My various Musings - Blog

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to attend the New Adventures conference in Nottingham. I had a brilliant time and came away totally inspired. At this point I’m going to avoid going into a five paragraph love fest about how much I loved staying at the Premier Inn and how comfy their beds are, suffice to say that if they ever want to replace Lenny Henry, I am totally the girl.

Having been to New Adventures in the past I totally expected to feel inspired, which I did, but it was not in the way that I expected. Parts of the day were hilarious and other parts were thought provoking and at times even a little frightening.

This was my second time at New Adventures, I originally attended in 2013, during my time as a mature undergraduate student. The good thing about being a student, is that people don’t expect you to have any money, so there are often special discounts available. These discounts can often get you cheap tickets, so I took advantage of the student rate and went along. I saw Jessica Hische on stage, where she introduced me to the concept of Procrastiworking, the work you do whilst you’re procrastinating, which might just be the work that you should be doing. That idea resinated with me and keeps coming back as a little reminder.

When I started studying web development I expected to be building websites all day every day for a company somewhere. Fast forward to last year and although I’m self employed, I actually spent less time building websites than I did doing the various other things that I do. I didn’t deliberately procrastinate by doing other things, but I just started prioritising the work I do as a volunteer, over the work that pays my bills. Understandably this led to a drop in income, along with intermittent periods of panic and self doubt, none of which was helped by phone calls from people wanting to know “when I’d be bringing my account up to date” It appears that my procrastiworking is the work that I do with the Online Centres Network and the work that I do with SPACE to support local families. Seven years after my first trip to New Adventures and that concept is still there in my head.

When I first saw that New Adventures was on this year, I eagerly visited the website and concluded that I wouldn’t be able to go, because I simply didn’t have enough money in the bank for a ticket. For those of you that follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that I was excited to be there, mainly because I didn’t think I’d be able to go. The only reason I was able to attend, was thanks to their amazing scholarship ticket scheme and I would like to whole heartedly thank them. There are lots of ways to increase diversity in tech and one of them is to make it easier for people to attend industry events. That was one of the many things that I personally appreciated about this event. I liked the diverse line up and the opportunity to watch lightning talks during lunch. The swag policy was another positive. Rather than either leaving attendees with no swag at all or generating endless waste by issuing everybody with a ‘gift bag’ full of badges, stickers and t-shirts that they might not want, people were encouraged to take whatever swag they wanted. If you work for a software company and attend a dozen conferences every year, then I can see how you’d get fed up of it all, I however am 100% a person that likes to receive swag at the small number of conferences I get to attend and thanks to New Adventures, I am now the proud owner of an Affinity t-shirt, one metal badge, a couple of stickers and a small notepad.

Throughout the day, attendees heard from speakers on a range of topics all of which were designed to encourage the audience to think a little bit more, question themselves and sow the seeds of a change in behaviour. As it is now a few weeks since the conference, there will already be lots of comprehensive round ups of the event so I’m going to fast forward to sharing the things which are still forefront in my mind and the best way to sum up one of the key themes I took away from New Adventures can be explained through my “owl on the trampoline” story.

Like many people, my garden contains a ten foot trampoline, complete with safety netting. Nobody uses it, yet I’m regularly informed that I’m not allowed to get rid of it (but apparently I’m the hoarder!) Anyhoo, a few nights ago I opened the back door to let the dog out and I could see an owl perched on the netting of the trampoline.

First thought – Oh wow there’s an owl on the trampoline!

Second thought – I’d better get the dog back in, because he’ll start barking and wake up every kid in the village.

Third thought – Where’s my phone? I really want to try and get a badly taken picture of the owl to put on social media.

Fourth thought – Fuck! The owl is probably sat on the trampoline staring at the dead rat at the side of the garage, which eventually led to my fifth thought that whilst rats die all the time, in a variety of ways, this particular one is probably dead because I paid the council to put poison in my cellar to deal with the problem of rodents getting into the house.

The next hour took an almost comical turn of me clambering around my garden, in the dark, retching and gagging whilst I moved the dead rat, using an old mop and some discarded packaging. If my antics had been caught on camera, the part where I slipped and almost fell over alone, would have guaranteed me £250 from You’ve Been Framed. After a great deal of sliding, climbing, shuddering and loud involuntary noises, I managed to put the deceased rat safely in the wheelie bin.

(For those wondering why we had knowingly left a dead rat at the side of the garage, Mr WorthyOnTheWeb and I had decided we’d move it the following day, because he was on his way to work, it was getting dark and frankly neither of us wanted to do it at all, so we made sure the dog couldn’t get near it and put the whole thing off)

So what on earth does my ridiculous owl, trampoline rat story have to do with the New Adventures tech conference?

Do no harm trumps don’t be evil

Akil Benjamin

You don’t have to be evil to cause harm. I’m not evil and I do not wish to cause owls any harm. Owls are beautiful majestic creatures, and I would never attempt to kill one, but I could easily have done so whilst resolving my rodent problem, because the unintended consequence of allowing the council to poison “my” rats, is that I potentially introduced a toxic substance into the food chain of local owls.

The things we do have consequences, even when those consequences are unintended.

Humans invent things that later go on to be used for a variety of other uses and digital products are no different. The innovative tech products, which are currently being created, by people who are in no way evil, could go on to cause harm to others. A key theme at New Adventures was to remind people of this. The opening keynote by Cennydd raised not only the plight of the environment but also the fact that designers hold an enormous amount of power and that they ultimately don’t only design the things of the future but in some cases actually design the future. Somebody somewhere is building the software and writing the algorithms. Somebody somewhere is designing the tech that could potentially become the dystopian future we don’t want.

The excitement about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and the potential for fantastic shiny new things is more marketable, than the potential for harm that the algorithms and machine learning could result in. Lots of dangerous current and future technology didn’t start out that way and throughout his keynote Cennydd encouraged those in the room to start taking responsibility for the unintended consequences of the things our industry designs and creates.

When I worked for Royal Mail, AI stood for Address Interpretation, it helped the sorting machines read a greater percentage of addresses on envelopes. It was a “self learning system” and over time the sorting machines learnt to read not only typed addresses, printed in recommended fonts, but also hand writing. The software learnt from human beings. Anything they couldn’t read they gave to a human postal worker to process and the machine learnt from that. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are everywhere and the danger of this is that the decisions based on those algorithms might not be checked. They may and often will, contain bias and the end result of this could have devastating consequences for people and those consequences will be much worse than some mis-sorted letters.

Akil Benjamin shared his personal journey and talked about how he has changed since starting his first business. including the pressures he faced and the effect it had on him personally. Akil discussed the idea of embedded ethics and the fact that his organisation Comuzi uses consequence scanning. I would personally trust every one of the New Adventures speakers to go further than “not evil” but when evil is down to perspective and capitalism is running most, if not all of the world, how many other organisations would be willing to scrap a project if they identified that potentially their new software could do harm.

One feature of New Adventures was that they provided a captioning service. On stage next to the speakers was a large screen and as the speakers spoke, their words appeared on the screen next to them thanks to a very talented gentleman transcribing the whole thing live. During Liz Jackson’s talk she shared her experiences at a US tech conference where the organisers failed to provide an interpreter or captioning, despite being told that they’d be needed and introduced us to an app called Thisten that offers live text to speech on your phone. The talks from New Adventures are still available on the app.

Liz’s talk was entertaining but also really powerful and it encouraged the audience to think about the power dynamic of innovations designed to help those with disabilities. Are they really needed? Do they really help? or are they cool ideas that in real life are more about the inventors than solving the needs of the community who should benefit from the innovation.

A couple of days after attending, I saw a Mashable post about a wheelchair that allowed users to “stand up” and move about in a similar way to a segway, which on the face of it seemed like a good idea, but after hearing Liz’s talk about hi-tech wheelchairs that climbed stairs versus providing ramps so that anybody in any wheel chair could access a building, I found myself questioning the idea and wondering whether this was an idea that offered real benefits to the community it supposedly served. The ideas she shared have stayed with me.

It was recently announced that a company had scraped a number of images from networks such as Facebook and was using them, along with a number of other data sources to create what was described on Twitter as a “human Shazam” where somebody could take a photograph of somebody in public and potentially utilise that service to find out lots of information about them. I find that concept absolutely terrifying. A random stranger could find out information about you, without your knowledge or consent. Perhaps my fears are fuelled by my experiences as somebody, who has been on the scary end of an abusive relationship. The idea of there being a digital product where violent partners are able to upload pictures of their ex-girlfriends and get information back is scarier than any horror film that I can imagine. Creepy blokes in clubs that you won’t give your number to, would be able to casually take your picture and get your details. Making this technology openly available to predatory men will endanger women. In terms of not being evil, I’m struggling to think of an appropriate and positive use for this technology.

This particular software is built on the shoulders of other technology that already exists and which probably wasn’t created with the intention of endangering lives, yet that is exactly how it could be used. It also raises the issue of diversity. Who else should have been in the room when this was invented? Could more women at a senior level have stopped this idea getting further than an ignored suggestion at a brain storming session? Certain platforms already ask whether I’d like them to “help” me by using face recognition on my images. Would I like a company I don’t trust to catalogue pictures of my friends and family on their massive database? No thanks mate, I’m good!

When you join Facebook to stay connected to your friends or look for customers for your small business, most people don’t realise the potential consequences. Even the most informed of us assumed that the rich data profile we allowed them to create, was for selling adverts, who knew everything else it could lead to. None of us knew exactly how much information we were providing both in and out of the app and could never have dreamed that it would be used in the ways that it has been. I don’t really mind Facebook helping somebody sell me a new jacket, but I object greatly to the idea that their influence resulted in my new racist Prime Minister.

Despite all the problems with Facebook I continue to use it. I use that platform to run an online community that supports families with ADHD and whilst I could quit Facebook, there is currently no way that I could have the effect I have now, on any other platform. During the panel session the speakers discussed the immense privilege of being able to “quit Facebook” and why should we as users be forced to abandon a platform, rather than the platform being forced to behave better. Evil is a matter of perspective but in most cases legislation makes those blurred lines a lot clearer.

There is an argument that it doesn’t matter how much information is stored about us unless we’re doing something we shouldn’t. The UK is one of the most surveilled societies in the world and many people believe that this keeps us safe or at least helps the police find the bad guy if something happens to us. What if the bias in the software encourages the police to pursue the wrong people and leads to innocent people being arrested?

Not everybody in the tech industry has the power to make changes, many of us will never create a technology with the potential to change the world, but by raising questions and asking us to at least think about it, New Adventures sowed those seeds.

A few months ago I was lucky enough to deliver a talk at Code and Stuff about my journey into tech. I named my talk – I’m a Rhinoceros Not a Unicorn, which is such an abstract title that people started asking me what it meant, so I decided to turn the content of that talk, along with a few other things, into a blog post.

For one reason or another I have spent much of my life failing to live up to the various stereotypes associated with the things I do, particularly when it comes to my working life. No matter what job I do, if there is a widely held stereotype associated with it, then it probably doesn’t look like me.

If you take the stereotypes too seriously, then you could find yourself believing that there are no women in tech and also no black people in tech, so speaking as a black woman working in tech, I obviously don’t exist. I’m a mythical creature. I’m a unicorn. My response to this is that rather than have the world, and in particular the next generation of black women, believe that I don’t exist, I’d suggest that rather than a unicorn, I’m actually a rhinoceros. Not something you see every day like a horse or a cow, but still something that exists in the real world.

There are lots of reasons why women of colour are underrepresented in UK tech, but regardless of how we got to where we are, there is work to do so that girls interested in writing code do not have to run the gauntlet of being the “only one” in their classes, lectures or bootcamps. We have to ensure that being interested in writing code, doesn’t have to mean, willing to work in an industry where they are so outnumbered that they stand out by default. They shouldn’t have to be willing to be “the only one”, not everybody wants to have that battle or be that visible.

My journey into the work I do now wasn’t an obvious one. I wasn’t one of those teenagers who had a computer at home and taught myself programming in my bedroom. I didn’t develop an interest in coding until I was 38 and my interest started when I found myself with a website that I couldn’t afford to have rebuilt. I do bizarrely have a GCSE in Computer Science, but it’s so far down the alphabet that it barely counts. Although I had studied Computer Science at school, it wasn’t based on an interest in computing. It was mainly based on our school having a brand new IT suite filled with shiny BBC computers, which is the main reason I chose it as one of my options. I had no intention of ever working with computers, I’d already decided that I wanted to be some sort of engineer. I also decided at this point to discontinue Touch Typing, because I was never going to work in an office and would therefore never need to type anything.

When I left school I started a YTS apprenticeship as a car mechanic. When I started in 1987, not only was I the only female in the garage where I worked (1:7 ratio) but I was also the only female on the City & Guilds vehicle engineering course at my college. On my first day, after being directed to the wrong place, I eventually walked into the induction session 20 minutes late where I was stared at by over 50, 16 year old boys, all muttering variations of the phrase “it’s a girl”.

I was referred to as “the girl” for the first couple of weeks before they established that I was OK, or at least not that bad. This is as good a time as any to announce that 16 year old me was very quick to loudly point out that since you didn’t change spark plugs with your dick, that me being a girl didn’t really matter! By the end of the first month I was just like everybody else. I didn’t fit the mechanic stereotype, but ultimately it didn’t matter.

The reality of being a 1980s apprentice mechanic was lots of brewing up and sweeping up. As the youngest of five, in a tea drinking family, I really hated brewing up! (For those of you familiar with the TV show The Royle Family, I was the Anthony of my family) After several months of oily overalls and steel toe capped boots I decided that being a mechanic wasn’t for me, so I left to join Royal Mail. I was hoping for a free bike and a lunch time finish, but actually spent my first year sorting mail on a ten o’clock late shift and the other 18 years working in various admin roles, where the touch typing I abandoned at 14 would have been extremely useful!

Having left school with very average grades, in an assortment of subjects, I assumed that my academic life was over when I left school. It never occurred to me, when I was 18, that I might ever go to university. That was for super brainy people. As far as I was concerned, university had nothing to do with me. By the time I was 26, I decided that it might be one day.

Being a mature student is the best and worst of everything, particularly as an undergraduate. As a mature student I was keen, dedicated and excited to learn. I sat at the front in almost every lecture with an A4 notebook and a full pencil case. I was there because I wanted to be, I was happy to engage in lectures, attend all seminars and do the work. At the start of my student journey I still looked young enough to blend in, especially in my brand new MMU hoodie, so they still handed me flyers for club nights. I filled my boots with freebies at the Freshers Fair and made the most of the “Young Persons” rail card, that I now somehow qualified for.

The main problem with university was that everything appeared to be based on the idea that all students are 18 years old and live on campus and to be fair the majority of them probably do, but if you need to arrange childcare for multiple children, then the casualness with which you are told that you won’t get your time table until term starts and are regularly fobbed off by admin staff is extremely frustrating. Having the entire system based around 18 year old party boys simply does not work for everybody and that’s not an age thing, it’s a logistics thing. Being old enough to be everybody’s mum isn’t necessarily a problem, not having enough information to book places at after school club for your children is.

When I left university with my shiny new degree I started looking for junior positions, at which point being 42 meant that I didn’t match the stereotype of university graduates. My lengthy management career wasn’t applicable to the jobs I was looking for. Nobody needed a front end web developer that could manage a telephone contact centre and even less people needed a front end web developer that knew a lot about Royal Mail sorting machines. I had to start from scratch, as though my entire adult working life didn’t exist. My CV was worth the same as a two decade gap year.

I didn’t hit the stereotype as a mechanic or many years later as a student, so it’s no surprise that I allegedly don’t look like a web developer now. I’m never the stereotype but I’m always still right here. Just because you don’t see lots of people that look like me, doesn’t mean that I don’t exist. My lack of visibility doesn’t make me a unicorn. It does however, in certain contexts, make me an endangered species.

A side effect of a lack of diversity is the bias and exclusion it can create. Putting aside those who deliberately make the workplace (and the world in general) unpleasant, thousands of people dealing only with others, exactly like themselves can generate an unhealthy environment. It is harder for people to learn what is acceptable and appropriate in wider society and generally leads to the creation of products and services, that don’t serve the full population. Having an all male team isn’t automatically a bad thing, but without any female influence, how likely are they to reflect the other half of the population in their work?

Despite rarely being who people expected to see, I went to meet ups and attended any conference I could afford the tickets for. I kept meeting new people and I generally met those people again at other events. My personality makes me more likely than most, to put myself out there and go to places for the first time. I’m so used to being the only person that looks like me, that it’s only a problem if / when something unpleasant happens and I have been luckier than most on that front. I have been to meet ups where I’m the only woman. I’ve been to meet ups where I’m the only person of colour and I have been in lots of situations where I’m the oldest person in the room.

When 16 year old me walked into a room full of young lads who all stared and wondered why I wasn’t a boy, it wasn’t great, but I was pretty unaffected. How many women walk into tech spaces now and experience pretty much the same thing? When large groups of men don’t expect to see women in a particular space, do they unintentionally generate the same vibe as that classroom full of teenage mechanics? If they do, what happens to those women? Do they just sit down and cockily claim their space as I did, or does it make them feel too visible? Not everybody wants to stand out. Do they feel unwelcome? Do they participate as much as those in the majority? Do they go back to meet ups where they were the “only one”? Do they feel comfortable staying behind for the social events or do they scurry off straight after the presentations? These are some of the reasons why people started creating spaces exclusively for women.

Technology needs women. Not because men are bad, but because diversity is better. Technology needs people of colour. Not because white people are bad, but because diversity is better. Technology needs people of all ages. Not because young people are bad, but because diversity is better. Diversity is always better, but to do the day job we need people to have the necessary skills.

Tech firms may well be willing to recruit more female developers, but they need them to have the same skills and / or qualifications as the male developers. At this point it becomes a numbers game. You can’t do a degree in Computer Science without the relevant A Level and you can’t do an A Level without the relevant GCSE. As a Code Club volunteer I know that the enthusiasm for learning to code at primary school is the same for boys and girls, as is their level of attainment. At some point between leaving primary school at 11 and choosing their GCSE options at 13, most of the girls are ditching computing.

There are more white men working in tech and some of these men are a problem, not only for the tech industry, but for society in general. I’m lucky enough to know lots of perfectly lovely people who fully fit the official web developer stereotype. Men with beards and hoodies ,who learnt to code as teenagers and I can assure you that none of the men I’m proud to call friends, are the toxic tech bros, I occasionally find on my Twitter timeline. There is a lot of generalisation, which is often unhelpful. In the quest for diversity, it is sometimes portrayed as though white men are the problem, when in fact, I personally believe the problem isn’t that there are too many white men, but rather that there aren’t enough of everybody else. Technology has the potential to resolve lots of the world’s problems, but we need the right mix of people, looking at the right problems, in the right way. How do we educate those that fit the stereotype about life outside their personal perspectives? Lived experience is important and we need to include a variety of different lives in order to do that.

So having established my existence, the next step is to look at how we can facilitate more rhinos. What else can we do to encourage girls and women into tech? What else can we do to introduce more people of colour into tech? What else can we do to keep a mixture of different people in tech? What are the many barriers to people that don’t meet the official stereotype? Is it the toxic tech bros? Is it that flexible working hours aren’t common? Is it simply that people don’t see any way to be something that they so rarely see?

There are a lot of questions, but luckily there are people out there working to find answers. There is a lot of work going on to increase the number of rhinos in tech and there are already more of us about than some people imagine. Organisations like InnovateHer are running education programmes in schools. There are meet ups such as Code and Stuff Manchester, who were set up specifically for women and non binary developers. Free tech meet ups offer help and support to new developers, from all backgrounds, who are retraining through online courses like Freecode Camp.

An increasing number of conferences and meet ups have introduced Codes of Conduct, which make it very clear that inappropriate behaviour will not be tolerated at their events. Many conferences are tackling the lack of diversity in their speaker and panel line ups. I was lucky enough to be on stage at Upfront 2019 delivering a short talk, thanks to their bursary scheme, which included free training to encourage and support speakers from under represented groups.

Sometimes telling people you exist is enough to encourage more people to follow your path, or at least tell a few more people that the path exists. It’s not everybody that would willingly refer to themselves as a rhinoceros, but as I think you can tell, I’m not like everybody else (but that still doesn’t make me a unicorn)

During my time as a post graduate student I developed a slight obsession with wheelie bins. As unlikely as it sounds the giant multicoloured plastic structures became a symbol of digital exclusion.

I’m a massive fan of digital, professionally, personally, as part of education, as a fun pastime I’m there for ALL of it, but there was a point in recent history where “they” took away the choice. The point where a decision was made to force people to do things online instead of via human interaction. This point is called Digital By Default.

It is now policy that access to all government services at local and national level should primarily be done digitally. Information is found online, applications are done online, payments are done online and all associated support is found online. Digital is now the default for taxing your car, claiming your benefits, filing your tax returns and even ordering new wheelie bins from your local authority.

I understand why. I appreciate the benefits to both the authorities and the general public. There is a huge financial pay off to digitising access to services and doing things online allows for 24 hour access. No more queuing at the Post Office on your lunch break to tax your car, you can do it online whenever you want. Members of the public no longer have to wait on hold for the “next available operator” you can order a new wheelie bin on the council website.

My problem with all this fantastic progress, is that digital has become more than a way to access these services, in many cases it has become the only way to access these services. I have to do my tax return online. I have to order council services online and since every branch of every single bank in my village closed, I have to do the vast majority of my banking online. My life has become digital by default, which is absolutely fine and has no detrimental effect on my life whatsoever.

So why am I moaning about it?

Digital by default works well for people who own a computer, have a decent broadband package and know how to confidently access the internet and complete a series of tasks. For those who don’t match this description, digital by default is more problematic. For those who don’t match this description, digital by default raises some very serious questions, such as:

• Who is digitally excluded?
• Who is educationally disadvantaged?
• Who is socially excluded?
• Who is at risk financially?

When everything is digital by default – who gets left behind?

I started using computers at school in the late 80s and I’ve been using a computer at work since the start of the 90s. I used to be a personnel administrator and at that time, every individual employee had an orange folder with their name on the front, that contained all their paperwork such as their original application form, their sick card, their late card and any other documents related to their employment. Everything was in the orange folder and the folders were stored in a collection of filing cabinets.

In 1990 I returned from maternity leave to find that the filing cabinets had gone and all the desks had computers on them connected to a mainframe HR system. A couple of years later I went on maternity leave again and when I came back the computers had changed and we now had Windows machines. I missed the training because I’d been at home playing with my baby and as a result kept waving my mouse in the air, because I didn’t realise that it had to stay on the desk!

Over time the hardware and software changed, but through working in various admin positions, I got used to using computers as part of my every day life. Every change was met with some form of training package and if anything broke, I simply reported my problem to IT. In the mid 90s we bought our first PC, which meant that we had the internet at home, courtesy of the good folks at AOL. I have been using computers day in and day out for years. I work in digital and compared to most of my friends and family, I’m really good at tech stuff. I use the internet for work, for fun for everything. I use it to socialise and even use it as part of my parenting from time to time. Why shout up a flight of stairs, when you can simply Snapchat your kid a picture of the bin they still haven’t emptied? (and laugh to yourself)

This long term relationship with technology may be fairly typical for lots of people, but it is definitely not the case for lots and lots of others.

If I had to request a new wheelie bin, I would prefer to ring the council and order one, but now I can’t. I can still try, but whilst I’m on hold the music will be regularly interrupted by a voice telling me that it’s quicker and easier to do everything on the website. If I’m willing to ignore this advice and stay on hold for an extended period of time and play several rounds of the press 1 for this, press two for that game and hold out for a human interaction, the chances are that I’ll be told that the only way to order a new wheelie bin is to do it online. Despite my stubbornness, it’s not really a big deal. Ordering my wheelie bins by phone is merely a preference, I can easily follow the recommended procedure. It’s not a big deal, but for many people it is.

People are regularly told to “just go online” (even if they don’t own a computer) or “just download the app” (even if they have an 8MB iPhone 4 with no room for any more apps) people without computers are told to “just nip to the library” (even if they don’t know what to do when they get there) and that is why I’m moaning.

If you need to claim Universal Credit you have to complete that application online. There is NO alternative. Digital is the only way and the consequences of not completing the online process correctly can have devastating consequences.

Despite the fact that I’ve mentioned them a lot over the last few paragraphs,  I rarely have to actually order wheelie bins, but it’s an easy way to illustrate an example of digital exclusion and although I’m not personally disadvantaged by digital by default, I can see so many groups of people who are.

Having moaned about the government’s digital by default policy for at least two years, I’ve finally found a way to do something about it – sort of. I can’t stop them forcing people online, but I can teach people what to do when they get there.

I joined the Online Centre’s Network and deliver free training to anybody interested in developing their online skills. So whether you’re not sure how to switch on a computer or you already do lots of things online, but would like to know how to do something specific such as: online banking, claiming universal credit or finding health information, you can access free training through businesses like mine. I’m part of the DigiKnow scheme which aims to get Stockport residents online.

Q. When is a cake shop not a cake shop?

A. When it’s a pop up training centre.

As part of my DigiKnow commitment, I decided to deliver training to people in my local community, but since I usually work from home, I needed a venue. The owner of a local bakery called the Dutch Apron said that I can use the front of her shop for a month, so I’ll be spending the rest of March running workshops and drop in sessions for anybody interested in getting on the internet or developing their confidence online. They don’t even need a computer because I’ve bought four laptops and have a portable wifi hub. I don’t know how many people I’ll see between now and the end of the month, but even if only a handful of people come along, it will be worth it.

So whilst it’s true that I am still slightly obsessed with wheelie bins, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Volunteering is a big part of my life. It is something I do regularly in a variety of different guises. The very short version of this post (TL/DR) can be summed up in two main points:

• If you are interested in volunteering – Give it a try.
• If you are working with volunteers – Don’t be a dick.

For those of you with more time on your hands, here are some of my thoughts about volunteering, based on my own experiences and those of people I know.

As I said earlier, volunteering is a fairly big part of my life. I didn’t intentionally set out to become a serial volunteer, it just happened over time. Even if I have no intention of getting involved, if the reasons are strong enough and you don’t have enough people to do the jobs that need doing, then I’ll help you. I have a pretty big skill set, so you can guarantee that I’ll be a useful member of the team. On the rare occasions that you don’t need any of my digital, event management, organisational or admin skills, I can lug boxes, I can drive places and I’m happy to be the loud one that stands up in front of a crowd and makes announcements or shouts out raffle ticket numbers.

I’m an all in kind of person. If I do something, I will always do it to the best of my ability and I’m helpful by nature so if I can help, then I will and I’ll do my best to make a good job of it. From running a primary school parent teacher association (PTA) to lugging gazebos for the market ran by the local traders association, I’m in. Being a volunteer is rarely glamorous and isn’t always easy but it’s always worth it and if I didn’t do the things I do – who else would?

Volunteering is usually quite enjoyable, you often meet new people and get the chance to pick up some new skills. As a serial volunteer I have two pieces of advice for those thinking of volunteering:

• Just give it a try
• Don’t overcommit

If you’re not sure that you have enough time to volunteer for something, then I’ll let you into a secret, very few people have time to be a volunteer, we just make the time to do what we can. If somebody needs something doing on a Tuesday morning but you’re at work then you can’t help them, but maybe you can do something else or help another time. Some things can’t be moved e.g. family commitments, employment or whatever, but the idea that the only people who can volunteer for things are those with lots of free time is 99.9% false.

Another common falsehood is the idea that only certain people get to do things or that you have to be part of a special clique. If something needs doing, it will still need doing even if Barbara’s best friend Valerie (or whoever) isn’t the one doing it. This idea is fairly common in primary school PTAs where the perception of smug mums swanning in and out of the staff room, leads people to think that you have to be part of a special club to be on first name terms with the Head Master. Having been the Chair of our local PTA I can categorically state that I would have given anything for a few more bodies to step up and help man stalls at the Christmas Fair.

My personal experience of volunteering is that it’s a place to make more friends, not the opposite. I didn’t know many people when I took over the PTA, joined the WordPress community or joined the charity I help run, but I do now and I count some of those people amongst my closest friends. Try to look past any smug mums you encounter in PTAs or perceived experts at tech meet ups. Things are not always what they seem and if from time to time you come across people who don’t act the way one would expect, that’s on them, not you, so don’t let that put you off. There are lots of reasons why people don’t volunteer, including drama created by other volunteers. Running around the playground loudly announcing how busy you are isn’t the best way to get more people to join the PTA!

Over commitment can be a big problem for volunteers. If you’re not sure that you’ll be able to do something then please make that clear at the time. Nobody deliberately sets out to let people down, but if you agree to do too much then it’s a big possibility that things will end badly. Every single project I have ever been involved with, includes a percentage of people who are there at the beginning volunteering for things, that somebody else ends up stepping in at the last minute and doing. It’s easy to get over enthusiastic at introductory meetings whilst everybody is brainstorming, but in the long run its stressful and unhelpful for everybody. Likewise if you sign up for something and your circumstances change, which means that you need to dial back, then let somebody know. Nobody will have a problem with that, but somebody needs to make alternative arrangements and they can’t do that if they don’t know that whatever it is, isn’t being done. Make sure that you give regular feedback on any areas you’re working on and always speak up if there are any problems. 

On the other side of the coin, if you are working with volunteers then my advice to you is as follows:

• Don’t be a dick (most people don’t need to be told this)
• Be respectful of people’s time
• Don’t make it about you
• Don’t let other volunteers push you around 

I’m lucky enough that I have only limited experience of being on the receiving end of other volunteers behaving badly and the majority of the ones that did, didn’t mean to, but I know of some genuine horror stories. People who yell at other volunteers (hard to believe but absolutely true) or belittle them because they think they know better, are a special breed of unpleasant for everyone.

If you’re part of a team that volunteers their time for free, then respect your team mates. You’re no more special than anybody else, so don’t use your good deeds to go off on a power trip and make other people question whether they want to be part of it. Do not make it about you. 

Respecting other people’s time is an important part of volunteering, as the work is generally on top of whatever else they do. If you are responsible for a project that involves managing volunteers please try to avoid making things take more time and effort than necessary. 

Another helpful piece of advice for those managing projects with volunteers is: Don’t let other volunteers push you around. Occasionally you’re so busy trying to be fair to everybody involved in the project, that you let other people harangue you into agreeing to stupid things. Sometimes you have to stand your ground. 

 

My biggest volunteering commitment is to a small charity called SPACE. We’re an ADHD Support Group. I originally joined the group in the 90s when my daughter was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The diagnosis helped everything about her make sense and explained why nothing I tried previously ever worked. I went along to my first meeting in 2004 and I didn’t leave. Over time I needed to ‘take’ less from the group which allowed me to ‘give’ more. I stopped needing support from the group (most of the time) but was able to use my experiences to support other parents.

As a parent of an adult with ADHD I’m proof of the light at the end of the tunnel and my daughter is proof that unruly kids can turn into smart, capable, well adjusted adults. The SPACE group was started by a group of parents who needed a service that didn’t exist, so they created it. I’m now one of four parents that runs the charity. Those services are still needed, so people like me and my friends are still here providing them. I take the lead on digital things – I’m a web developer and digital marketer so why would I not use those skills to help other people going through the same struggles I’ve already lived though? I’m also the Treasurer, not because I’m brilliant with money, but because I know how to fill in Mickey Mouse forms, know my way around a spreadsheet and can be quite officious about making people hand over receipts when I have to!

A day in the life of a volunteer at a small charity is a pretty mixed bag and involves a combination of learning constantly, working with no time and usually working with no money. Everything is currently done at either zero or very close to zero cost, which brings challenges and requires a lot of creativity. Fortunately it matters enough to make every minute worth it.