Volunteer Orientation
Welcome! The Web team is a great group of people doing important work: getting the voice of Burning Man out onto the web year round, thus supporting the needs of our participants, the media, government organizations and the general public – even our critics (the number of which is thankfully dwindling). We provide information, tips, images, organizational info, online community, support for the Regionals, and lots more. Ours is an ongoing effort to support Burning Man and the organizers who make it happen. So let's get started ...
Our Site … and How You Can Help
Burningman.com is rather simple in its implementation – it’s all basic flat HTML and CSS, with a small handful of PHP applications thrown in. There are no server-side processes like JSP, ASP or the like serving up pages. So whether you’re an HTML hand-coder or a Dreamweaver jockey, we can use you. In fact, our team is always looking for HTML coders, CSS gurus, PHP application engineers, Photoshop jockeys, user interface designers, copywriters, project managers, and quality assurance testers of all skill levels. For more information, see our team’s role descriptions.
Management and Organization
Our webteam project manager (also a webmaster) oversees the activities of the team, and coordinates with BM Staff and the staff and volunteers in other areas of the Technical Department to keep everything running smoothly, and making sure things are getting done.
Then, to keep us organizationally sane(ish), we’ve divided the Burning Man website into sections (for instance: Preparation, Participate, What is Burning Man), each of which has a Section Manager responsible for managing a sub-team to keep its content current. And to facilitate technical support for our volunteers, we have Skill Leads who are responsible for mentoring volunteers within a particular skill set (for instance: HTML, CSS, images), and coordinating their work with the Section Managers. Depending on what projects are happening, the Skill Leads will find appropriate people to get the job done.
Tools and Resources
We use a variety of tools and resources to manage the team and facilitate our work. In order to dig into the real stuff you will need to be able to use them, but don’t worry, we hold trainings twice a year to get people up to speed with our technology and processes. We also have email lists with which to communicate, a team management system called the Extranet through which we share information, and a Collector to track issues and bugs. Everything’s remotely accessible, so you can work from anywhere in the world. You’ll get access to these tools when you join the team and get trained.
Meetings
We have bi-monthly (that’s twice a month to you and me) Web Team meetings at Burning Man Headquarters in San Francisco, and we offer remote participation via the phone, VoIP, and webcast, so we have contributors across the country joining our meetings. (Unfortunately, we haven’t yet figured out how to send beer through the internet.)
Our Work Style (or: How I Learned to Love the Web Team)
Although you will find that some of your fellow Burners in leadership roles help guide projects, the website is built by volunteers. Being involved requires that you step up and assume responsibility for tasks as they surface, help out when you can, and ask for help when you need it. Team leadership has been established to help maintain the direction of the organization's big picture goals, but your expertise and contribution is what keeps us moving forward.
As it is on most Burning Man teams, our most successful volunteers are the ones who are patient, persistent, and proactive.
Be patient. Our workflow, and people's availability, is very irregular. When you first join the team, it may be some time before you find a good fit and an ongoing role. Stick it out, and we’ll get you productive as soon as we can. QA can be a great place to start; we always need responsible people to check work and report bugs, and it’s a great way to learn the site.
Be persistent. Keep attending our meetings, stay up on the Web team email list, and by all means speak out if you see a project you want to help with. We do need many hands to do this work; if you hang on we will find a place to plug you into the process.
Be proactive. Just as on the playa, much of what gets built for our community originates from the fine minds who think it up. We call this concept: Do-ocracy. If you have a terrific idea or think something needs to be fixed, be proactive and offer to do it yourself. Don't expect someone to take your great idea or opinion and run with it - after all it's your idea. And the other half of the process is helping others. If someone else has a great idea or is working on a project in which you could assist, speak up and help out!
Consensus Decision-Making
In a situation where a decision is required, the Web team (just like the Burning Man organization) employs a consensus decision-making process. Consensus means that everyone who is party to a discussion agrees on a course of action. For a decision to be adopted, no one must strongly disagree. This doesn't mean that everyone agrees that a particular decision is the best decision. It simply means that everyone will go along with what the group decides. Further, this consensus process is coupled with a hierarchical (e.g. managerial) structure to provide the decision-making proces with a higher vantage point. This ensures that we take into consideration the most comprehensive view possible with regard to the organization and its goals, while anticipating the long-term implications of decisions.
