website projects, so little requirements definition! We need someone who can help flesh out the improvements we want to make to the website. We have lots of great high-level ideas, but the devil is in the details, and details are necessary for our development team to work productively. 

This role also encompasses general project management responsibility for the (very small) projects.

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Thanks for reading; see you next month!

--

James Hogan, Director of Operations

The Seasteading Institute

www.seasteading.org

--

James Hogan, Director of Operations

The Seasteading Institute

www.seasteading.org