What has been really interesting to see as the new tech chair for my student union is the tension that seems to exist with technology. The tech team is very focused on safety and security, while others seem to lean much closer to utility and what they can do quickly. In a sense I understand both sides, organizing is hard work and there are a lot of factors to balance, but I am also a little surprised.
Now with organizing you have to collect a lot of data. You have information about who is in the union, who is eligible to be in the union, who is attending different events, and who is interested in getting more involved. But you also have a team that primarily consists of a small group of dedicated students who need to do a lot of stuff very quickly. And while both safety and speed are important to everyone, there are different priorities for different groups.
It seems like the issue is that tech is brought on to specialize on this, but they aren't always heeded. And also that there's a lack of compromise, or just an attempt to understand why someone is saying something else. And I mean that from both sides, truly. Which is all very unfortunate. But it does seem to me that if you're going to bring people on to run an aspect of the group, you should probably let them do their job.
Now I don't think that this issue is unique to this group, I think it exists everywhere with organizing. Which is interesting, it's an aspect that I don't think I ever really considered before. Do you want to move fast and break things? Or create systems that are super secure and last? It's a push and pull between the two. I'm really looking forward to this position, and thinking more about how to reconcile the two as I go.
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