“If our hopes of building a better and safer world are to become more than wishful thinking, we will need the engagement of volunteers more than ever.”
Kofi Annan
When I try to explain to friends and relatives who ask, given my travel schedule and the strange interactions I have with technology and people, what I do for a living, their reaction is, “So, you’re an international spy?” (No, but it’s a good guess.) Their second is, “How on earth does someone get into that field of work?” That’s a little more complicated to answer, but I can tell you how I started: By volunteering my time and building credibility through networking.
Networking 101 – Volunteering
I am a freelancer who works with collaborations around the world to make the Internet a more functional, diverse, and less biased platform for the world. What that means in practice varies. For one contract, I’ll be a program manager. For another, I’ll be a group facilitator. I might act as the executive publisher and editor, or I might hold the pen to turn the group’s ideas into a coherent document. At the end of the day, I do whatever the IT engineers and architects need to make the Internet as a whole, and the digital identity aspects of in particular, better. I’ve told a few stories about what my contracts have looked like over on my dossier page.
As far as I know, no single college degree that leads to this kind of work. I personally have a liberal arts BA and majored in Medieval English history from Agnes Scott College, and a master’s degree in Library Science from UNC-Chapel Hill. And yet, here I am with no Computer Science degree in sight, helping collaborations that span the world do good things.
From Volunteering to Freelancing
By volunteering with groups and organizations that were working in the space I was interested in, I built a network of people who knew what I could do and were motivated to find small bits of money to have me keep doing it. In my case, that meant the Internet2 Middleware working groups, when the MACE program was still in place. If I were to do this again today, I would join the community interest groups of the W3C. Alternatively, I might become a non-voting (but active) volunteer in the Kantara Initiative. I would also get involved with IDPro and Women in Identity. These groups (and many more) are always looking for smart, energetic people to think, write, review, or otherwise engage in their work.
Individuals do more than learn about the material when they engage in these kinds of efforts. They’ll suddenly have access to mentors who know the space well, and people who are willing to offer constructive feedback. Volunteers demonstrate their capabilities with regards to clear communication (written and spoken) and learn about cutting edge technology. Even better, they get to help DEFINE cutting edge technology. In return, they gain experience that can go on a resume, an artifact to share with potential clients, and a network of people who will work to help you find contracts in order to keep you around to do more work.
Wrap Up
The transformation from studying the Dewey Decimal system to working in the wonderful world of technical collaborations had a few more steps, of course. That said, I could not have transitioned to freelancing as easily without the time I spent volunteering with interesting groups. If you’re thinking about how to make a big jump from one style of work to another, volunteering your time to build your street cred is a great way to go.
I’m always happy to talk more about this. If you have other ideas for how people with non-traditional skills might engage in Internet technology, please post your ideas on LinkedIn, Twitter, or wherever you have your online conversations!
(This post was originally published in August 2019; I’ve polished it up a bit for reposting in May 2020)
