A space to fill with learning resources, discussion and support for our members who are learning Web Development with us while also building change in the real world. Please share your ideas and lets build something great together!
Intro
Welcome! The Public Happiness Movement is a community focused on empowering local people to create positive change where they live. Global change through local action. Here in the Global side is where we use our skills to build projects which empower local people to create change on causes they care about, or to support local actions which are already going on.
Our community was very active on social media a few years back, but as that became more and more pay to play, and clicktivism or influencer led, we decided we needed our own tools designed for our community. The Public Happiness Movement (PHM). We’re almost ready to launch an MVP but for now 99% of the people you see in here are devs who are coding on this, or one of our projects.
Don’t worry if your current/desired skillset isn’t listed or active in the teams section yet. Most of us have just begun here, most coding was on external platforms until recently. There is a limit to how many projects are being actively worked, based upon how many active members are here, so energy is directed into completing existing projects rather than starting hundreds that will never be finished.
That’s ok because there are plenty of real world ‘activities’ going on which will be moving onto this platform soon, and there’s always a good way to use your skills to support them. (as a space opens up new projects are discussed and voted on by the community).
- ‘Activities’ are on the street events in the Local side of this platform
- ‘Projects’ are in the Global side where we discuss and vote on fun ideas we can build together which create more and well-being through empowering local communities.
Right now we have three ‘project’ spaces open:
- Public Happiness Movement (PHM), this Meta platform
- Brighter Tomorrow Map (BTM), an effort to transform involuntary homelessness globally by connecting people who need help with those nearby who want to help, and the most effective crowdsourced ideas for how to meet their basic needs and take steps to a new future.
- Our Community Climate Action Platform (CCA). Bringing people and communities together to take positive and fun action which benefits our planet.
1) Join the Group
Everyone at every level is welcome
Joining the group gives everyone the ability to @ tag you to call your attention to a post or discussion. This is important, especially for the Mentors group. As the community grows groups will probably need to split into specific skill sets (SQL Mentors, for example).
2) Download our App
Currently email notifications aren’t always reliable so we strongly suggest using the app to stay connected. You might prefer to set up browser notifications instead if that works on your browser.
3) If you haven’t already please Introduce Yourself
So someone in the Welcoming and Onboarding Team can reach out and help guide you around our platform, and so anyone supporting/being supported in the future can reference who they’re working with, their experience level and coding goal (and cos its nice to say hi).
4) Getting Going
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Right now we are setting up new categories in the Dev Uni for each coding language we have someone interested in, so if the category isn’t there yet it’ll be made after you introduce yourself.
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You’ll notice this platform isn’t complete yet, and that’s a good thing as some of the tasks will be working on it. Moulding and building our own house. It makes the navigation learning curve a little longer but a simple rule is that if you get lost just click the ‘Global’ tab at the top.
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I suggest an open discussion on what the best free learning materials are to recommend alongside coding. Please join in the discussion
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You’ll notice there is a ‘Teams’ section where there are already devs coding on projects
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You are very welcome to join in discussions, or grab a task and get started right away.
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Mentors will be helping to guide Mentee’s to a suitable task for their skills, and looking at the projects and creating new tasks which will advance them, or asking other teams if they can suggest something that would help them.
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Tasks are listed using a Scrum / Agile system here (in a drop down nearby on mobile):
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To accept a task open it up and find the ‘assign’ button. You have two weeks to complete it, otherwise it will be moved back into the Backlog or Sprint queue (this prevents projects stalling as everyone waits).
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Once complete drag and drop it into the Review column and @ tag the @DevMentors group, or the mentor you’re working with. Very new members will need to use a tag to ask someone to move it, it stops someone who’s bored from coming in and messing up all our boards.
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Mentee’s can use the @ ‘DevMentors’ tag anytime to call for support, although its always good to have a try to solve it yourself first as the most important skill a Web Dev can learn is to develop a ‘problem solver’ attitude.
5) Get help finding paid work
Part of what we want to do here is to help anyone involved in this community, mentees, mentors and all other devs, to find a good paying job. To do this we run r/webdevjobs on Reddit and will feature your portfolio in a sticky post over there on the 1st of each month. Get listed by posting your profile in the monthly members looking for jobs thread.
Post your portfolio using this format:
[Name] - [Dev related skills] - [Desired Location or Remote]
- Link to your profile here
- Portfolio link one
- Portfolio link two
- Portfolio link three
^ Your profile here ^
We suggest linking directly to your profile so employers can see how you work and the projects you’ve participated on. This gives you an advantage over candidates applying in other places as the company can see exactly how you operate in both your communications and coding, and so will know exactly what they are getting.