The last three weeks have been an absolute whirlwind of activity, new things happening at a terrifying pace that has left me with little time for much of anything. But the only way out of this big backlog of blogging is to start somewhere, so I will start with the most important.
My biggest project from now and until the middle of October is the SkyTrain Unconference. At the beginning of August, TransLink’s public engagement team (who I first met in the lead-up to Vancouver Transit Camp last December) approached me to ask if I would be interested in helping them out with their latest undertaking: an unconference on the topic of Security in SkyTrain – specifically, working on the event’s accompanying blog. I, of course, jumped at the chance, and August was spent hammering out the WordPress site, sorting out roles, topics, objectives, and talking to the actual unconference facilitator – who is new to “unconferences” and all the social media stuff around it, but certainly not to working with TransLink.
I like this because, if you’ve read my thesis or spoken to me at any length on the topic, I have always held a spot in my heart for / had an obsession with what transit agencies actually do as a result of their public engagement activities – and in many instances, what is actually done is not very well publicized or articulated. In the slightest. And it’s unfortunate, because I think sometimes agencies put a lot of thought into what they do, and don’t get a lot of credit for it. At the same time, being able to see under the hood means being able to call them when what they’ve done really is inadequate, but doing that in the spirit of making things better for everybody, not out of malice, ill-will or a “constant stream of complaints” standpoint. I didn’t want to look at TransLink and find that I didn’t know how to do right by the wonderful ideas and energy of the unconference, and I’m glad I won’t be facing that challenge alone.
Anyway, I’ve been working hard to plug the site where I can – but the strength of unconferences is really in the community. And before I even had a chance to blog it here, on my personal site, someone has asked the $64,000 question (I should have known it would be Paul to ask it) – wtf is it? Is it a community event? Is it official? Is it trying to pretend that it’s a grassroots thing?
I’m not opposed to the idea that it may look like something different from what I’m saying it is and what TransLink is saying it is. I can’t control other people’s perceptions and I’ve come to terms with that. What I will say, however, is that the public engagement team has run with every harebrained idea I’ve had for the blog. They’ve been supportive. They were absolutely terrified of how much to make it look like it was a TransLink thing, because they thought having it be a TransLink thing would be negative. I think that perspective is cruft from the air of oppositional, aggressive and combative tone that people take towards large organizations. It certainly has its place in history, in today’s struggles against oppression and injustice, and will likely find continued success in the future – but it’s also just not what I’m good at, or all of what I think is needed.
This is probably fodder for the unconference blog, but I see the unconference about celebrating the innovation and liveliness of the communities connected by our transit systems as much as it is about the duties and responsibilities of the Transit Police or SkyTrain attendants. Though they are doing a job, I feel there’s a lot of healing to be done over the fact that they are, also, as despicable as it might seem sometimes, part of those communities. How do we bridge that rift? How do we live with the fact that bad things happen to us sometimes, to those among us who least deserve it or who can least defend themselves? Do we live in fear? Do we abuse those we think we want to blame for it? Do we approach it with apathy – a wish to be numbed – acceptance, or paranoia?
Nothing less than meatiest questions of our communities. I’m such an academic.
