Craig Moore
Scott JensonThere is a huge untapped market of #retired technology folks. I'm curious if anyone knows of any groups the help match up tech talent with #opensource or #nonprofit organizations. Please boost for reach.
As two people seem to be confused, I'm looking at this FOR ME. I'm the retired person and I'm trying to find some places to give my time.
Added all of the helpful resources listed in this thread here:
https://github.com/scottjenson/Tech-Volunteering/blob/main/README.md
Thomas Thomassen@scottjenson what are you looking to do?
@onionarmy If possible, what i've done in my career: UX design. This means I'd likely be helping out small teams building solutions that don't have a UX designer.
I've been trying for years to volunteer #UX on #FOSS and #OpenSource projects but there appears to be very little interest. The community just doesn't (in general) prioritize UX. (I'm sympathetic to the stresses involved, I'm not trying to throw stones, just saying there isn't much demand)
@scottjenson indeed. I wonder if a good part of that is because UX require more coordination. Certainly plenty of open source projects could benefit from more UX reminments. I wonder if projects that have funding for people to work full time on it might amiable for UX input?
What about Open Street Maps? Lots of project within that sphere. Several related to editing the massive amount of data. (I'm looking into OSM myself, hence it came to the top of my list.)
@onionarmy I'm sure there are lots of projects, it's just hard to match up teams with the right people.
As to your point about coordination, UX, at it's core, is bout team building, creating early sketches that people discuss and supportively argue about to get a shared understanding. That type of in-your-face type of working often runs against the grain of many #OpenSource projects.
zceline@scottjenson @onionarmy One thing we found consistently is that UX often requires more than a few bite sized coding or documentation tasks or a single sprint, which is what the majority of volunteers will commit.
If a nonprofit or OSS team was ready, UX was often a highly requested skillset, & a couple of our most active contributors were senior UX people. A lot just came down to timing, not value.
PS +1 to Catchafire, Taproot, C4A, others in this thread. It's a really cool problem space...
@zceline @onionarmy I've spoken about this very issue at #FOSSBack You are exactly right, if you're only 'unit of work' is a small check in, you'll never make progress on UX issues. It's up to the 'lead' (whatever that is for your project) to prioritize UX as a roadmap issue and then coordinate a collection of smaller PRs to get to a bigger goal. There are lots of FOSS projects that are doing this very thing.
gadgetoid@scottjenson @zceline @onionarmy would it be useful to try and gather a team? Assuming little interest in UX from FOSS plus little inclination to put in the work to implement suggestions (assuming you don’t have the capacity to rewrite whole front-ends) could you gather a crack team of retirees for UX, have those meetings among yourselves, and approach a project with more significant ready-to-go changes? (Diplomatic concerns notwithstanding)
Billy SmithMight be worth getting in touch with Sensorica.
All of the work they do is #FOSS :D
Their latest project:
Rihards Olups@scottjenson
There are a lot of projects in the #OpenStreetMap ecosystem - maybe somebody will see this and offer a collaboration.
Haven't had the chance to read all replies, sorry if this is a duplicate suggestion.
Profoundly Nerdy@scottjenson They're retired.
If they want to work on code they work on their own stuff or not at all. They've earned it.
Occasionally they mentor new tech folks.
They've done their time. Let them rest.
@profoundlynerdy Please let me me speak for myself. *I'm* retired and I'm trying to find meaningful work. Do you mind if I try?
@scottjenson I meant no offense. Despite not being retirement age I know some rather aged nerds. I was reflecting the essence of their sentiment.
Apparently my "accidental asshole" counter is +=1 for the day. My bad.
r-hold@scottjenson @profoundlynerdy it's a complicated topic.
As someone who codes for a living it troubles me if people offer their services for free.
I know it is for Open Source and a good course, but that the oss relies on so much free work is a problem for itself.
Please make sure you don't contribute to depressing wages.
@rhold @profoundlynerdy Using that logic, I should not be a volunteer at a school because I'm taking someone's job? That's very very odd. Volunteering is a core supportive pillar of working society!
Avi@rhold @scottjenson @profoundlynerdy Strictly speaking, nobody said for free. Open Source and good causes doesn’t have to mean for free.
Lars Marowsky-Brée 😷@scottjenson And some of the non-retired folks who'd be open to socially impactful work if it paid anything resembling a livable wage.
As a society, we're not doing great with valuing those efforts 😕
As a society, we're not doing great with valuing those efforts 😕
stevenray@scottjenson this is a nice idea for older people who'd like to keep their feet in technology to some extent, maybe without the same demands that a full-time job would have. I hope you get some useful comments.
The amazing @sunnydeveloper & I led SocialCoding4Good at Benetech.org from 2011-14 to do just that, though not just retirees :) Many tech nonprofits need devs yet lack resources to manage individual task contributions.
Space has grown *a lot" since then, lots of collective learning + many new vertical & regional organizers. Not all #opensource but lots of real social impact. Ovio & DataKind are a couple of favorites: https://ovio.org/ www.datakind.org/
@zceline @sunnydeveloper This is great, thank you
@zceline @sunnydeveloper Just signed up for Ovio but it appears to be dev focused. While I can add tags like UX to my profile, I can't search for any jobs/projects that require that?
@scottjenson Not sure, haven't engaged with them in a minute. I know UX is definitely an in-demand talent for nonprofit OSS though...
A bit tedious but if there is a 'cause' area you're interested in, the GSOC org list is a great 'directory' of sorts:
https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/programs/2024/organizations
A bit tedious but if there is a 'cause' area you're interested in, the GSOC org list is a great 'directory' of sorts:
https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/programs/2024/organizations
ocdtrekkie@scottjenson @zceline @sunnydeveloper I remember there was a whole open source design group out there (Jan C. Borchardt, is the name that comes to mind, but I may have butchered it). I remember Sandstorm always needed design help but nobody was ever offering (right now we aren't in a position to use that help, mind you, we're a bit stuck financially).
A lot of great projects have neat functionality but are written by people with no hope at making a good interface.
@ocdtrekkie @zceline @sunnydeveloper well all we can do is to speak up when we're free, offer help, and try to find a good match when we can
Shannon Clark@scottjenson a lot of people and orgs still assume that “older/retired” folks need help with technology vs can help others with tech. There are some mentoring groups (often broader than just tech) that might come close though not sure if any specifically have an opensource and/or nonprofit focus. I recall something close in the Chicagoland area but not sure it is still operating. And in the Bay Area (and elsewhere groups like TiE - “The Indus Entrepreneurs offer mentoring as well as investments
@scottjenson a few years ago (pre-pandemic) I worked with a colleague in the Midwest on a consulting firm that was in a similar space (our firm was named Beyond Age, my co-founder still focuses on consulting with companies selling into the older adult market. We were tracking a lot of different models of orgs and companies. But the assumption they older adults didn’t understand or use technology was still dominant.
@Rycaut Well, now that we have directors from Google in retirement, I hope that view softens a bit... ;-)
@scottjenson I’d hope so but it’s still all too common.
(My mom wrote software in the late 1960’s until largely retiring from actively writing code in the 1990’s and my grandfather first wrote code on early mainframes trying to model flight as a very early RAND Corp employee. So I never really got view that moms or grandparents couldn’t get technology but my experience was somewhat rare. But now far less so. )
Jan Schiefer@Rycaut @scottjenson These kids never stop to think who designed and built those playgrounds that they think they are the kings of. Oh well.
Akkana Peck@scottjenson Great question. I'd love to know too. As a retired developer, mostly I work on my own FOSS code and projects for local small nonprofits, because I don't know of a way to hook up with people doing bigger projects.
@akkana exactly, as more and more retire from tech, this opportunity is only going to grow
Sam Butler@scottjenson Hey Scott, this might be relevant — would love to find some retirees who are interested in projects like this!
Sam Butler #CEASEFIRENOW (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 video The Internet Can Run Without Data Centers 🔊 Any people on the East Coast want to set-up a Garage cluster and start serving pages? Get in touch, for real! (Mainly looking for people in Virginia for now!) Garage: https://garagehq.deuxfleurs.fr/ Togepage: https://tog.page Community Media: https://communitymedia.video (@[email protected]) Undeniable: https://undeniablenetwork.com #DataCenters #Energy #Permacomputing #Network #Tech #Online #Internet #Server #DataCenter #Water #Climate #Environment #Pollution #Degrowth #Alternative #Drought #Pollution #ClimateChange
Tristan Colgate-McFarlane@scottjenson if I get to retire before dropping dead at a keyboard, I am never , ever going near another computer, regardless of how long the doctors manage to keep me alive.
JessamynStrong "I want to go to a commune in Vermont and deal with no unit of time shorter than a season" vibes. I hope you both get exactly what you want out of your retirement.
Amusingly that line is from a book about a tech project worked on by my dad but I was the one who wound up in Vermont, teaching technology to older adults.
4everpushingaboulderI looked into this when I retired. Huge need in the non profit world for people with tech and general business skills. I worked for a short time with a woman who did Non-Profit Board education and fundraising workshops. She quickly identified a local nonprofit that could use my help.
Also. The ITDRC dot org has regional teams that help in case of disaster to provide tech support to first responders and others.
WideEyedCurious 🇺🇸 💙 🇺🇦 & 🇨🇦@scottjenson What an awesome idea for anyone who’d like to volunteer a little.
Zorro Notorious MEB 🪷🪷🪷@scottjenson Some retired tech folks (raises hand) are having a blast working on all the fun things they wanted to do when they were younger but couldn't get paid to do. 😉
EdgeThe Man has been working with folks through this organization for a couple of years and finds it very interesting.
Lots of need out there, and his experience has been invaluable.
Jonas Stettner@scottjenson correlaid.org/en :)
@jstet Thank you! But I worry I'm not helpful to that group and I'm not a "Data person"?
@scottjenson I just read your profile description and as I am a Social Scientist turned Data Person turned sort of Web Developer who is currently maintaining the CorrelAid website, I know that a specific thing your help would be appreciated with is the UX of this website. Thanks btw for adding us to the repo you created!
@jstet Happy to have a chat if you're interested. Would you like a basic "UX audit" or is there something more specific you'd like help with?
@scottjenson yes, we would definitely be interested, thank you so much! If that's ok with you, I will consult with my colleagues and we will get back to you next week with a concise problem formulation and some information on what we would like to achieve with the website and who we think the users are. To continue the conversation, we could contact you on LinkedIn, you could write an E-Mail to [email protected] or you could join our slack workspace, whatever you prefer.
Bruce Cloutier@scottjenson I think I can appreciate the intent of the post but for some reason I feel like its dimensions each deserve a rant. I mean #opensource is a disaster whether you can see that or not. There is no #nonprofit as none of those would exist if someone wasn't profiting. And #retired is a concept that I will never experience.
KellyAnn Romanych (she/her)@scottjenson https://www.catchafire.org/volunteer-explore/ and I highly recommend you research grassroot orgs in your community or areas of interest and reach out to them to open up a conversation.
🌈 Andrew ☄️@scottjenson It’s a bit meta, but one open source project could be: a new repo with the links you’re receiving here, a short description of each link, and their scope and location of impact :)
Mia@scottjenson I wonder if the museums/archives/libraries sector has suitable projects? I know we'd love help with the Universal Viewer.
@mia Oooh, that sounds fun! Is there someone I could contact on that?
@scottjenson could you drop me a line at [email protected] and I'll share some links to work in progress and the public sites?
Kyle Taylor@scottjenson Nice. Have you considered foundation work? The @FreeBSDFoundation, the Linux Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, etc. Reach out to a foundation that speaks to you and say you know XYZ languages (or worked on ABC systems for years) and are looking to donate time to a project and are willing to start with bug fixes. They will be able to point you to where you would be most helpful. Some even pay. FreeBSD supports contractors with a temporary salary for important projects.
@kta @FreeBSDFoundation That makes total sense. I actually have reached out to #Gnome and hope to see something there eventually. (I'm actually giving a talk about it at #guadec2024 )
penguin42@scottjenson I tend to avoid anything too organised myself; I've been doing bug fixes and stuff on open-source projects I use, but nothing that requires too much planning; most big projects do have lists of stuff needing doing and ways to help.
Andrew Conn
tellyworth@scottjenson WordPress has a site for onboarding volunteers to its open source community teams:
@scottjenson oh and coincidentally, this was just published: https://learn.wordpress.org/course/beginner-wordpress-developer/
Guy@scottjenson USDR takes volunteers: https://www.usdigitalresponse.org/volunteer
Tom Resing@scottjenson good call!