The FabBlog

The FabBlog contains posts about learnings we’ve made through our work.

I was inspired to write this after reading Lucy Chambers excellent post proposing how a dystopian theory of change might be helpful in creating long term strategies. In it, Lucy points to a DIY theory of change template that simplifies the process of developing a theory of change plan and […]

What I’ve Learned About Theory of Change

DISCLAIMER: This post is about email best practices. It is NOT about all the different software out there that can help you manage your inbox. I have mentioned a few clients and a few ‘add-ons’ to exemplify practices, but I am not attempting to provide an overview of what is […]

What I’ve Learned about ‘Inbox Zero’

What is it like to bring over 100 individuals together in a room to talk about the issues surrounding ‘Follow the Money’ (FTM) and the impact that technology and data have on it? On January 21st and 22nd in Berlin, FabRiders was fortunate to be able to support the efforts […]

What I learned at #FTMTech

Preamble As individuals supporting movements working for rights and justice, we believe in transparency, collaboration, open data, and shared knowledge.  We strongly believe that resource creators should strive to be accountable to the communities they aim to serve. Content creators should not dictate accessibility by the user, and should strive […]

Responsible Resource Creator Manifesto (Draft 2)

We had mass quantities of learning in 2014, so it’s only fair to guess that we will have much more in 2015! Here’s a quick list of the top-level learnings you can find in the FabBlog from last year: Unless a project will help you move forward in your strategy, […]

What We Will Learn in 2015

Just back from Oakland, California feeling nourished and re-energised after attending the annual Nonprofit Development Software Summit (#NPDev). This is Aspiration’s signature event, bringing together a collection of radical techies, graphic designers, campaigners and non-profit staffers for three days of organised chaos that is unbelievably productive. We were honored to have […]

What I learned at NPDev Summit 2014

Understanding how any technology used in campaigning functions as a tactic to further your campaign strategy is essential. For every training session that Fabriders runs, whether it’s about utilising data effectively or social media, we’ve found it important to start with an exercise that gets participants to thinkabout the goals […]

A Quick Advocacy Strategy Exercise w/ Stakeholder Mapping & Power ...

[print_link] Why a Responsible Resource Creator Manifesto? All too often resources and materials created for our sector are not properly maintained or cared for after their release.  Many of us who rely on these resources have been frustrated by sudden inaccessibility of materials we’ve grown to rely on.  As someone […]

The Responsible Resource Creator Manifesto (Draft)

[print_link] Why maps? Because maps can take data about what has happened to individuals and instantly transform it into data about what is happening to a community. In our media-rich world, visual representations of data are well understood by most audiences. Maps are accessible. In today’s world of online services […]

What I’ve Learned about Maps

[print_link] This is a list of resources prepared for Effective Data Strategies for Activist and Advocacy Campaigns and Data Tactics for a Post-Fact World workshops The Data Tactics Workshop Curriculum is a detailed plan for the workshop that has all the exercises we used plus timings. Hacking User Centred Design for Social Change Efforts has […]

Data Tactics Workshop Resources

Like most people who have been using computers and the internet, I’ve had a gradual creep of having more and more of my data in the cloud. I’m a long-term (aging?) Apple fan boy and have succumbed willingly to the ease of having my data accessible on any device anywhere. […]

What I’ve Learned about The Cloud

[print_link] Long before I got involved with the digital world, I learned an important lesson about privacy and anonymity, and about the kinds of security that are truly meaningful. This lesson had nothing to do with computers or the internet, but what I learned back then holds some valuable insights […]

What I’ve Learned about Privacy, Data & Digital Tools

This list of questions was derived during a session at the Responsible Data Forum in Oakland on March, 6th 2014. Our desire was to create a list of questions to ask yourself when working as an intermediary with marginalised communities. The answers you will come up with, might or might […]

Questions to Ask Frequently (QAFs) when working with Data and ...

I had the privilege of traveling to Cambodia last week to work closely with Allen Gunn (Gunner) and Misty Avila from Aspiration, running an event for the Open Institute called ‘Open Cambodia.’  We had over 100 participants from all over Cambodia, who were largely interested in using technology to support […]

What I learned at Open Cambodia

Grateful thanks to Heather Leson (@HeatherLeson) and Maya Ganesh (@mayameme) from Tactical Tech for their valuable insights and input into this blog post. I’m working with Eurasian Harm Reduction Network on a project addressing police violence against women who use drugs in Eastern Europe. The overall goal of this project […]

What I’ve Learned About Mapping Violence

The listening cycle series has been co-written by Jessica Steimer, who has been helping non-profits use social media more effectively as part of her work with Aspiration. Jess rocks! Find her on twitter @JSteim. You can also find a version of this article on the Aspiration Social Source Commons Blog. […]

The Listening Cycle, Part II

We co-wrote The Listening Cycle with Jessica Steimer, who has been helping non-profits use social media more effectively as part of her work with Aspiration. Jess rocks! Find her on twitter @JSteim. You can also find a version of this article on the Aspiration Social Source Commons Blog. Social media […]

The Listening Cycle, Part I

Join us for a celebration of eRiding past, present and future! A decade ago there was a significant shift in the epicentre of tech capacity building with the emergence of the eRider movement. eRiders were an evolution of a proven tech capacity building model known as Circuit Riders. Where Circuit […]

Calling all eRider friends, supporters and survivors!

A very special thanks to Lucy Chambers from Open Knowledge Foundation for inspiration, review and advice on this blog post. You can find Lucy on twitter @lucyfedia. Over the last two decades of helping advocates and activists use technologies more effectively, the use of data in campaigns has always been […]

What I’ve Learned about Data Advocacy

Last week I had the pleasure of facilitating the Open Knowledge Foundation‘s Staff Retreat. Marieke Guy has blogged about the retreat here. I was extremely impressed with the number of passionate, committed and talented people working for this organisation.  During the retreat, it emerged that many of the staff feel […]

Just Say ‘No’

2013 was a great year for Fabriders, and how we are really looking forward to some great work in 2014. Fabriders opened it’s doors in mid 2012 and at the beginning of 2013 we were just starting to get rolling.  Looking back at this past year, we couldn’t have predicted […]

Working Together in 2014

As I mentioned in part II, I found the circuit rider network to be absolutely invaluable to getting access to the right expertise in order to do my job. The environment for this was the circuit rider network, and it was during the second Minneapolis Round-up I attended that I […]

My History of Circuit Riding (Part III)

Aspiration’s NPDev Summit was remarkable this year on a number of fronts: most notably the participants were ready to share and absorb knowledge on equal measure, resulting in a dynamic agenda packed full of a wide range of topics and facilitators.  Also notable how the Aspiration team, Gunner, Jess, Jordan, […]

What I Learned at NPDev Summit 2013

I’ve just completed a 6 month project working with the Transparency and Accountability Initiative’s mentorship programme.   I spent two days last week with felow mentors Tunji Eleso, Sarah Schacht, Gaba Rodriguez and Lucy Chambers, along with Allen Gunn (Gunner) in London to discuss what we’d learned from our projects. […]

Making Tech Mentorships Work

This blog post initially appeared on the  TABridge Blog at: http://tech.transparency-initiative.org/notes-by-graphic-recorders-capture-the-moment/.  Special thanks to Jed Miller for editing. I recently traveled to Jakarta for “Matchmaking Budget Transparency & Technology,” a three-day event convened by The Southeast Asia Technology and Transparency Initiative (SEATTI). The meeting was facilitated by Aspiration’s Allen “Gunner” […]

Forget written notes, try graphic recording!

We’ve had a great break enjoying the great outdoors (see photo) and now are back in the saddle, ready for an exciting roster of projects lined up for the Autumn. Here’s what we’re looking forward to working on. Writing projects: Fundamentals for Using Technology is nearly finished and we’re putting […]

Fabriders is back from Summer Hols

During a training session I recently did in Jakarta for SEATTI – the South East Asian Transparency and Technology Initiative, I had a lot of fun working with the participants on using a party metaphor to talk about open-data. Transparency and accountability advocates often struggle with how to engage citizens […]

Throw an Open-Data party!

In my previous post, I told you how I came to work for the Low-Income Networking and Communication’s (LINC) Project; and of meeting some amazing people at the second ‘Riders Roundup’, ‘Riders’ being roving tech consultants with a particular mandate to assist NGOs in specific issue areas. Following that meeting, […]

My History of Circuit Riding (Part 2)

As I mentioned in my post, Lessons from the Road one of my favorite training exercises is the spectrogram, and no one runs it better than Gunner from Aspiration.  You can find a detailed description of how he does it here: http://facilitation.aspirationtech.org/index.php?title=Facilitation:Spectrogram_Facilitator_Notes (Note on both those links – you will get […]

Rocking the Spectrogram

Thanks to the Transparency and Accountability Initiative’s mentorship program, I was able to spend a week in Bratislava, being a mentor to Fair Play Alliance. The goal of the mentorship is to help Fair Play Alliance become more agile and flexible in its ability to manage projects and identify how […]

What I Learned working with Fair Play Alliance