In short: Personal communication between EAs seems valuable and is not happening nearly as much as it could. Especially for newcomers and people outside hubs and especially face-to-face via Skype or Hangouts. I invite you to share ideas on how to increase communication and actually implement them.
The problem
For newcomers
EA is growing and lots of new people live in areas where the EA presence is not as strong. It's been observed that there’s often a long lag time before new people even communicate with other members of the community - in my case 10 months. Having well-connected EA friends locally seems to help new people get connected quickly. The newcomers I've talked to were all excited to have easier opportunities of connecting to EAs personally. (Peter Hurford has previously written about getting new EAs connected).
For getting information
Another area where lack of communication decreases our efficiency is sharing information. To give an example: A friend of mine was interested in patent law. She had to do her own research and likely missed some information. Another friend of mine works in patent law and would be happy to talk. They don't live in the same country, but have EA friends in common who could set them up. But they would never end up talking to each other because our information economy is inefficient. Another factor is that the less connected people are often shy about reaching out to the busy, high-performing EAs they don’t personally know.
The opportunity
If you don’t live in a hub, you only very rarely get to personally talk to EAs who are knowledgeable about a specific topic you’re interested in. However, having conversations via Skype and Hangouts can be very insightful and motivating: They have changed e.g. my next career move, my major and motivated me to join volunteer projects which I didn’t even know existed. These are extremely high gains for little time investment. Other EAs report that personal communication is more effective than written exchanged at getting them to actually implement ideas or act on advice.
Seeing how widely distributed we are geographically, Skype and Hangouts seem plausibly like a channel where we could increase communication a lot.
Ideas?
So in this thread I invite you to share your ideas on how to increase communication between EAs. Since we’re great at coming up with ideas and not implementing them, I also invite you to: 1) Just look into and implement your own idea and see what happens 2) Comment on other people’s idea and say that you would like to work on it (or look into it) with them. Then get in personal contact. As mentioned above, the last part is crucial for actually getting things done.
If you don’t have the time to implement anything, don’t feel discouraged from posting your thoughts, there’s no obligation. If you’re one of the people who haven’t been in contact with EAs much, implementing such an idea is a great way to get exposure.
Let me know if any work gets done as a result of this post.
Existing systems
We have some systems in place. They aren’t solving the problem right now (mostly they’re not used as much), but I’m mentioning them to increase their use and encourage improvements.
- The EA buddy system exists, but isn’t working quite that well. Suggestions welcome!
- The .impact volunteer workforce owns a bunch of chatrooms which are open to anyone. They get a lot of activity on Sundays when .impact holds its workathons, but people occasionally hang out there at other times to answer questions or connect you to someone. .Impact also has weekly hangouts to do EA work together.
- Offer your skills or get advice from someone on Skillshare.im.
- Of the people who join the main EA facebook group some will be greeted by an admin.
- The EA Hub has an offers section which is currently not yet searchable. I suggest searching for the area of expertise like this and then contacting that person. If the area is listed under "What can you bring to the effective altruism community" it's probably safe to contact them. Works sometimes.
Actually, I will give an ignite talk at EA Global Oxford that is extremely relevant to this topic. This is the short pitch [edit: not so short anymore]:
Malcolm Ocean and I are working to set up a co-working space for EAs based on the format of the LW Study Hall. Just like the LWSH, which has been around for >2 years now, it will be a 24/7 web-chat with optional video streaming where people work on their own projects, probably in pomodoros and chat during the breaks.
Why does this solve your problem? If this becomes as well frequented as the LWSH (which seems plausible given the success of the LWSH which has been stably frequented while being on a buggy platform with little to no official moderation), it will create a network of more or less regular users who know each other and can refer people within the network. Over 2 years, I've personally met more than 200 people via the LWSH. Since Malcolm will host the site, he can also easily add functionalities. I've suggested adding a "project board" or similar to delegate/search for tasks, or we could connect the site to one of the existing boards. It will later also be possible to not only announce to other users of the chat what you're currently working on, but also other info, e.g. "looking for web designer". Finally, you can just meet there to co-work on EA projects remotely.
How is this different from .impact's chat rooms? (I haven't been in these chatrooms before, so I don't know how well frequented they are or what their chat experience is. These are my experiences with other rooms/the LWSH.) The video seems to be a key factor in creating the feeling of "I'm interacting with a human being". Plus, since Malcolm hosts the site, he'll do support and add more features. And you'll get a nudge to be productive while you are around. Win-win!
When will this be up? The current plan is to launch the hall within 2 weeks after EA Global (that is, by mid-September). Malcolm or I will post here again then.
Also, if you're at EA Global, do come to my ignite talk. It'll have screenshots to show what the site looks like, and you'll hear more. Or, if you miss the talk, talk to me! I'm one of the people in the blue staff shirts. :)
I got so excited by your lightning talk! Can't wait to check it out!