Becoming a volunteer for Boundless

Understanding your status

Congratulations on passing your interview!

Before you become an official volunteer of Boundless, we have everyone complete a free training program in which they contribute to our open source projects. This warm up takes place in our open source development hub called World Lab. It allows you to learn about Boundless, how we operate and what we are creating together at a pace suited to volunteers.

Even though you're not yet an official volunteer, you'll be working on matters essential to the nonprofit. After graduation, you might still work in World Lab but in a more structured process.

Unlocking creativity

Boundless employs a unique method of organization that trades the cumbersome process of traditional management with an open and freely-chosen process. If you are already familiar with modern mindsets like Agile, you'll be familiar with the system we employ.

Our philosophy

The philosophy behind this system is designed to rethink operations as a bottom-up process rather than a top-down hierarchy. 

By allowing self-initiative to be at the core of each interaction, individuals are much more motivated since they're always working on what they enjoy.

Boundless believe strongly in:

• Self-organizing teams

• Servant leadership

• Valuing individual expertise rather than enforcing top-down management. 

Rather than depending on managers to think through tasks and hand out specific projects to people, individuals pick a mission and join with others interested to pursue goals related to that mission.

Countercultural

Schools teach obedience and the ability for individuals to take instruction top down. But our philosophy is that this hinders individual expression and creativity.

• People engage more deeply when, rather than demanded of, they are trusted with responsibility.

• People flourish when they can find and choose where they are most effective.

Limits

There are downsides to this approach however.

• Freedom of choice can tempt people to become fickle, instead, once you select a project, stay with it.

• If you are accustomed to being directed you must learn to proactively take initiative.

Keep in mind that once a volunteer for Boundless, you will be given stronger direction; World Lab exists to ensure a mentality of self-initiative permeates every initiative in Boundless.

Mission

The mission that you choose has to be aligned with one of the initiatives within World Lab.

Understanding World Lab

World Lab is a development hub for projects from multiple similar non-profits and entities.

Each non-profit or entity creates a distinct digital society that leverages World Lab; this allows people from multiple organizations to share the same development space and system.

Agora is the digital society created directly by Boundless.

• World Lab is based in Discord.

  • If a volunteer is leading you through these articles, they'll give you access to that Discord now.

Take action: Join the World Lab Discord now.

Your ultimate goal

Your goal is to join or start a project within World Lab and complete it together with your team using the tools and processes presented to you.

It starts by exploring the ethos of the different digital societies.

You can choose Agora or another digital society. Agora is the digital society created directly by Boundless, however, one can also fulfil the goals of Boundless by contributing to another digital society’s vision.

Critically, you don’t need to choose Agora’s vision to graduate.

However, finishing any project in World Lab is required for becoming a volunteer in Boundless.

(1) Choosing an ethos

Each digital society has it’s own ethos, projects and teams working on those projects.

Once you've ascertained that you are in the correct Discord server:

(1) Ensure you are in “Boundless: World Lab” as per the title at the top and logo to the left.
(2) Visit the “▬▬▬ 🌐┃Digital
society ▬▬▬” category and click on the “💬🌇┃digital-society-info” channel.
(3) Find the pinned post.

Whenever you open a new forum section, get in the habit of reading the sticky post denoted by the pushpin 📌 symbol.

Consider using the tags in that same section to look for digital societies that may pique your interest.

(1.1) Don’t follow links

Read and learn all you can about each on Discord but if you are following links to websites you are likely overdoing it.

Take action: Read the ethos of five or six communities that appeal to you and note them down.

(2) Finding a project

Once you've identified a handful of digital societies that you'd be open to consider, you need to choose to start a new project or join an on-going project.

Starting a new project is required to be qualified for the following positions on any project in Boundless:

• Project Manager

• Product Manager

• Scrum Master

• Lead Designer

• Art Director

• Creative Director

• Technical Director

• Game Director

• Producer

• Executive Producer

• Lead Programmer

• Engineering Manager

• Lead Artist

• Lead Writer

• Sound Director

• VFX Supervisor

• Quality Assurance Lead

• Development Director

• Studio Head

• Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

• Chief Creative Officer (CCO)

• Release Manager

• Agile Coach

• Operations Director

Essentially, any “lead” role in Boundless requires having chosen to lead a team in World Lab. Don't let the fear of failure stop you, as making mistakes is an understood part of the process.

(2a) Starting a project

Before starting a project, it's critical to understand that each project done in World Lab must be done with a minimum of four people.

(2a.1) Seeking a direction

• Under ▬▬▬ 💡┃Projects ▬▬▬

• Visit #💡┃project-requests

• Read the pinned post.

Take action: Read the pinned post now.

Each digital society in World Lab creates projects any user of World Lab can get involved in. These projects are usually:

1. Small scale

2. Isolated

3. Open source

4. Meant to be completed with a team.

The lack of inherent dependencies means that anyone can take on one of these projects without worrying about destroying a larger initiative. Projects are designed to be lightweight and a place for individuals to get familiar with our tools and systems together with other new users in teams.

Anyone in World Lab can create a project related to an ethos that inspires them without asking permission.

Take action: Choose to create a new project, claim an ⭕ open project, or use a 🔂 repeatable project concept.

(2a.2) Appealing for team members

You shouldn't immediately expect a project’s team to be filled up with other eager individuals, but the time to start recruiting those individuals is immediately.

Look at the pinned post in the relevant channel to learn how to list your team. Remember, you don't need a team to list, this is an appeal for others to join you on the project.

(2a.3) Locating team members

Those interested to join a team will list themselves in the #🤝┃offer-to-join-a-team channel.

• Filter using tags to find relevant individuals

• Look for recent posts rather than a perfect fit

• Reach out to at least 10 people by replying to their thread and @tagging them.

Example message: “Hey @John, I really like your portfolio. I'd love to have you as an artist on my project. Here's a link to my team. If you'd like to join, let me know as soon as possible.”

Take action: Reach out to 10 potential team members.

(2b) Joining a project

(2b.1) Looking for teams

• Under ▬▬▬ 🤝┃Teams ▬▬▬

• Visit #👥┃teams-seeking-members

• Open the “tags” panel and look for something close to your skill set.

  • Due to Discord's limited tag set, you're very unlikely to find your exact position in the tags.

• Use the search function in the top right to find highly-specific roles.

If you don't find a role in exactly the function that you'd like to fill, settle for applying to at least four teams that require a similar or adjacent skill set.

(2b.2) Addressing the community

Once you've applied to four teams that may consider your skill set, it's time to ensure you get a role as soon as possible by posting your desire to join a team publicly.

Read the sticky post to learn how to post your request.

Next up

In the next article we will explore...

Each society has its own traditions, social norms, and specific ethical requirements for it’s projects.

Remember how we talked about how we want people using their talents to fulfill a vision that's close to their heart? WorldLab exists in part to allow people to essentially change horses and switch to a different project within the same ecosystem if they feel it better. We do this since it may be more fitting for those people. And if all the parties exchange people interested, everyone finds a better fit.

“Slices” as projects

People choose the:

• Parts of a project they identify with

• People they work with

• Scope and scale of the challenge they take on.

Rather than depending on a few managers who coordinate each person, the vision leader describes the task at hand, and breaks things into individual “slices” or projects. Each person takes on a slice of a bigger problem in their own domain with a small team.

Such a system can bring to life individual creativity, but requires significantly more self-initiative.

Finding a project

Each digital society in World Lab creates projects any user of World Lab can get involved in. These projects are usually:

• Small scale

• Isolated

• Open source

• Meant to be completed with a team.

The lack of inherent dependencies means that anyone can take on one of these projects without worrying about destroying a larger initiative. Projects are designed to be lightweight and a place for individuals to get familiar with our tools and systems together with other new users in teams.

Don't be afraid of making a mistake in this early stage, as making mistakes is an understood part of the process of using World Lab.

You are not alone

Whether you choose to start a project or join one, you will not be taking that project on alone.

(1) Finding the right digital society

Each project is part of a greater initiative of a digital society within World Lab. These societies are dedicated to different goals but all use the same development hub.

(2) Decide if Agora is right for you

Agora is the name of Boundless’s “digital society” in the World Lab Discord.

Agora is a digital society created to demonstrate the most sophisticated form of social organization on the internet; demonstrating the power and utility of Synapse.

(2.1) Finding Agora in Discord

Once you've ascertained that you are in the correct Discord server:

(1) “Boundless: World Lab” find the
(2) “▬▬▬ 🌐┃Digital
society ▬▬▬” category and click on the “💬🌇┃digital-society-info” channel.
(3) Find Agora.

Read and learn all you can about Agora on Discord but don’t follow links for now.

It may be that Agora is not the correct fit for you.

• Agora’s projects are the most demanding

• Agora’s projects are the most technical

• Agora’s projects allow the use of AI

• Agora is inherently a political project.

Agora is just one of many digital societies located here.

(2.2) Exploring alternatives

Consider using the tags in that same section to look for other digital societies that may pique your interest.

Each society has its own traditions, social norms, and specific ethical requirements for it’s projects.

Each society has its own ethos, philosophy, and purposes. The critical thing is to know that this decision is not binding, and is purely a matter of personal interest.

(2.3) Checking society projects

A key part of making your decision will be to check the different projects available in each society.

If for any reason another society appeals more to you than Agora you may choose that society to work for instead.

• Whichever society you choose to work with for your initial 60 days grants you the right to graduate regardless.

• Your first step is to choose a society, do that now.

Make a quick decision to engage with a society that piques your curiosity.

Give yourself 30 minutes to make the decision and no more to ensure you're not overthinking it. Choose a society which piques your interest.

Next up

In the next article we will explore...

 

The benefit of doing things this way is that it leads to much more robust solutions through individual creativity at the cost of a cumbersome top-down process.

Boundless believes that current organization structures limit freedom at the cost of creativity.

Such a process grants significantly more individual freedom for initiative but does so at the cost of structure, trusting people to explore and come up with solutions according to preset challenges.