Hey y’all! I’ve been working here as a Community Organizer for a few months now and I’ve met quite a few DJJ-niks, but is it even really real if I don’t put up a perfectly detailed and awesome introductory blog post about my whole life story??
Probably, but my adhd does not feel like writing that blog post right now, so you’re going to have to settle for 5 facts about me, 5 wisdoms I learned from the recent organizer training I took with Leading Change Network and Marshall Ganz, and 1 super interesting historical fact. What? No one has time to source five super interesting historical facts!
And, here is my calendly - schedule a chat and we can get to know each other. I’ll give you my life story is you give me yours ;)
5 facts:
- I’ve been skydiving.
- I am obsessed with rocks. Like, used to stuff my pockets full of playground pebbles (drove my mom nuts digging them out of the washing machine!), has a grape amethyst dangling from the rearview mirror, once found a 2 inch long piece of citrine I forgot I had in the wheel well with my spare tire, still carries rocks around to this day, obsessed.
- I only have 61 houseplants right now. Yes, that is a low for me. It’s hard to pick a favorite - my top three (in no particular order) are: swiss cheese monstera, arrowhead vine (specifically the green/pink variety), and neon pothos.
- I once drove a 10 gallon fish tank with two fish in it from Michigan to Georgia in the front seat of a Uhaul. Yes, I buckled them in. No, they are no longer with me (may their memories be for a blessing).
- I have a quirky and irreverent sense of humor, if you couldn’t already tell.
5 wisdoms:
- Assume good intent but appreciate impact.
- Organizing is being in good relationship with the self, with others, and with action.
- Why do we need a well-structured team? Structure helps us build power. It works like a trellis, supporting the growth of individual flowers in a common direction. Teams need common goals, broad agreement, and direction on how they’re going to get to their goals.
- Don’t only gravitate towards rolls you are good at or feel comfortable in. It is equally important to take on rolls in areas in which you know you have room for growth. Apply this to your leadership as well - if you are recruiting new people, it is equally important to consider what skills your team has that they can offer the new person as it is to consider what skills the new person has to offer you.
- Build feedback loops that work both ways into your structures.
1 super interesting historical fact:
- People have probably been engaging in some type of boycotting (protest through social ostracization) since the beginning of time, but the name is much more modern. During the Irish Land War of 1879-1882, Irish tenant farmers used the technique against a nasty English land agent named Captain Boycott when he attempted to evict them from his employer’s land when they couldn’t pay their rents due to a bad harvest. One account said that Captain Boycott couldn’t even get the postman to deliver his mail. This article has more details.