During my spare time, I serve on two very small Boards—one is the Board of my co-op, and the other is the Board of a tiny local abortion fund. Unsurprisingly, I am the tech person/online groups admin/email troubleshooter/”why isn’t this file uploading” contact on both boards, so I’m always looking for ways to make our lives easier through technology. For the abortion fund, we’ve used a YahooGroup and for the co-op Board, I tried something new and started a GoogleGroup.
My experience in both groups is inspiring, satisfying, and frustrating in pretty equal measure. But the frustrating part at both meetings maybe isn’t what you’d expect. It’s not lack of snacks, any deficiencies in my fellow members, or the political climate. Nope, it’s the sense that there are probably a hundred groups out there dealing with the same issues at the same time.
Whether we’re debating the merits of rebuilding our front steps (“I don’t know, do you think we really need to demolish them and start from scratch?”), trying to figure out if we should get Board insurance (“just wondering, do you think someone could sue me for all I’m worth?”), or debating best practices for distribution of funds (“well, we could make a case to do this one of several ways…”), I’m always struck by the thought that someone, somewhere must have debated/researched/resolved this issue already. Right? Probably the board next door is dealing with the exact same issues, and we could learn from them.
So I have to admit I was pretty excited to attend last night’s launch of MeetUp Alliance. In essence, MeetUp Alliance is a tool that lets groups band together to achieve goals, share best practices, and connect projects across geographical space. The tool is platform agnostic, so my abortion fund can keep its yahoogroup and connect to other funds that are using googlegroups, facebook groups, myspace groups, whatever. Which is great—because now that I’ve taught everyone how to use the YahooGroup, nothing is going to get me to switch.
There are still lots of things to figure out (Phil reminds me “it’s in beta”), such as:
- Can alliances be private/password protected?
- What if the person who is running the alliance is terrible? Can you impeach them?
- If it’s a group with a national presence already, how does the online alliance mimic/differ from that structure?
But still exciting.
In the meantime, does anyone know anything about board insurance? Just wondering, do you think someone could sue me for all I’m worth…?
