Today I had a four-hour-long conversation with Evert, with whom I will be producing weekly videos under the name: W.A.I.T. Why Am I Talking?
We were hanging out at de Verbroederij, where we will record the first couple of videos. Here are the notes of the meeting to give you an idea of what we’re working on. I’d love to learn from your perspective, so if you have any concerns, suggestions, or offers of support, could you reach out to me?
Intention W.A.I.T. Why am I talking?
Create educational videos, with an open and collaborative attitude, to help people feel inspired to apply this open and collaborative attitude into their own lives.
This intention flows from a higher purpose: to support the increase of the capacity of nonviolence in this world, with as much power as we have support for, with as much integrity as we can, accepting that we sometimes choose to work within systems that might not fully align with our values.
Milestone and targets
Our first milestone: In 6 months the videos have a view count of 100.000 views
Our target audience: people on the spectrum from flexitarian to vegan activists.
Our 5 guiding principles
Creativity: In our videos, our conversations, our organizing, and our relationships we invite creativity to find options that serve more needs. Whenever we see two options, we actively seek to imagine a third option that serves more needs. As Dr. King said: “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”
Discipline in Support: To speak, live, think and work nonviolently in a world that hasn’t been organized around this value, we constantly need support. So we only do things that we have enough support for. Be it emotional, financial, energetical, technical, or any other form of support. If we don’t have enough support for what we envision we do something else or we seek out to find support for our vision.
Effectiveness with care
We want to keep the focus on our intention and milestones. We make decisions based on whether they are serving our purpose and whether they get us to where we want to go. Instead of seeing people we work with as instruments, we want to see them as whole human beings with feelings and needs. So for instance: we create time to get to know each other and our partners through conversations that are not just about the work and we regularly ask the people that we work with what it is that they need
Consent and willingness:
We do things because we want to do them. We make choices that everyone can live with and which are good enough for now and safe enough to try. The choices and the work don’t have to be perfect. Like the Persian rugmakers who – on purpose – make mistakes, because only God is perfect. Another instance of consent is we don’t use advertising, because the person who sees the ad has not given consent.
Our weekly Workflow
1. Yves has a conversation.
2. Yves writes the conversation down right after or later that night.
3. On Friday evening he sends the draft versions in text and voice format to a group of 10-20 people in a Whatsapp group where only the admin can post with three questions: What part didn’t flow? Do you feel inspired? What else comes up that you’d like to share?
4. Yves receives the feedback on the weekend.
5. Yves rewrites 3-5 scripts and talks them through on Monday with script editor Jeantilette.
6. Evert and Yves meet for 3 hours Tuesday 11:00 at the Verbroederij or another location they enjoy going to and where few people are and where spaciousness and relaxation can be felt. There they record 3-5 videos.
7. Evert edits the videos in the 3 hours following the shoot.
8. Yves sends those videos to the feedback Whatsapp group, so they see the result of their feedback. Yves asks them one question: Do you feel inspired?
9. The videos that get a YES, will be uploaded by Evert to an online video publishing space.
10. The videos that get a NO, will be watched by Yves and Evert after they shot the videos for the next week. At that moment they also read through the comments of viewers of the previous weeks.
Next Steps
-Volunteer Tuesday June 15th at the Verbroerderij to get to know each other.
– Follow the steps of the weekly workflow for the first time to see what works, with 5 people in the Whatsapp group
– After the walkthrough, Yves and Evert create an invitation which they ask to send to English speaking friends and family and NVC trainers. This invitation is for joining the Whatsapp feedback group.
Open Questions
– What publishing platform do we want to use for the videos?
– What way of distributing the videos do we want to use?
– What are we going to do with the videos targeted at EHBG facilitators?