Maria Baker: Project Manager

Maria is a multigenre/cross-genre writer who frequently works with photography and loves to repurpose utilitarian text forms such as questionnaires, reviews, and manuals as sites of non/fiction. She holds an MFA in Writing from Pratt Institute, where she now teaches a Pratt Integrative Course focusing on interdisciplinary modes of storytelling and creative strategies. She leads a community writing project for older adults in Clinton Hill and also works at Columbia University’s writing center (where she can pursue her interest in writing studies). Overbaked & Underproofed lets her obsession with evaluative language and the currency of opinion merge with her interest in popular TV shows and their structural formulas and language use.

Maria is responsible for assembling all team members’ contributions, maintaining and shaping the overall narrative of the project, editing verbal content, and developing the Bingo Game.

I am currently a Digital Humanities graduate student at The City University of New York (CUNY). I graduated from UT Austin with a BBA degree. My professional career started in consulting, followed by corporate finance before I pivoted into data science. I also teach occasionally and work with an NGO that focuses on Black healthcare bias. My research interest lies in environmental and climate Justice, as well as gender studies. My primary project responsibility is Web Development. My secondary project responsibilities as a collaborator include project management, text analysis, and content creation. 

It has been a rocky start in my case into this class but so far pieces have been moving, and there is an understanding of our roles in this project. The roles have been defined. The project that I chose and I do believe it is a great fit for me is Maria’s proposal about Great British Baking Show as it is the closest to my skill set and to my understanding of a DH project. Looking forward to working on this piece going forwards, and I there is also understanding that extra pair of hands is always useful when taking on a mammoth work.

I am a researcher at heart and I do tend to use research using Open source tools and websites. I am particularly interested in meme culture, and a big proponent of Braudelian historical narratives. Of course there is also an understanding of not trusting everything that you read or hear on the internet but still it is an invaluable tool in the hands of a researcher. I tend to focus on system building aspect of society, history and technology. Digital Humanities project seem like a great endeavor and a team building aspect sometimes scare me but there is an understanding that solo work is rocky and the folly of it can hamper the horizon of the exercise. In this sense I am an introvert and sometimes things can take beyond my comfort zone. But in this class almost everyone is already known and the work can move more comfortably.

Week 2

It was great to meet with my team during class. We were able to think further think  about our roles and organization process. I am thankful that Majal provide a supplemental  reading titled Indian Slavery in Colonial America by Allen Gallay.  It helped us understand the colonial events and how the Wampanoag tribe were affected.

On Sunday, the team and I met to further discuss our proposal and the community agreements. I think we all have a better understanding of how this project will be planned until for the remainder of the semester.

One question I keep coming back to is how do we make sure that the archive doesn’t disappear in years to come. I think this project is important. From my last course, I remember clicking on DH projects and some would not work. So, hopefully with our team we can come to a solution.

I officially got accepted to participate in the Carnegie Seminar on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Decolonizing the Humanities. I am excited to learn how I can integrate what I learn in my project and also in the seminar.

We have made steady progress this week. Yay us! The original project that was proposed last semester has morphed into a different project idea but with the same theme of exploring the use of zines to amplify the voices of historically marginalized communities. Who ever knew that a mini do-it-yourself publication could be so complex! Zines come in many shapes and sizes, themes and categories and can be found through zine distributors and stores, in person zine libraries, through online zine archives and libraries, zinefests and on a variety of social media sites. We are challenged with finding metadata on zines and have also noticed that sometimes the places that collect zines focus on a specific category of zines

Last week, we attended the Reclaim the Commons meeting and had an impromptu Reclaim the Commons zine creating session. We passed out a small flyer with some information and a piece of paper folded the zine way. We asked those who were willing and interested if they could create a zine and email it to us. We used this opportunity to experiment with public zine making and we have signed up with GC PSC to offer a zine workshop. We also connected with Jenna Freeman from the Barnard Zine Library and appreciate her suggestions and offer to share some zine data.

Zico and I decided that we will be flexible with roles and know there will be lots of crossover since it is only the 2 of us. At one point this past week, I was almost at a panic attack level because I could not find the sweet spot for our project to focus on and I didn’t want to let Zico down. All I have to say is thank goodness for Zico, his humor and patience and for holding a safe space for me to throw a bunch of ideas around while we figure this out.

This week we’ve taken some important steps in creating shape to our process.

• Elizabeth did some preliminary investigations into the project management tool, Notion, and steered us into another direction she felt would serve us better. Moving forward we’ll be working with Asana. We’ve worked out a philosophy for using our in class and extra meeting times that feels productive. This includes using class days as makers of completion and non-class meeting days as opportunities to collaborate and check in. We’ve also baked into our plan an imperative to celebrate in person! There are a few milestones that feel particularly good matches for that: Finishing research, finishing the timeline and map, and finalizing Q/A.
• We refined our team roles, this time with a bit more information regarding the timeline. We’ll all be wearing 2 or more hats that come on and off as the project progresses. Elizabeth and I worked out a basic timeline that we did our best to ensure anticipates bottlenecks and contingencies. We expect the timeline will shift as we discover unforeseen steps or snags (or speed!!), but there’s enough wiggle in the system at the moment for that.
• Estefany helped us get organized using Doodle—we were able to quickly pin down our second weekly meeting time. She also came to the conversation with a flexibility that will come in very useful as we shift between different roles. 
• Zelda offered their research regarding a tech platform and interactive tools. They are finalizing a recommendation based on the imperative that it be easy to use (for them and future admins) and that they will be able to easily complete the work given the restricted timeframe. As a team we are also considering the best options for where to house the site to ensure it lives on long after the semester ends and can support continued updating. At the moment we are leaning towards Mapbox, leaflet, and opensource maps embedded into a Flask platform. (It all sounds a bit fancy to me, and I look forward to better understanding how all the technical bits fit together.)
• In the meantime, I’ve been finalizing the 3rd iteration of the project proposal. It feels a bit funny to revisit the original text again—editing down oneself can be a bit tricky when your brain carried the original flow. I have, however, succeeded in  cutting many a word  to make the suggested word count in the guide.
• This Wednesday I plan on bringing some basic site architecture and data guidelines to help push us into our next phase which will include diving into research and setting up the interactive components of the site.

To close, I will just say that as the person who proposed the project I am trying my best to balance having a vision for the project with a strong desire to make sure everyone is included and feels a sense of ownership. In an effort not to box anyone in or minimize other people’s participation in the class, I tried to disperse some of the steering. I recognize now that this can make the boat go in a slow circle. I’m making adjustments to ensure everyone feels excited and can see the path forward. I also recognize that skills posts are quite peculiar in that — yes there is a list of wha everyone is able to do— but no that doesn’t totally make it visible or real. Zelda had the excellent idea to have a team building session which we are trying to get on the books, and during that time I would like to make space for folks to, among other things, share work they are proud of so they feel seen and we can all take away a richer understanding of their talents.