Culture

In a decentralized organization like the Mesh, it is difficult for new people to figure out who does what.

Basically we work on a system of trust. As we get to know new people we trust that they will do the right thing, and we gradually share access to locations and machines, and let them lead installs. During Covid it is obviously difficult to get to know people since we don’t get to socialize with everyone at our meetups, so zooms are the new way.

The danger of having no official structure is that there becomes an “implicit hierarchy” as certain people look after certain aspects of the organization. To avoid that we need to be welcoming to new people and share our skills and responsibilities.

If you are new to the Mesh, the best thing is to join our Slack and start participating in some particular activity, like maintaining hubs near you or helping with apartment installs. As people get to know you, they may ask you to help on other mesh projects.

For some reason most of us are softly spoken, and louder people may have trouble fitting in. (Is this the opposite of most organizations?) We particularly value people from non-technical backgrounds, so we avoid unnecessary jargon and try to answer questions in a common sense way rather than a typical tech way.