This page describes the collaborative framework that Nyaya Health uses to work efficiently, openly, and effectively amongst our team members.

 

General Note on Collaboration and Efficiency Overview Wiki Evernote Windows Live Sync Team Listserve Google docs Nyaya Health Server Email Managing Your @nyayahealth Account Using your account with gmail Auto-Signatures Gmail Productivity Tips Google Chat: Rapid Communication

 

General Note on Collaboration and Efficiency

Nyaya as an organization largely runs via email, online tools, and occasional phone calls. Here are several strategies that we can employ to improve our efficiency in utilizing electronic communication and collaboration tools:

-any email longer than a few paragraphs you should consider just calling, voice chatting that person (more difficult for Achham folks; contingent upon current internet situation). any email that requires formal documentation, post to the team list serve or wiki.  

-for requesting tasks for other members, you should provide organized, bulleted points.

-if you do feel compelled to write at length about a topic, you should take the time to organize your thoughts on the wiki (for pages for public consumption, or for US-based team collaborations) or evernote (Achham-based clinic operations) and then send your collaborators a link to that. it is so much more efficient for your thoughts to be in an indexable, saved format than in your email.

-remember e-etiquette!  if you are upset by somebody, wait and talk with them on the phone, or, better, in person.  avoid sarcastic, offensive, or accusatory language.  before sending a nasty email or chat, take a deep breath and realize that it can be very unproductive and damaging to long-term e-communication if you say something accusatory over electronic media.  In the real world, when we say something accusatory to someone, we can watch body language, we can resolve the issue through talking through, we can otherwise address concerns and criticisms productively.  We can defuse our anger quickly, in person.  That option is not typically available for e-communication, where there is a lag time in response, which can build stress and resentment on the other end that cannot be dealt with for a considerable amount of time. 

-we use google chat (very low bandwidth vs email which is high bandwidth) quite a bit for quick things like, "where is that document again"; or "we have a patient here with a complex presentation and our internet is slow, can you look this up for us?" If your google chat becomes a dialogue, it is time to press "call" and talk to that person.

-it is a good idea to hit "reply all" on almost all email correspondences with other team members.

-please use the team list liberally to provide updates of progress. see further notes below.

 

Overview

We use several collaborative technologies that can be confusing at first as to their purpose.  Many members ask, "why do we need to have all these different technologies?

wiki: for publishing to the public and collaborating on projects among US-based team members.  it loads poorly in Nepal.

evernote: collaborative clinic manual.  this has online/offline options and tags for "chapters".  slow internet is not a problem and thus this is used heavily by Achham team.

live sync: for sharing our ~1400 organizational files amongst our members.  neither wiki nor evernote has good file-sharing capabilities

google docs: primarily for collaborative spreadsheets.  foldershare does not have versioning.  also, google docs allows to easily publish data and analysis to the web/wiki

office technology (fax, pdf, etc): read more about software we utilize on our US Operations page

 

Wiki

For publishing to the public and collaborating on projects.

This is absolutely essential for efficency and institutional memory.  Typically, we use the wiki for collaboration and for sharing information with the general public. Creating a new wiki page takes 10 seconds but can save you many hours in efficiency.  As a general rule, anything pertaining to research or ideas that you are working on should go onto the wiki.

If you find yourself emailing the same ideas or references to people, you should definitely put on the wiki. If you find yourself in an extended email "conversation", post stuff on the wiki. It is much more efficient organizationally and personally to use the wiki-- and you can share your ideas with the world! If you want certain sensitive ideas/information to be only shared with Nyaya members, you can of course just set the wiki page access controls as such.  For spreadsheet information, use docs.google.com/a/nyayahealth and then link the spreadsheet to the wiki.

See http://wiki.nyayahealth.org/WikiTips for more information.

 

Evernote

Collaborative Clinic Manual

We use evernote for our collaborative clinic manual.  The reason that we use this for our clinic manual is that: 

• it is free and open-source
• it has tagging system for creating chapters that are not simply linear (i.e., individual "notes" serve as sections within multiple tagged chapters).  the search function is very fast and accurate.  this is why we do not use foldershare for this purpose.
• it has online, offline, and mobile options, which is critical to access for our Achham and KTM teams who have less stable internet access.  this is why we do not use the wiki for this purpose.
• it is rapidly sync-able across our members, even on slow internet connections. 

 

Windows Live Sync

For sharing our ~3000 organizational files amongst our members

This is how we share PDFs, formatted word documents, spreadsheets, and other files among our new members. Documents are available whether you are connected to the internet or not; any changes you make are made available to other members once you are connected to the net and sync. See http://wiki.nyayahealth.org/FoldershareFAQ  

***if you are using Live Sync and wish to un-install it, please do not simply delete the folder as this can delete the folder from everyone's computer as it syncs in the same way. speak to current Volunteer Director if you would like to uninstall Live Sync.

 

Team Listserve

for logistics communications

The team list is an internal listserve for all the core members of the nyaya health team who have worked or volunteered in some capacity.  This is used regularly for planning purposes and to provide core members with regular updates as to the status of various projects (~50 emails per month).   

 

For the most part, the team list is used to communicate updates, blog posts, new wiki updates, general planning documents and ideas, or to engage in group dialogue.  Articles of general interest/news items may be posted if they could inspire dialogue meaningful to our work; otherwise, these should be avoided.  The wiki and evernote should be referenced extensively; the end-goal of any team list thread is to incorporate the ideas into a protocol or action plan.  Note that the team list is NOT meant for requesting individual items or tasks from people.  Task lists may be sent for group input, but the group psychology of the team list typically is such that any requests would not get done.  Hence task lists/requests should be emailed individually as well as keeping of a running tally on evernote.  

 

Additionally, Nyaya Health has a board@ listserve that is used to communicate among board members only. As an open-source, transparent, and collaborative organization that intentionally blurs traditional authoritative boundaries, we aim to restrict the board@ list to only for very politically or interpersonally sensitive subjects (which for the most part email is not a very good means of communicating).   

 

For those more part-time members who feel overwhelmed by the volume of email on the team list, there is a simple productivity tip that they can employ: automatically filter+archive all the incoming mail from team@nyaya (or even all incoming mail from any @nyaya address).  Then dedicate one hour per week at a set time to review all of the materials.  Checking mail constantly and responding to different streams all the time (e.g., work, research, personal, nyaya) is an inefficient use of email, and contributes to the mild form of attention deficit disorder that many people experience today. 

  

Google docs

primarily for collaborative spreadsheets

These cover mainly spreadsheets, since pbwiki has low functionality on spreadsheets. Most other documents should be posted on the wiki; and highly formatted documents should just be saved as MS Word documents in foldershare. You should use the nyayahealth google apps account for this: http://www.google.com/a/nyayahealth.org

You login with your @nyayahealth email address and password. Go to share... check "everyone at nyayahealth can EDIT this document". 

 

Nyaya Health Server

for posting files

The Nyaya Health Server we post to nyayahealth.org/Library for sharing and posting key documents. FTP manager with FileZilla: http://filezilla-project.org/download.php and set up FTP file transfer on your computer to the details seen on

http://nyayahealthprivate.pbwiki.com/NepalTripPlanning#FileTransfer

and on the private online presence doc:

http://docs.google.com/a/nyayahealth.org/Doc?id=dgn3nhv2_4hj24nc79

Pls test your links before you send them to people/post on wiki. 

 

Email

Managing Your @nyayahealth Account

It is essential and not optional that you use your @nyayahealth ID for any nyaya-related business.  We need an institutional archive of whom we've contacted and how we've operated.  If anything unfortunately happens to a member (death, sickness, etc.), we need to be able to maintain all the hard work and efforts and contacts of that member.  The only way to maintain this is by using your nyayahealth ID for nyaya-related business.  At the same time, you must not use your nyayahealth ID for any family or personal matters.  This is quite easy and efficient to achieve using the "multiple accounts" option available through gmail.  Many members have more than 10 email addresses that are all managed efficiently in gmail through filters and labels. 

 

All of our organizational emails are archived in mail.google.com/a/nyayahealth.org with ID: mailarchive and password found at: 

http://docs.google.com/a/nyayahealth.org/Doc?docid=df8rgpnb_15ctnjkthr&hl=en

We feel that it is an important aspect of organizational efficiency, history, and transparency that our nyaya-related emails are housed centrally in one location.

 

Using your account with gmail

I suggest you use gmail's nifty account management feature to manage all your email accounts including @nyayahealth within gmail. If you have some other email account (yahoo, hotmail, etc.), you should try to figure out the same functionality within those products, or switch to gmail while still retaining your @yahoo or @aol etc. account: https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?ctx=%67mail&hl=en&answer=21288

The following are the directions for managing things within gmail.

Open your gmail account.

1. Under Settings, Accounts, add your username@nyayahealth email. You will quickly get sent a verification number . Paste that number into the box. Now you can send email as your nyayahealth address from within gmail. When you send an email pertaining to nyaya health, you can just click the drop-box in the FROM box to your new email address.

2. Under Setting, Accounts, check the box:

"When I receive a message sent to one of my addresses:"

"Reply from the same address the message was sent to"

That way when someone sends to your nyaya account, you automatically respond with the nyaya account.  This helps us with archiving of all our emails and ensures that you use your nyaya account easily.  

3.  Create a filter for "to:@nyayahealth.org" (no need for YOURID@nyayahealth.org) that sends all such emails to your "nyayahealth" label.  You can further your efficiency by auto-archiving and only opening your "nyayahealth" label when you are sitting down to work for a period on nyayahealth activities.  An important efficiency maxim, especially in our twitter-filled age, is to stay focussed on single tasks at a time.  As a volunteer whose time is limited, you should be clear to dedicate your time to nyayahealth when you have it but when you are on personal or other work time, you can focus on those instead.

4. You are free, and in fact encouraged, to browse any emails in the general email account. Do not worry about the read/unread status of the emails (e.g., you can read an unread email and keep it as read) since other than the inbox and the starred labels (e.g., volunteers, online presence), we are not managing all our own emails through our personal gmail accounts.

In several cases with unsolicited emails to high-profile people (corporations, professors), send from your yale (or other fancy name account if you have it), then when you get a response you can switch to your nyayahealth account, can just click the "From" tab and change that.

 

Auto-Signatures

As can be seen in many other organizations, especially larger ones like PIH, an auto-signature is a standard feature in professional emails, and has the ability to communicate a significant amount of social capital. By detailing credentials and affiliations in a non-confrontational way, an auto-signature contributes significantly to the readers' understanding of the context from which the author writes (especially in the case of new / novel readers as in cold-calls etc). It is important to note that, when used appropriately, an auto-signature is not an arrogance thing, but rather, an opportunity to respectfully and subtly communicate some very important information about yourself and your affiliations that you feel is important for the reader to understand. This is an opportunity to build the social capital of Nyaya as a whole by demonstrating not only our credentials, but also our professional and academic affiliations, which are given great importance by many of the individuals that we communicate with on a regular basis. 

 

Many professionals regularly change their auto-signatures, per the particular audience that they are writing to, emphasizing different affiliations etc. We suggest that all Nyaya staff and volunteers utilize an auto-signature that appropriately represents themselves and their role to Nyaya. 

 

Important features of an auto-signature: 

1) Name

2) Academic credentials (MD, PhD, MBA, MPH, MSc, etc)

3) If relevant, university affiliations

4) If relevant, hospital or particular office affiliations

5) A line detailing your particular affiliation with Nyaya, or simply "Nyaya Health | http://www.nyayahealth.org" to be more generic

6) Contact information including email, phone (country codes included), Skype, etc

 

Example auto-signature:

 

--

John Doe, MD PhD

Professor of Medicine

Harvard University School of Medicine

Brigham and Women's Hospital

 

Executive Director (or Grants Director etc)

Nyaya Health | http://www.nyayahealth.org

 

p: +1.999.999.9999

e: johndoe(AT)nyayahealth(DOT)org

Skype: johndoeskype

 

To implement this efficiently within gmail, see: 

http://thenextweb.com/2009/03/09/multiple-signatures-gmail-extensions-userscripts-bookmarklets-required/

1. Enable Canned Responses in “Labs” in your gmail account.
2. Write out your email signature into your email as if you were writing a normal email.
3. Next save the signature as a canned response under any name, something like “My Main Signature” for example. (repeat this step for all your various signatures)
4. From now on, you can write emails as your normally would and once you’ve reached the foot of your email and ready to insert your signature – simply click the “Canned Responses” menu and select the appropriate signature.

 

Gmail Productivity Tips

See this on managing all your accounts in gmail:

http://www.z-oc.com/blog/2007/06/manage-all-your-email-accounts-with-gmail/

If you don't like this system, you can use gmail fetcher instead, only issue is uncertainty with speed of fetching.

https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?ctx=%67mail&hl=en&answer=21288

More info on achieving optimal performance from gmail. Believe me is worth the twenty minutes to go through and set these things up:

http://lifehacker.com/software/gmail/hack-attack-become-a-gmail-master-161399.php

http://lifehacker.com/software/gmail/how-to-free-up-space-in-gmail-215191.php

here's the latest version:

http://lifehacker.com/software/exclusive-lifehacker-download/better-gmail-2-firefox-extension-for-new-gmail-320618.php

this firefox add-on rocks:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2127

other ways to add images to gmail:

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-to-add-html-signatures-with-images.html

 

Google Chat: Rapid Communication

It is essential that you download the extension google.com/talk and logon. It really is essential because from time to time there are emergent things that need to get communicated between the US-KTM-Achham people and chat is the cheapest and most reliable way to go when the internet is running.  As noted above, please use text-chat for quick things; dialogues are most efficiently done by voice.

You can sign into chat with your NAME@nyayahealth.org email and then click "ADD...contacts" to can add all the other people in nyayahealth. Note that in order to do voice chat you must download the extension; you cannot do voice chat from within gmail. Also note that use should use the extension anyways and NOT within gmail because: the extension doesn't require 1) a browser to be open (in achham sometimes hard to open browser); 2) gmail to be open (is inefficient to do this within gmail since you have to be on that page to talk and you can't be doing non-gmail-related work); 3) is low-BW; 4) just runs in background and notifies you whenever there is a new chat. Note that if you sign in with your NAME@nyayahealth.org you can be logged in on your personal account (e.g. johnny@gmail.com) simultaneously within your gmail or other browser. The key with signing in to your @nyayahealth account is 1) you can be signed in without being bothered by anyone other than emergency nyaya-related info and 2) keeping track of contacts as new members come on (just go to "choose from my contacts" and check the box next to all the members).

for you mac users, you'll have to use ichat:

http://www.google.com/support/talk/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=24076

If you do not want to load the file or are using someone else's computer, login to:

http://hostedtalkgadget.google.com/a/nyayahealth.org/talkgadget/popout

If you use your personal account (not recommended but if you prefer) you can use the pop-up: http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/popout .

In either case, you can scale the browser down to a small rectangle on the side of your screen so that you can have chat open and still work on other things.

Also note that the latter two popout options are the only way to do conference chat.