What is at issue in onboarding?

[daytripper]

Curious what goes here?

[DougBreitbart]

What machinery, processes, and resources are needed to effectively respond to and facilitate a visitors experience and engagement with the project from first visit and click forward?

[daytripper]

Example?

On Sat, Nov 7, 2015, 9:42 PM Doug Breitbart notifications@github.com
wrote:

What machinery, processes, and resources are needed to effectively respond
to and facilitate a visitors experience and engagement with the project
from first visit and click forward?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#1 (comment)
.

[jblaing]

Do you mean:
When someone searches for Peeragogy where do they end up? Are there clear pathways for them to learn what Peeragogy is, and if interested, easily become involved?
I had a look just now. Searching for "Peeragogy" gives the peeragogy.org site. There is the book and links to buy the book on Amazon, but there is nothing to help the beginner to see immediately what peeragogy is and why they might be, or not be interested. It is necessary to dig a bit, and you might want to keep it that way. By "you," I mean all you veterans who have been working on this for a while. Not me. I am still getting my footsies wet. A lot of very good stuff has been put together. It seems to me that there are two ways to treat people who want to become involved. One is the "prove yourself worthy" route. Think "Navy Seals."The other is the "Welcome everyone!" route. Think "Baseball Game." They are not mutually exclusive, both have advantages and disadvantages, but, at least from my newbie perspective, you might want to clarify what sort of stance you have on this. Now there seems to be an initial "Welcome Everyone" vibe (though there is a learning curve), followed by a "Prove You're Still Interested!" vibe. Seems reasonable. And, by the way, I am still very interested : )

[snowinla]

I think that there might have been an issue with the name (emphasis on might):  some had mentioned the name itself sounded like jargon.  
I think that the challenge is how to allow new members to merge into the project and begin to contribute effectively.
We may be able to look at how people have joined and participated in our peeragogy.  It seems that some may watch the videos and/or viewed the videos live (instead of joining the hang out). When they are more comfortable and/or have something to contribute then they join the hangout on begin to contribute.  The way in which they on-board is different and their approach suggests a a way of interacting:

1.  They are slower to jump into something until they are familiar and comfortable.2.  Their contributions may be more opportunistic.  They may not have the time or desire to commit more fully for whatever reasons but feel comfortable following along until they have something to say.
   How these people are on-boarded may be significantly different than others.  If they on-board this way, pushing them for greater involvement may be a turn off.  Additionally, they may not like or feel comfortable with a larger role particularly at first.  They also may feel uncomfortable with a lot of questions -- they may like to be an "invisible helper" so a lot of attention to them may be counterproductive.  Instead of having the group maintain contact, perhaps one member can contact them off-line and see how they are doing -- but not push for responses if they don't respond.
   If someone jumps in right away in that they join the hangouts immediately and directly, their approach and style may be different.  They, however, may tend to me more disruptive (for better or worse) and the extent of their sticking power is not known.  The group may need to work collaboratively to help the person tap into the resources needed to get them up to speed. Additionally, some people like this will just be disruptive - which can be counterproductive -- so the group will have to manage that.  Others, however, will bring a lot of energy and ideas which can invigorate the group.  The challenge will be the same person can be seen as a disruptive threat to what is in progress while others may not see it that way.  
   Regardless, it would be good to have a good, well organized of materials that both can use to get up to speed.

From: daytripper notifications@github.com

Example?

[holtzermann17]

This seems like a perfect example characterizing the current 'user experience':

example from @antiface posted to Peeragogy/Patterns Nov 8 2015

@holtzermann17 I recently mentioned Peeragogy and provided useful links to a few friends, and did it repeatedly.. and no one took the bait. I never heard about it again. There's something wrong with the system. I know not what it is. These are people that are basically DOING Peeragogy already. I figure that they followed my links, but they never came back. And I did this on repetition, to try to drive it home. No answer. I myself have been unable to find a way to get more directly and actively involved.

For me it's a kind of "cold start" problem. When I visit the peeragogy website, there's too much information there. Also, if I search for it on Google, there's just too much stuff. Even in the conversations on G+ or here on Gitter, there's too much content going in too many different situations.

Compare Peeragogy to Coca-Cola. Let's say the original recipe, the original Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is a no-brainer. I mean it says what it is on the label, you drink it, the experience is always the same. It's Coca-Cola, period. For 100 years or whatever, the experience of Coca-Cola hasn't really changed. Or replace Coca-Cola with any other big successful brand with tons of "mind-share"..

I say, in a Yoda-type voice, or else Bruce Lee, "Be like Coca-Cola." It sounds counter-intuitive, right? Today, people are talking about social business, social entrepreneurship, non-hierarchical structures, etc. etc. It seems like for non-profits or other similar ventures, you wouldn't want to do the whole branding and marketing thing. But you'd be wrong.

That stuff works for ANY venture. Profit or non-profit. Green and social or not green and social. It's the same thing. It WORKS. Period. I think work could be done on the "packaging". That's my opinion, in any case.

[holtzermann17]

Compare Wikipedia.

Their slogan: the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

The Wikimedia Foundation mission statement:

The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.

The short version from wikimedia.org: Wikimedia is a global movement whose mission is to bring free educational content to the world. (Followed by lots of pictures.)

Whereas if you go to Peeragogy.org, you see "Welcome to the Peeragogy Handbook." But nothing that says "Our goal is to ...". In the patterns paper we say

We describe nine design patterns that we have developed in our work on the Peeragogy project, in which we aim to help design the future of learning, inside and outside of institutions.

To my mind, that's pretty clear! The bold part, together with a link "Join us" might draw people in. (If that's what we want.) As for the comment from @antiface's colleagues, that seems quite a typical response. Consider this comment from Reddit:

Looks like it could be interesting, it's a little long to get through right now, but thanks for linking.

If the medium is the message, I think our table of contents is sending people a message: this is a big (possibly) important book that you (probably) don't have time to read.

---

That said...! I think that we're doing something that is important and complementary to the Wikimedia project. They are focusing on "content" (the what) where as we are focusing on "form" or "in-formation" (the how).

[snowinla]

I that we need to make it clear what peeragogy is.  Peer to peer learning. And then explain it is not that different from what they already do (give examples).  

Then explain that, while we do this a lot often informally, we sometimes have challenges when we try to do this on a larger "more organized" scale because cultural tendencies toward hierarchy tend to set in.  While there are advantages to hierarchy as the number of people increases, there are also distinct drawbacks.  We often take this drawbacks as "just the way it is" but we don't need to. Peeragogy attempt to help people navigate in such a way that they can move forward with a peeragogy mindset to minimize these drawbacks and help people deal constructively with the challenges that they may face when using peeragogy to accomplish things.
To organize our information, we have identified patterns.  These patterns are different than what you may think.  They are including the architecture and coding uses.  Then explain how ours are different.
I am guessing just presenting patterns is more confusing than anything if not familiar with peeragogy or the concept of patterns.

Also, on boarder, I think, used to be called newcomer which was a little more intuitive IMO...
Just some really quick thoughts.

[DougBreitbart]

At least for me, part of the goal is to increase pull and engagement and
involvement of those touched by or attracted to the project. That is the
underlying driver for focusing on the "on boarding" meme. Just thought
making that explicit might help. The Meta dimension is to do that without
hierarchical or traditional manipulative or incentive zed industrial tropes
and techniques. How do we nurture, encourage and support sel-motivation,
intention and desire?
On Nov 8, 2015 7:41 PM, "snowinla" notifications@github.com wrote:

I that we need to make it clear what peeragogy is. Peer to peer learning.
And then explain it is not that different from what they already do (give
examples).

Then explain that, while we do this a lot often informally, we sometimes
have challenges when we try to do this on a larger "more organized" scale
because cultural tendencies toward hierarchy tend to set in. While there
are advantages to hierarchy as the number of people increases, there are
also distinct drawbacks. We often take this drawbacks as "just the way it
is" but we don't need to. Peeragogy attempt to help people navigate in such
a way that they can move forward with a peeragogy mindset to minimize these
drawbacks and help people deal constructively with the challenges that they
may face when using peeragogy to accomplish things.
To organize our information, we have identified patterns. These patterns
are different than what you may think. They are
including the architecture and coding uses. Then explain how ours are
different.
I am guessing just presenting patterns is more confusing than anything if
not familiar with peeragogy or the concept of patterns.

Also, on boarder, I think, used to be called newcomer which was a little
more intuitive IMO...
Just some really quick thoughts.

From: Joe Corneli notifications@github.com
To: Peeragogy/Onboarding-Project Onboarding-Project@noreply.github.com
Cc: snowinla snowinla@yahoo.com
Sent: Sunday, November 8, 2015 4:43 AM
Subject: Re: [Onboarding-Project] What is at issue in onboarding? (#1)

Compare Wikipedia. Their slogan: the free encyclopedia that anyone can
edit.The Wikimedia foundation mission:The mission of the Wikimedia
Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and
develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain,
and to disseminate it effectively and globally.The short version from
wikimedia.org: Wikimedia is a global movement whose mission is to bring
free educational content to the world. (Followed by lots of
pictures.)Whereas if you go to Peeragogy.org, you see "Welcome to the
Peeragogy Handbook." But nothing that says "Our goal is to ...". In the
patterns paper we say
We describe nine design patterns that we have developed in our work on the
Peeragogy project, in which we aim to help design the future of learning,
inside and outside of institutions.
To my mind, that's pretty clear! The bold part, together with a link "Join
us" might draw people in. (If that's what we want.) As for the comment from
@antiface's colleagues, that seems quite a typical response. Consider this
comment from Reddit:
Looks like it could be interesting, it's a little long to get through
right now, but thanks for linking.
https://www.reddit.com/r/education/comments/16b50u/the_peeragogy_handbook_pdf_a_handbook_on/
If the medium is the message, I think our table of contents is sending
people a message: this is a big (possibly) important book that you
(probably) don't have time to read.

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#1 (comment)
.

[danoff]

I think @jblaing had an awesome point:

One is the "prove yourself worthy" route. Think "Navy Seals."The other is the "Welcome everyone!" route. Think "Baseball Game." They are not mutually exclusive, both have advantages and disadvantages, but, at least from my newbie perspective, you might want to clarify what sort of stance you have on this. Now there seems to be an initial "Welcome Everyone" vibe (though there is a learning curve), followed by a "Prove You're Still Interested!" vibe.

I think we should clarify which one we are.

If we want to be super welcoming, I think multiple people should volunteer to "own" this aspect of the peeragogy project. They should commit to "nurture, encourage and support sel-motivation, intention and desire?" as @DougBreitbart said each new person who gets in touch with us.

Also, while I do like the idea of explicitly defining peeragogy that @snowinla suggested, but I'd also say there is a "cost" to definition. If we say what it is, then other people can say what it isn't (h/t Ken Kesey). That's OK, just something to think about, e.g., what is the definition of "art"? Has art been hurt by not having a definition?

Overall, I support defining to a degree (leaving it open for re-definition) and couching it w/in a wikimedia style mission statement as @holtzermann17 suggested. Or, maybe we explicitly need to only define the "peeragogy project" and leave peergaogy itself open to interpretation?

[daytripper]

Also, reaching out to other projects and orgs could be good, in a
pay-it-forward kind of way.

On Mon, Nov 9, 2015, 1:34 PM Charlie Danoff notifications@github.com
wrote:

I think @jblaing https://github.com/jblaing had an awesome point:

One is the "prove yourself worthy" route. Think "Navy Seals."The other is
the "Welcome everyone!" route. Think "Baseball Game." They are not mutually
exclusive, both have advantages and disadvantages, but, at least from my
newbie perspective, you might want to clarify what sort of stance you have
on this. Now there seems to be an initial "Welcome Everyone" vibe (though
there is a learning curve), followed by a "Prove You're Still Interested!"
vibe.

I think we should clarify which one we are.

If we want to be super welcoming, I think multiple people should volunteer
to "own" this aspect of the peeragogy project. They should commit to
"nurture, encourage and support sel-motivation, intention and desire?" as
@DougBreitbart https://github.com/DougBreitbart said each new person
who gets in touch with us.

Also, while I do like the idea of explicitly defining peeragogy that
@snowinla https://github.com/snowinla suggested, but I'd also say there
is a "cost" to definition. If we say what it is, then other people can say
what it isn't (h/t Ken Kesey). That's OK, just something to think about,
e.g., what is the definition of "art"? Has art been hurt by not having a
definition?

Overall, I support defining to a degree (leaving it open for
re-definition) and couching it w/in a wikimedia style mission statement as
@holtzermann17 https://github.com/holtzermann17 suggested. Or, maybe we
explicitly need to only define the "peeragogy project" and leave peergaogy
itself open to interpretation?

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#1 (comment)
.

[holtzermann17]

@daytripper @DougBreitbart Would you folks be willing take a stab at rewriting these notes into a pattern using our typical

Template
Motivation for using this pattern
Context of application
Forces that operate within the context of application, each with a mnemonic glyph
Problem the pattern addresses
Solution to the problem
Rationale for this solution
Resolution of the forces, named in bold
Example 1 How the pattern manifests in current Wikimedia projects
Example 2 How the pattern could inform the design of a future university
What's Next in the Peeragogy Project How the pattern relates to our collective intention in the Peeragogy project

and check the result into this repository, e.g. in the README or elsewhere? The repo currently looks a bit blank for anyone just passing by.

---

Once that's done that it would be good to

• Close this issue

[daytripper]

Revisit?

On Sat, Jan 9, 2016, 09:49 Joe Corneli notifications@github.com wrote:

@daytripper https://github.com/daytripper @DougBreitbart
https://github.com/DougBreitbart Would you folks be willing take a stab
at rewriting these notes into a pattern using our typical
Template
Motivation for using this pattern
Context of application
Forces that operate within the context of application, each with a mnemonic
glyph http://zhm.github.io/symbola/
Problem the pattern addresses
Solution to the problem
Rationale for this solution
Resolution of the forces, named in bold
Example 1 How the pattern manifests in current Wikimedia projects
Example 2 How the pattern could inform the design of a future university
What's Next in the Peeragogy Project How the pattern relates to our
collective intention in the Peeragogy project

and check the result into this repository, e.g. in the README or
elsewhere? The repo currently looks a bit blank for anyone just passing by.

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#1 (comment)
.

[DougBreitbart]

Absolutely.
On Jun 14, 2016 5:34 PM, "daytripper" notifications@github.com wrote:

Revisit?

On Sat, Jan 9, 2016, 09:49 Joe Corneli notifications@github.com wrote:

@daytripper https://github.com/daytripper @DougBreitbart
https://github.com/DougBreitbart Would you folks be willing take a
stab
at rewriting these notes into a pattern using our typical
Template
Motivation for using this pattern
Context of application
Forces that operate within the context of application, each with a
mnemonic
glyph http://zhm.github.io/symbola/
Problem the pattern addresses
Solution to the problem
Rationale for this solution
Resolution of the forces, named in bold
Example 1 How the pattern manifests in current Wikimedia projects
Example 2 How the pattern could inform the design of a future
university
What's Next in the Peeragogy Project How the pattern relates to our
collective intention in the Peeragogy project

and check the result into this repository, e.g. in the README or
elsewhere? The repo currently looks a bit blank for anyone just passing
by.

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[skreutzer]

For some reason, many groups struggle to get their onboarding going, I don't have a ready-made, great solution yet either, but let's simply build one. With online, project, collaboration, maybe peer context too, what function should an onboarding process fulfill? If you were the newcomer wanting to be onboarded, or a veteran wanting newcomers being onboarded?

Let's assume that the main point is to get new people up to speed, so they get be enabled quickly to either contribute to upstream or to learn how to do things on their own, to know their way around, to know whom to contact in case of problems/questions, to learn about the current status of everything (what's new/hot, what's old/broken, where's work needed, what's available/offered, etc.).

A very rough sketch could be that there's a big "join"/"engage" button and/or invite links that can be spread everywhere, which starts with a very short introduction that can optionally expanded into every little detail and materials, and optionally allow the newcomer to provide contact information if he/she would generally want the Peeragogy project to learn about his/her interest (meaning, inviting to do all onboarding steps without providing any personal data or answering any questions). From this first page, the newcomer might choose one of several onboarding routes, which are prepared for different kinds of people (branching like this might be an option several times in separate, self-reliant and combinable "modules"). Work together and contribute to the Peeragogy project via content, software developer persona caring about repositories and technical tasks, teachers using the material and working on the methodology, students learning how to become peer teachers as well, maybe also highly specialized other onboarding routes too. The bulk would be a short but well-summarized tour over the most important/relevant parts, asking the newcomer questions to get feedback, setting up accounts, indicating current activities/topics and who's contributing.

The whole onboarding environment should always allow the following actions:

- Go back to a/all previous steps/pages, and jump to any step/page (sitemap navigation), always able to "continue"/"skip"/"next"
- Always provide feedback or questions (what's wrong, missing, or stuck?)
- All selections/questions should have an option "other" for entering (long) free text of what's missing or explaining what the newcomer wants to do or say here
- Request a human to help out
- Pause and continue from the same position some time later

So basically this should help with unattended onboarding, while human help could optionally be manned in real-time, or otherwise be followed up asynchronously. Obtained data should quickly be reviewed, all onboarding modules always up to date (manual curation supported by automated compilations/summaries/feeds). There should be a regular task to go through onboarding routes in order to check if they still work, are up-to-date and still make sense. Not to forget that this service may also be provided to people who don't want to join or contribute to the project at all, but instead want help + overview of how to make use of the materials and methodology on their own.

Sounds more amazing than the actual first implementation would end up looking like and is a lot of work, but as a suggestion for a general direction. Can also be used for other contexts and probably better to always to a costly personal, human-attended onboarding/tour or none at all. Might eventually integrate to a work environment contributors or individuals may use for dealing with peeragogical things.

[skreutzer]

Maybe get an onboarding buddy assigned from a pool of people who do onboarding, for handholding and checking back with the newcomer (also reminder), ideally doing a few things together or share personal impressions/experiences, etc.