The Center for Civic Media has opened its search for a community organizer/codesign facilitator. We hope you’ll spread the word to qualified candidates on the hunt for a great opportunity…
The description is below, with application procedures on the MIT employment site.
Regan St. Pierre, our community outreach manager who recently accepted a new position, is so irreplaceable that we tweaked the job. The focus is now explicitly on codesign. It’s an acknowledgment — long implied by our mission but now far more prominent given the ethos of Prof. Costanza-Chock — that our research and tools cannot be developed purely ‘in the lab’ at MIT, followed by a search for a community ‘testbed.’ Rather, we hope to develop new tools and platforms through collaborative design, iterative testing, and measures of success that are shared with community partners, from start to finish.
How does that sound to you?
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER/CODESIGN FACILITATOR, Media Lab-Center for Civic Media, to join a cross-disciplinary research center that links the Media Lab and Comparative Media Studies in the collaborative design of new technologies that help build community, foster civic participation, and promote political action (http://civic.mit.edu). Will build relationships with and coordinate codesign activities between the center and its community partners through a combination of face-to-face meetings, online collaboration, social media, and print and broadcast media. Responsibilities will include coordinating collaborative design processes in the field through iterative stages of project development with center researchers and community partners; serving as a liaison between center researchers and community partners by working closely with staff from community-based partner organizations and helping them participate effectively in project design and implementation and submitting ongoing feedback; managing community partnerships by acting as primary point person for existing partners and by building and maintaining connections to potential partners; arranging demonstrations of center work for both internal and external sponsors and partners; and identifying and creating opportunities for collaboration and mutual inspiration between the center and other innovators in the field of civic media.
REQUIREMENTS: a bachelor’s degree; at least four years of relevant experience working with social change initiatives, nonprofits, cooperative business, and/or community-based organizations in the area of ICT tools, skills, research, and design; a high level of comfort with collaboration tools and processes and digital media technologies; and the ability to document work using digital tools, e.g., produce media including still images, short videos, blog posts. Familiarity with collaborative/participatory design methods and/or popular education techniques ideal. Community organizing experience strongly preferred. MIT-00008269
This is a three-year term position.