Working with Digital Action! Weeknote 5
Did you know that Digital Action has a jobs email list that only gets used when we have a new opening? You can sign up here.
Speaking of which, I want to mention 2 upcoming opportunities to work with us. There will be more soon!
Firstly, our Head of Campaigns Alexandra Pardal is looking to contract a researcher for 10 days over the next month. The start date is ASAP so please reach out to Alexandra if you are interested.
The research is into one of the many questions the team have been digging into over the past month as we scope and plan a new multi-year campaign strategy. Specifically, we are struggling to get a handle on the corporate structure, governance arrangements, decision making etc. of major tech companies. If you happen to know of any prior work done on this area that can give our researcher a head start, do send it our way!
We will be doing more hiring over the next few months, both in our campaigns team and as we build out our core team infrastructure.
An initial role that I am hoping to post in the next few weeks is for a comms manager, reporting to yours truly. We have been pretty low key with our organisational communications in our first few years — our website is barebones, our social channels pretty quiet, our partner / network communications sporadic. It is something that I haven’t prioritised, in part because we like to operate in the background, and to let our partners take centre stage in our campaign work. We have also been working out our identity through doing the work, and have focused on that. BUT, I am realising that actually this probably needs we need to invest more in our comms, not less.
So in building a comms function, I have one core goal, which is to make sure that the team has the resources, connections, reputation and access that we need to succeed. What does that mean in practice? It does not mean that we are going to start seeking lots of followers or column inches. It does mean though, if we are successful, that our partners are really clear on who we are, what we are doing, and why and how they can achieve great things through working with us. It will mean that we will be able to open doors to get things done. It means that people will know that they can expect insightful, action grounded discussion if they are invited to a Digital Action event. And — and this is the real litmus test for me — it will mean that we can reach out to the two or three people who will be vital to the success of a campaign, and even if they haven’t heard of us before, they will be able to verify quickly that we are legit.
If this sounds like a challenge you would be interested in, please do sign up for our jobs email list. Did I mention that already? Yes I did.
One final thing — the fantastic team at Global Witness are recruiting for a campaigner to support their work on digital threats to democracy through to the end of the year — they really are great and you should apply.
