Many of us in the knowledge sector genuinely care about equity and shared power. But when things get hard (when resources are tight, timelines are short, or the stakes feel high) our decision-making processes are often the first place those values quietly slip away. We care deeply about doing this work equitably, and yet we often lack the formal training or organizational infrastructure to translate those values into our actual decision-making practices.
This interactive workshop from Educopia is designed to help knowledge workers build better decision-making frameworks within their organizations. Decision-making isn’t just about the choices you make—it’s about understanding the tools you use, who holds the power, and how those decisions shape the culture of your organization. This workshop provides tools and strategies for making decisions that are more inclusive, sustainable, or aligned with your values, especially in community, collaborative, and collective contexts.
We’ll work through some questions that can get lost with looming deadlines and patron requests:
• Who’s really making decisions in your organization, and who should be part of that?
• What does your current process reveal about how power actually moves in your team?
• What would a more transparent, inclusive approach look like—and how do you get there from where you are now?
After this session, participants will be able to:
- Surface common dynamics around decision-making within the knowledge sector, including challenges, opportunities, and strategies
- Diagnose how power is distributed within your group
- Identify advantages and challenges to your current decision-making processes
- Articulate what a more inclusive and sustainable approach looks like in their specific context and identify steps they can take from their current position
Presenter Bios:
Jackson Huang works at the intersections of technology, sustainability, and knowledge justice. Through their work in distributed digital preservation and various open and inclusive metadata projects, they have found that good governance is as essential as good technical infrastructure to the success and sustainability of community-owned technologies. Jackson is passionate about equipping technical communities with good facilitation and governance, as part of their work to ensure that digital technologies address rather than exacerbate knowledge inequalities.
Rachel Mattson is Senior Consultant & Project Manager at Educopia, where she brings decades of creative, institution-based problem solving experience to her work supporting organizations in transition. An archivist, public historian, and educator, Rachel has worked throughout their career to tell—and support others to tell— histories of marginalized communities using the documentary record. Among other roles, she was previously Director of Special Collections at Swarthmore College, Curator of the Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies at University of Minnesota, and Digital Archivist at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club. Rachel has published many scholarly and non-fiction works, and holds a PhD in History from NYU and an MLIS from UIUC.