Here it is! A comprehensive list of all the things that were achieved by the participants at our 5th CouchSurfing Collective. Thank you to everyone that made these achievements possible -  the members who donated money to the organization, all remote volunteers who provided a continual stream of support to the community each day, and all the participants who traveled to Thailand and dedicated themselves to improving the CouchSurfing site and community.

Click on any of the links below to jump straight to a particular section of this report:

• Events and Outreach
• Identity
• Public Relations and Media
• Member Communications
• Member Disputes and Safety
• Scouting and Collective Set-Up
• Volunteer Coordination
• Techonology
• Collective Management
• CouchSurfing Management
• User Experience
• House Management
• Short-Term Volunteers  

Events & Outreach (Camtastic, Laura and Diamond)

• Developed team goals for this newly created team: The goal of the Events and Outreach Team is to provide CouchSurfing members with the tools, resources, and support they need to create extraordinary and meaningful community experiences that promote intercultural awareness.
  
  
• Key focus areas defined:
  
  
  • Connecting Event Organizers with individuals within the CouchSurfing community that have the required skill sets, resources, and desire to help the organizer throw a successful event.
    
    
  • Assisting with and/or promoting events that clearly further the CouchSurfing Mission.
    
    
  • Maintaining a "living" repository of knowledge and best practices for producing successful events.
    
    
  • Working with the Expert Teams to implement new features on the CouchSurfing web site that help event organizers create, promote, and manage their events.
    
    
  • Expanding the CouchSurfing Community through Events and Outreach.
    
    
• Defined desired skills sets for volunteers in team:
  
  
  • Experienced event organizers (small, medium and large events).
    
    
  • Networkers - connect event organizers with appropriate resources and individuals.Process designers and system analysts - translate event organizer’s user requirements into system design for the Tech Team to implement.
    
    
  • Subject matter experts -sound, venues, lighting, production, promotion, entertainment, etc.
    
    
  • Experience documentation, lessons learned, photos, stories, press, video and other artifacts.
    
    
• Researched CouchSurfing profiles, groups, volunteer database, Thailand Collective applications,and most popular past events to build a pool of qualified members for the Events Team.
  
  
• Invitations sent to qualified individuals to join the "Event Organizers" team which will act as a forumfor active event organizers in the organization.
  
  
• CouchSurfing Zones Initiative - collaborated with and provided feedback and support to CouchSurfing Ambassador who is leading this initiative including:
  
  
  • Developed policies and procedures document for management of the CouchSurfing Zone program.
    
    
  • Translated CouchSurfing Zone user requirements into detailed system requirements for Tech Team implementation.
    
    
  • Developed CouchSurfing Zone Criteria and Venue Manager Kit.
    
    
  • Liaised with Design to create new (pilot launch) CouchSurfing Zone Logo.
    
    
  • Created a new CouchSurfing Zone in Thailand and documented management process for CouchSurfing Zone Owner.
    
    
    
• Outlined framework for Wiki Events Knowledge Base containing experience documentation, eventscategories and protocol.
  
  
• Developed documents to be housed in Events Knowledge Base to assist members in planning their events, e.g. what things to consider, planning for the appropriate venue, documentation of planning requirements, etc.
  
  
• Worked with short-term volunteer Max to document planning of large scale events with 5000 to 20,000 attendees.
  
  
• Organized production of CouchSurfing flag and patch for Mount Everest expedition (soon to be released through CouchSurfing Press).
  
  
• Assistance provided for CouchSurfing travel patch project coordinated by short-term volunteer, Jonathan Gibson. Samples of patches being produced and announcement of patches and project to be made once details of production and delivery are finalized.
  
  
• Changes to "Meetings" page: now evolved to "Events". Additional functionality included identifying meetings in your nearby location. For more information, check out the Tech Team News Feed release.
  
  
• Collaborated with and supported New York City Ambassador in planning an event that brought togethermembers of CouchSurfing and Idealist( www.idealist.org).
  
  
• Helped members of the CouchSurfing GigSwapping Group to plan and promote their first CouchSurfing Gigswapping multi-country tour in Europe.
  
  
• Created and seeded Events Team subgroups to provide a structure for those that wish to volunteer:Events and Outreach Main page, Core Events Team, Event Organizers, Meetings Upgrade Team, CouchSurfing Zones.
  
  
• Cam designed and facilitated two hour strategy meeting - "Creating and Managing Sustainable Volunteer Teams".

 
Identity Team (Shonali Shetty & Sebastien Le Tuan)

• Initial splitting of two teams Identity and Public Relations (PR) and Media into separate working groups. Early in the work on identity discovery process we realized the need and importance of identity to be independent of PR and Media. And hence the team "PR and Marketing" was split into "Identity" and "PR and Media".
  
  
• Developed the team description for the Identity Team, which will look at:
  
  
  • Our "identity" - who we are, who we are not, what we do, why we do it, what we stand for, our vision, values, mission.
    
    
  • Clarifying the reputation we'd like to have in our community and the world at large.
    
    
• Internal survey conducted with Leadership Team regarding the identity of the CouchSurfing project. Results analyzed and final report on findings produced.
  
  
• "Core concepts" identified to help uncover and articulate what CouchSurfing is about, not about, what its mission is.
  
  
• Group exercises conducted with core Leadership Team members and Collective participants to further assist in discovering what these members believe CouchSurfing is about and what it means to them.
  
  
• Presentation conducted to core Leadership Team members at the Collective to evaluate and analyze information as part of the process of identifying and clarifying the CouchSurfing vision, values, and mission.
  
  
• Used the core concepts discovered for the CouchSurfing vision, and the CouchSurfing value statements, core values, and communication style to develop a logo design brief (more information available in Design in this report).
  
  
• The CouchSurfing vision, values, and mission statement are still being worked on to best articulate the thoughts, ideas and concepts that were identified. The next step will be testing concepts with general members, and then communicating these to the wider community and the world at large.
  
  
• Consensus on CouchSurfing brand colors and color test – during interpretation presentation we were able to arrive at a consensus on initial ideas for CouchSurfing colors as they distinctly came out of both the core team and the group exercise. These still need to be tested by a sample of general membership.
  
  
• Developed team requirements and job descriptions for roles. Sourced potential volunteers from review of volunteer database and existing Marketing Communications group. One volunteer is on board and an application form has been created to post on the site to source more team members.

Public Relations and Media (Charish-on site & Crystal-off site)

• Developed expert team description and division of duties for team leaders.
  
  
• Built key world regions to be served by Public Relations and Media, enabling team leaders to strategically seek volunteers able to address needs specific to each region. 
  
  
• Established short and long-range goals for Public Relations and Media team growth: at least three members by Collective's end, and one representative in every country in which CouchSurfing exists, long-term.
  
  
• Examined existing public relations and media volunteer support tasks. Anticipated long-range needs related to move toward proactive, rather than reactive public and media relations system currently in existence, including anticipation of future tasks and analysis of desired growth areas.
  
  
• Considered team needs and set achievement goals related to development of application and training tools, leadership communications support tools, data collection tools and potential outsourcing of news release distribution and list management duties.
  
  
• Consulted with public relations and media field professionals on existing effective options for outsourcing of media list service and distribution, and developed recommendation for leadership consideration based on research.
  
  
• Analyzed media and public relations support needs for strategic growth of CouchSurfing Organization.
  
  
• Built team member job descriptions and developed processes for volunteer application, interviews, training and job review for the Public Relations and Media Team.
  
  
• Identified suitable candidates by reviewing existing volunteer database; examined limited list and further refining selections based on team needs, qualifications and regions; and solicited applications from key candidates.
  
  
• Successfully recruited eight new team members, representing the following regions: South America, Europe, Australia and the United States.
  
  
• Fifteen additional candidates have emerged as possible candidates and recruitment and application process continues in quest to achieve long-range goal of establishing representation in every country.
  
  
• Initiated training process for approved candidates and division and assignment of duties.  
  
  
• Tools developed to move from reactive media management to proactive media relations:
  
  
  • Organizational response plan: The organizational response plan anticipates and addresses the communications needs of the CouchSurfing organization should an event or incident surface which potentially compromises the identity of the CouchSurfing Project and requires additional issues management support for the fielding of media queries.
    
    
  • Media training module: The module addresses basics of media management, ranging from basics of media relations: who are the media, what do they want, how can CouchSurfing best assist the media with their needs; to development and appropriate use of universal key messages and talking points related to specific topical areas.
    
    
  • Story idea database,and media coverage tracking tool:  The story idea database was developed as a shared tool for all Public Relations and Media Team members to input story ideas specific to their regions for consideration within strategic direction of the CouchSurfing organization. The media coverage tracking tool enables team members to input worldwide media coverage.
    
    
  • Member media-related documents, including a media relations policy: Member-related documents developed include guidelines for successful media interviews as well as tips and tricks for members to use during interviews. Information is to be shared on the website for members who are contacted by the media.
    
    
  • Also developed is a member policy for media relations, detailing expectations and offering direction and appropriate contacts for fielding media inquiries.

• Collective Public Relations:   
  
  
  • Produced an image slide show to illustrate the service volunteers performed while in Thailand.
    
    
  • Directed and produced a promotional video to recruit volunteers for the Alaska Collective.
    
    
• A strategy for continuing to advance the project and maintain productivity while eliminating overlap is in the process of development between the Public Relations and Media Team and the Member Communications Team. Effective communications between these key volunteers will ensure that the organization effectively manages its image both internally and externally and moves toward strategic-based communications. 

Member Communications (Mandie McCrea)

• Reviewed current communication systems to understand current communication channels, challenges and opportunities within organization.
  
  
• Essential information gathered from CouchSurfing community, including ambassadors,and team supervisors about key communication issues and needs. 
  
  
• Provided recommendations for use of channels to effectively communicate with the different audiences that exist within CouchSurfing, including how we can communicate important information with one another in teams. View key recommendations. 
   
• Revised and finalized the member communications strategy.
  
  
• Departmentalized tasks for key team roles in Member Communication Team.  
  
  
  • Volunteer and Ambassador Communications Coordinator 
  • Member Participation Coordinator 
  • Member Publications Coordinator 
  • Website Content Coordinator 
  • Tech Communication Coordinator
    
    
• Developed application process and started recruitment for roles, including advertising through Member Communications group, as well as reviewing applications on volunteer application database and emailing 90 members who had expressed an interest in working in communications with experience in the field. 
  
  
• Established process and implemented Tech Team News Feed – a tool to provide interested members in up to date information on changes to the website. 
  
  
• Initiated dialogue with Contact Us Questions team, along with proposing ideas forthe team in line with the member communications strategy. 
  
  
• Created “Thailand Collective” page with assistance from Tech Team. 
  
  
• Maintained Thailand Frequently Asked Questions page.
  
  
• Created "website investigation report" for completion by short-term volunteers to give initial indication of how members use and navigate the site.
  
  
• Produced four Collective newsletters: 
   
  • Collection of article ideas from Collective Manager and team supervisors.
  • Drafted articles, formatted newsletter, collected photos for inclusion. 
  • Review process established for newsletter, gathered feedback and rewrote newsletter based on feedback.
    
    
• Produced final Thailand Collective Achievements report.
  
  
• Worked with team supervisors to encourage team updates, including coaching on what could be included in updates and drafting updates for some team supervisors. 
  
  
• Arranged for January and February newsletter to be translated in French and Spanish, coordinating with potential volunteers, arranging reviews of translations, placing translated versions on website.  
  
  
• Emailed French and Spanish January newsletter to members who spoke French and Spanish at expert level and not English at that level.
  
  
• Posted regular updates in Member Communications Team. 
  
  
• General communications drafted and sent:
  
  
  • Website outage explanation (11 January), including new “text box” on member’s home page to provide explanation only to those members regularly logging in. Website downtime messages displayed whenever site is down. 
    
    
  • Email to ambassadors explaining website downtime. 
    
    
  • Rewrote and released Tech Team News Feeds (22 posts up until 19 Feb - 21 March). 
    
    
  • Drafted and posted website downtime notification (15 February). 
    
    
  • Established process with tech team for announcement of scheduled downtime (20 March), which featured new feature of a “News Alert” text box on members’ homepage and countdown timer on site two hours before scheduled downtime. 
    
    
  • “Buggin’ Out’ – coordinated draft of latest news post about functionality back after website downtime - written by Shelley. 
    
    
  • Prepared “Reference Changes” communication with Shelley to be posted to Latest News when changes have been confirmed and implementation agreed.
    
    
  • Answered approximately 100 emails that came in from response to first Collective newsletter, which was sent out in my name (along with additional general emails that consistently come through to me).
    
    
  • Created “CouchSurfing Communications” email address for emailing members. 
    
    
  • Worked with Events & Outreach Team for communications on events, including CouchSurfing Gigswapping Tour and agreement on establishing Events Newsletter.
    
    
  • Consistently answered questions posed in Member Communications group about communication proposals, ideas and suggestions from members.

 
Member Disputes & Safety (The Rachel)

• Completed selection process for new team members – four new members selected, which brings total team size to ten.
  
  
• Started training with new Member Disputes and Safety Team (MDST) members. Training is comprehensive and takes months for volunteers to get up to full speed, with all systems, processes, tool and dispute topics.
  
  
• Organized MDST tasks for completion with team members.
  
  
• Finalized the specifications for memorialized profiles, which has now been launched. For CouchSurfing members that have sadly passed away, we will now "memorialize" their profiles, with "In Memory Of" and lilies at the top of their profile. Most of the functionality has been removed from these profiles, but it does allow for members to leave a reference for that member should they feel the need to (however, we ask members to be respectful when using this option!). We will not advertise members who have passed away as a matter of respect.
  
  
• Coordinated implementation of email verification system. CouchSurfing is like any other website now: You go to sign up, and the system sends the email address you've registered and email. You log into your email, click the link and it brings you back to the CouchSurfing site, finalizing your registration to the website. This now ensures that members have a valid email address on CouchSurfing for practical and safety reasons.
  
  
• Provided input on safety issues related to CouchSurfing Zones.
  
  
• Input on specifications for safety team page and tools for the team with Volunteer Coordinator, as reworking many of our tools and creating new ones to help the team react more effectively to member dispute and safety concerns.
  
  
• Created documentation for new MDST members including: welcome message, Frequently Asked Questions, and started work on centralizing all safety information for CouchSurfing.
  
  
• Directly handled several member disputes.
  
  
• Wrote MDST one year vision, which involves looking at all of our existing safety features and will be considering ways of making them better, including our referencing system, couch information, vouching. We are also considering new safety features.

Scouting & Collective Set-up (Pinkfish)

• Setting up the Kata Beach house:
  
  
  • Made sure the builder finished what was promised.
  • Made sure the renter put in the promised furniture.
  • Created list of needed furniture/utilities/cutlery and bought the above and got it to the house (together with House Manager).
    
    
• House hunting for the next house in Thailand (10 days): traveled throughout the northern part of Thailand to scout out possible locations for the participants for January – March. Looked through many houses, met real estate agents and local CouchSurfers, mapped out areas, networked like crazy to spread the word that we needed a house, reporting back to headquarters regularly.
  
  
• Preparation for next location for the Collective:
  
  
  • Created and delivered presentation for the group about the possible locations (together with Casey who scouted locations in southern Thailand).
  • Made arrangements for the chosen location.
  • Set up rental agreements and ensuring they were agreed upon by all parties.
  • Liaised with the landlords with all kind of preparation questions (internet/furniture/etc).
    
    
• Prepared the move from Kata Beach to Pai: Searched for best opportunities to move people and furniture/supplies (together with John/Andrew/Trip).
  
  
• Set up the houses in Pai (together with Shelley):
  
  
  • Made sure the landlords put in the promised furniture as arranged.
  • Created list of needed furniture/utilities/cutlery and purchased necessary items
  • Cleaned the office space and coordinated purchase of desks.
  • Researched possibilities to move around town (bikes/motorbikes/car).
  • Arranged water supply.
    
    
• Around the houses:
  
  
  • Made list of used facilities (rent of one house was based on used facilities) per month.
  • Paid rent every month.
  • Contacted the landlords if something needed fixing or adjustments, and making sure they actually did what asked/promised.
  • Cleaned office space every other week, in addition to daily duties completed by all participants.
    
    
• Scouting for the next collective (Alaska):
  
  
  • Initial research conducted on possible locations for the next Collective, including presentation on findings to Leadership Team.
  • Looking at houses that may be suitable in different towns in Alaska.
  • Same process followed as scouting in Thailand: seeing real estate agents, meeting local CouchSurfers, mapping out the areas, checking possibilities, networking to get the word out about our needs, reporting back to Leadership Team.
    
    

 
Volunteer Coordination (Jim Stone & Pinkfish)

Pinkfish:

• Managed new applications received through volunteer application processing site. Sent acknowledgments to new applications received from potential volunteers and answered questions received from them.
  
  
• Produced "volunteer experience" procedure, upon information and feedback gathered from core team members. This procedure maps out the ideal path for a volunteer in CouchSurfing – from their interest in volunteering all the way through to them staying volunteering or completing their time happily (with no burn out!).
  
  
• Assisted some teams with selecting potential volunteers, going through their lists of willing volunteers, provided by Volunteer Coordinator.
  
  
• Developed application form for roles at the Alaska Collective in our survey tool.
  
  
• Wrote job description for House Manager (together with Shelley) as example for other job descriptions.
  
  
• Helped look after participants when they were sick, including arranging round-the-clock support for one participant while in hospital andpicking them up and arranging payments with hospital.
  
  

Jim Stone: 

• Developed the following for the Member Disputes & Safety Team (MDST):
  
  
  • Created a new MDST team home page, with list of tools, resources and updated figures and statistics appropriate to the team, as well as unanswered MDST “Contact Us Questions”. 
    
    
  • Created twenty new tools for MDST team members, including:
    
    
    • A reminder system to let people know they should update any reference that has been identified as violating our terms of use.
      
      
    • References are no longer completely deleted when removed, just hidden for safety concerns. We also know who deleted it, what the reference said, and when it was deleted.
      
      
    • Member Name Changes: The system only allows members to change their login name once every three months. If someone wants to do it more than that volunteers can now enable that with one click. We also have a documented history of how often a member changes their name for safety concerns.
      
      
    • Deleted Images: The safety team can easily delete images from accounts that are deemed inappropriate. The member is also emailed to let them know with instructions on what they can do next.
      
      
    • Refined a tool that more easily identifies real spammers and harmful users and doesn’t temporarily falsely identify members as being spammers as often now.
      
      
    • Hidden Users: It seemed many members did not know they selected the privacy preference to “hide my profile completely”, which is evident if their couch availability is set to “Definitely” or “Yes”. Now we have a reminder system that can email members to double check if this setting is correct, including instructions on changing it easily if they chose to do so.
      
      
    • Safety log created – now all safety-related actions by team members are grouped together for the whole team to monitor.
      
      
• Developed the following for Groups Management Team (GMT): 
  
  
  • Deleted and archived groups: now we have centralized information about all deleted and archived groups, with one-click options to reactivate them if necessary.
    
    
  • Deleted posts: every post that's been deleted, why it was deleted, who did it, when, and ability to reactivate it with one click.
    
    
  • Empty groups: centralized page containing information about all groups that have zero members, with a one-click delete button.
    
    
  • Newest groups: detailed list of all groups ordered by newest created. This helps our Groups Management Team keep things organized (city groups in right region, etc).
    
    
  • Created ability for GMT to move groups to other places much easier.
    
    
  • Drafted Groups Management policies with Flapic, the GMT leader.  
    
    
  • Created Groups Tab: central page for GMT members with links to different functions they can perform to manage CouchSurfing groups, including showing unanswered Groups “Contact Us Questions”.  
    
    
  • Developed functionality for GMT to search for existing private groups and a list of members, but not posts made within the groups.
    
    
  • Created automatic log of recently performed GMT actions specifically for this team.
    
    
  • Created function for an automatic post in a group when it is deleted, including the reason why it was deleted.
    
    
  • Ensured that GMT cannot accidentally delete any official CouchSurfing organization group. 
    
    
• Couch Surfing Team Home Pages: 
  
  
  • Developed expert team home pages for MDST, Groups Management, New Member Welcome, Member Communication, Ambassador Management, PR & Media and Traveling Bands/Musicians. Function of home pages:
    
    
    • Central start page for teams that is accessible by all team members. 
    • Links to all appropriate resources specific to that team.
    • CouchSurfing “Terms of Use” available on each page.
    • Unanswered “Contact Us Questions” for that team displayed on page. 
    • Team whiteboard (notepad) to make notes amongst each other. 
    • Statistics, where appropriate (for example, the Member Communications team can see current subscription numbers to the newsletter).
      
      
• Additional functionality developed:
  
  
  • Developed tool that allows for 95% of volunteer actions to be logged and reviewed! This is a significant step forward in being able to acknowledge the hard work completed by remote volunteers on a daily basis.
    
    
  • Only MDST can delete group posts for safety reasons.
    
    
  • The GMT can delete group posts if they are duplicates, at the request of the user who posted it, or it is obviously spam. 
    
    
  • PR & Media and Member Communications team can moderate member testimonials, i.e. select which ones show up on the home page. 
    
    
  • Created “News Alert” text box on members’ home pages for special news alerts, such as website downtime.  
    
    
  • Developed functionality to allow Member Communication team members to edit “News Alert” text box from their team home page. 
    
    
• Developed the following for Contact Us Questions Team: 
  
  
  • Better organization of what emails are viewable by what members within the team, i.e. media, verification and chat questions are viewable only by respective team members.
    
    
  • Greater security created for past MDST questions so they only accessible by MDST members.
    
    
  • Re-ordered "reassign category" list, including adding new categories, deleting unused categories, making the list alphabetical and easier to read/find/categorize.
    
    
  • Created function so team can manually reset someone's 90 day window for changing user login names so members can do it themselves and an admin doesn't have to do it by logging into their account.
    
    
  • Created functionality for team members to validate someone’s email address if they receive an email from the email address attempting to be validated and the member is having trouble doing it.  
    
    
• Developed the following for Traveling Band/Musician Management(TBM): 
  
  
  • Started drafting new TBM policy to clean up this neglected area of the site.
    
    
  • Sourced three new volunteers to help give oversight and establish organization to this area.
    
    
  • New team start page developed with information of who is a traveling band or musician and tools to assist this team. 
    
    
  • Only TBM leaders can now remove a TBM badge from a member’s profile.
    
    
• Developed the following for the Ambassador Management group:
   
  • Fixed part of their application approval page to make it easier to approve applications. 
    
    
  • Team page shows how many Ambassadors have applied and are awaiting approval/denial.
    
    
  • Created specific list of all Ambassadors that automatically updates, according to the needs of this team. 
    
    
• Developed the following for the New Member Welcome (NMW) Team:
  
  
  • Made changes to application page so NMW team can process new applicants to this huge and busy team easily.
    
    
  • Created page to store sent greetings by all team members, rather than them sitting in members own individual sent items.
    
    
  • Updated “Profile Check” page that NMW sends possible inappropriate new members, and ensured someone was responsible for the function.
    
    
• Carried out following work with the Verification Team: 
  
  
  • Implemented more information available on members’ accounts when needed to help this team diagnose problems.
    
    
  • Postcards feature: Helped transition into the postcards set-up as we will soon be mailing postcards, instead of verification letters to members in the United States.
    
    
  • Phased out one-on-one verification on the advice of our legal team: verification now only available through credit card or a verified PayPal account. 
    
    
• Completed the following for the Translation Team:
  
  
  • Communications established with KAOXONI (Sonja, translations lead) about defining policies and getting new members started in the team.
    
    
  • Assisted Douglas (a developer at the Collective who started work on translations) get up to speed on certain areas that were unclear.
    
    
  • Created a new page that shows the actual state of where we are with translations throughout the site so we can easily see which languages need the most help.
    
     

Collective Management (Mattthew Brauer)

• Pre-Collective Preparation:
   
  • Wrote Collective general announcement, Thai announcement, initial Frequently Asked Questions, and role descriptions for volunteer positions. 
    
    
  • Reviewed all applicants and interviewed for several positions. 
    
    
  • Researched visa requirements and helped obtain visas. 
    
    
  • Bought airplane tickets and travel insurance for paid staff. 
    
    
  • Administered long-distance travel sponsorship application and distribution of sponsorship funds. The sponsorship helped participants with the cost of their travel to Thailand based on financial need.
    
    
  • Wrote Collective SMART objectives and requirements. 
    
    
  • Coordinated production of Collective Survival Guide, which was a guideline to all participants for before they arrived at the Collective, including standards of behaviour expected.
    
    
• Ongoing Meetings:
  
  
  • Conducted weekly house meetings with all participants.
    
    
  • Conducted weekly wrap-up meetings with all participants.
    
    
  • Conducted weekly priorities meetings with each expert team supervisor. 
    
    
  • Conducted weekly Collective management and planning meetings with CouchSurfing paid staff.
    
    
  • Conducted exit interviews with several participants.
    
    
  • Conducted meetings to resolve disputes between participants.
    
    
  • Attended vision, mission, values, and identity meetings with Casey, Shonali and Weston.
    
    
  • Conducted Alaska CouchSurfing Collective invitation meetings with five returning participants. 
    
    
  • Supervised the House Manager including meetings as needed. 
    
    
  • Administered half-way point evaluation meeting with House Manger. 
    
    
• Monitored and recorded all Collective expenses and receipts in accordance with budget.

Technology Team (Weston, Casey, Andrew, Andy, Douglas, Jeff, John, Naz)

Technology Team Management:

• Created and implemented the Tech Team buddy system – a team integration system that buddies up new members to older serving team members.    
  
  
• Four new members and Collective participants were integrated into the Tech Team, including comprehensive training on CouchSurfing systems. We re-integrated two remote volunteers. These six members represent four different countries.
     
• Interviewed, selected and managed the integration of five new remote volunteers to the team from five different countries around the world, including Germany, Greece, South Africa, Indonesia and United States. Current Technology Team size now: 16 members.  
  
  
• Weekly System Administrator (sysadmin) Meeting - weekly conference calls held with the local and remote sysadmin team that allowed for direct sharing of ideas, clear communication of projects and priorities, and help create a closer team.   
  
  
• CouchSurfing Technology Team applications - defined a clear application process for the Technology Team. 
  
  
• Roles and responsibilities in CouchSurfing Technology Team - there's a first draft of this now to guide new members.
  
  
• Scheduled website downtime policy - created a policy with Mattthew that guides us to who we need to communicate to in relation to different lengths of scheduled downtime. 
  
  
• Configuration management & update policy - there's a plan of action on how to apply updates to the running system now.
  
  
• Created a Tech Wiki - the Tech Team now has a working solution for documenting systems, procedures and processes. The Wiki has undergone over 370 updates since we started it and has currently 38 content pages. It's been viewed over 1150 times by us and is an integral part of ensuring consistency between all team members.
  
  

CouchSurfing Servers and Databases:

• Selected a Javascript framework - this eases and standardizes development of dynamic web applications for CouchSurfing.
  
  
• Installed a new and more robust backup system that backs up data every hour. 
  
  
• Split one large core database into several smaller pieces and moved those pieces to servers of their own. 
  
  
• Created a new CouchSearch server which offloads CouchSearch! related processing, reducing load on main server. 
  
  
• Created a new system that tracks database load and connects load to code, including developing a page to display this information for all developers. We can now see which pieces of code cause the most load on the database, and can use this information to know where to optimize first.  
   
• CouchSurfing.com was previously being hosted by three old and slow web servers, and two newer web servers. Upgrade proposal created, including configuration and implementation plans. We have now deployed five brand new web servers to host the site. 
   
• New servers have been configured and deployed for our front end load balancers, wiki.couchsurfing.com,the tech wiki, bugs.couchsurfing.com, chat.couchsurfing.com, etc.
  
  
• Created a plan and implemented a configuration management system. This has allowed us to formalize and enforce structure in the way our back-end unix system is configured.   
  
  
• User profile images were previously hosted from one struggling images server. They are now hosted from Amazon's S3 service, a third party hosting provider. This simplifies the task of managing over 1.6 million separate images, and keeps the load of serving these images off of our servers. 
  
  
• Upgraded the core CouchSurfing database to a newer version of MySQL and onto a newer, more powerful server. Troubleshoot performance problems and installed and ran quantitative and repeatable performance tests on both the old and new databases. Identified and made configuration changes to the core Mysql server to limit log sizes and increase performance.  
  
  
• We now have in place a unix user authentication and account management system. This allows sysadmins to log into our servers using special accounts and requires them to authenticate their identities before executing commands that are potentially volatile.  
  
  
• Modified the code base to comply with our changing database architecture - tables were separated into different machines and many things had to change in the code like it warning that a message wasn't sent if the communication to the machine that now stored this information failed.
  
  
• Worked to gather and define requirements for the next generation CouchSurfing server infrastructure including, monitoring,configuration management, security, individual user accounts, time synchronization etc. Collaborated to evaluate configuration management tools and implemented many new systems on new servers using new configuration management system.
  
  
• Took technical steps to ensure successful downtime: disabling the site, changing site down messages, adding site down counters, re-enabling the site each time we suffered downtime. Team worked to recover from a major database crash in January due to a power outage, in just a matter of hours.
  
  
• Researched and implemented policies and tools for eliminating "single points of failure", and developed strategies for keeping the website up and running even when individual servers fail.
  
  
• Chat: Moved chat rooms to a newer and much more powerful server that has now eliminated lag time between posts. 

Features and Tools:
 

• Public Relations videos: created page and system for streaming videos from CouchSurfing and uploaded two videos relative to CouchSurfing Collective onto the site.
  
  
• New Member Welcome Team Tools: greeters are now able to view who has already greeted a new member (and from which country), see new members in their area (in addition to the already existing city, country, world), view members who speak the same languages, and separate out sent greetings to a different message folder than individuals' sent folder.
  
  
• Locations Group Tools: application process added that posts new team applicant notifications to a private group - also tweaked an existing bug and learned from that, that there is a need to overhaul the Location Fixers tools. 
  
  
• Ambassador Applications: paging added for easier usability on the Ambassador Application tool.  
  
  
• Memorialized profiles: created function for members who have passed away can now have their profiles memorialized, based upon specifications provided by the Member Dispute and Safety Team.  
  
  
• Tech Team News Feeds: created tool for processing and presenting when changes are made to the code which effect CouchSurfing users a notification on the change is sent to Member Communications who reviews the note and posts it to a public group. 
  
  
• Project Matrix: scope documented for this new project with Mattthew, including prototype for this online system that will document all project phases from inception through to completion with input from all appropriate working teams in each phase. Phase one of this project has been completed.
  
  
• Member Locations: Identified and fixed the 'location' bug where people were all being assigned the same location (10 lat, 10 long). Implemented a fix for the location bug by restoring old data from backups and fixing the database scheme and correcting the incorrect data where possible. This allowed for the re-enabling of location search and nearby travelers, as well as other important functionality. 
  
  
• References: You receive a message when your reference is updated. References don't pop up to the top when you change information in a friend link. If you change a few letters in a reference, the reference doesn't pop up to the top anymore. A reference button has been added above the reference list.
  
  
• Meeting tool: Debugging of the meeting tool and it now works how it is supposed to work. Numbers are now displayed under attendees types: 5 -2 - 3 (Members - Number of couches needed - guests) are now 6 (+maybe)(+guests). Cleaned up sort functionality. The word meeting has changed to Event. Everybody has their own personal events page. Layout updated.
  
  
• Postcard verification tool: For verifications an excel sheet can be downloaded that pulls the addresses and verification codes. This file is then sent to an external mailing company that prints the addresses and codes and with this company's bulk mail rate, our postage costs are halved for verifications within the United States. A task that once involved printing letters, putting them in an envelope, and posting them, which was done by ambassadors, has now become much more efficient and cost effective.
  
  
• Translations tool: Translation tool had a big update. Most bugs are fixed. The numbers used in the translation overview page are correct now. New texts on page can be found (again) by the translation tool (page rebuild option to find new translations is available for translators). Translations have three states: not translated - translated - confirmed. A second translator has to confirm initial translation. Translation tool has a new layout (works with colors for different translation states). Translations can be filtered so it’s easier to find the new translations in a big list. Some translation bugs on the website which filled the database with member names or numbers to translate. Made many non-translatable words on the main pages translatable. Added an ajax script which allows translators to go on the website, click on a non translated text and translate it in the right context real time on the site. Translation Tool Manual added. 
  
  
• Managed Mantis, with each team member resolving a number of bugs.
  
  
• Internet for the Collective office established: Helped install several collective internet connections (three wireless CDMA networks and two DSL networks). Assistance provided to all Collective participants to setup and troubleshoot their internet access. A proxy server using Squid was installed to speed up web access to frequently accessed websites from Collective office in order to reduce bandwidth usage.
  
  
• Installed and maintained file and print servers at the Collective, supporting all participants in everyday work and sharing of information.
   

 
CouchSurfing Management (Mattthew, Casey, Jim, Weston)

• Alaska Collective Preparation:
  
  
  • Developed plan for Alaska Collective including budget, roles, objective and location.
    
    
  • Alaska Collective proposal developed.
    
    
  • Developed Alaska Collective roll-out plan.
    
    
  • Wrote initial Alaska Collective Frequently Asked Questions page.
    
    
  • Wrote role descriptions for fundraiser, house manager and house chef.
    
    
  • Determined which teams needed to attend Alaska Collective.
    
    
  • Initial investigations conducted regarding visas to the United States for non-United States participants.
    
    
  • Discussions held with returning participants about Alaska Collective proposal, expectations and objectives of Collective, and their availability to attend.
    
    
• Examined CouchSurfing sustainability, including reviewing many models for volunteer collectives and analyzing collectives versus a permanent office.
  
  
• Attended many meetings to assist, support, and guide the work completed by team supervisors.
  
  
• Performed several interviews for members of the press.
  
  
• Updated Leadership Team on Collective progress and news.
  
  
• Co-created staffing priorities - a worksheet to examine many current and future roles and compare them based on a matrix of attributes in order to determine our priorities for filling those roles.
  
  
• Wrote Emergency Response Channel moderation policy, which determines what is to be considered an emergency when communicating to an internal list for alerting the tech team to an emergency, such as when the site is down.
  
  
• Examined financial practices to comply with standards needed for grant applications.
  
  
• Continued setting up of European Bank Account and began getting it ready to accept verifications and donations.
  
  
• Worked on getting data compiled for 2007 Taxes.
  
  
• Set up a higher interest bearing savings account for our Emergency Fund.
  
  
• Developed the following for the revenue/income management:
  
  
  • Created generation of current statistics about incoming funds.
    
    
  • Created list of how many transactions have failed/succeeded and the ratio that is monitored to detect whether there is a problem in the verification system.
    
    
  • Identified volunteers to get involved to identify and implement alternative revenue systems.
    
    

 
User Experience Team (Sebastien Le Tuan)

User Experience team set-up: 

• Held interviews with leaders in the organization who are intimately familiar and directly involved with how things come up and get implemented in the organization. Gathered information about what a "Great User Experience" means to them and how we could aim to deliver great user experience in all that we do.
   
• Interview data served as a guide in create a new department within the CouchSurfing organization: the User Experience team. 
  
  
• Developed team description, which describes the User Experience team and its structure, which consists of two arms: User Experience Research and User Experience Design. 
  
  
• Created a roster spreadsheet to keep track of design and research team candidates and members. 
  
  
• Recruiting process - initiated meeting with Susy, Weston and Jim to clarify intended volunteer recruitment process and delivered notes on the step-by-step process discussed.
   
• Created two applications to put online when ready to recruit for the Design and Research teams. This application is in line with the Volunteer Coordination team’s newly created “Volunteer Experience” process. 
  
  
• Wrote job description for the User Experience research position that we have open for the Alaska Collective. 
  
  
• Raised general awareness in the Collective and in the Leadership Team about "user experience" in general, and of having a team dedicated to research the experience of being a CouchSurfer. 
  

User Experience Design:

• Created the CouchSurfing patch logo - this patch is for CouchSurfers currently traveling and will facilitate them recognizing each other while traveling.
  
  
• Created a design for allowing members to indicate the sleeping arrangements regarding their available "couch". This was done in an effort to minimize potential issues where people ended up sharing beds with their hosts and didn't know it until they arrived - this design was generally approved and is now with the Tech Team for implementation.
  
  
• Created a design for allowing CouchSurfing members to indicate special needs such as being vegan, or allergic to certain foods. This design is not yet approved.
  
  
• Created the CouchSurfing Zones temporary logo.
  
  
• Created a lily icon for the memorialized profiles of CouchSurfing members who have passed away.
  
  
• Facilitated design brainstorming sessions:
  
  
  • Douglas - Design brainstorm about making the meeting creation process better.
    
    
  • Rachel- Design brainstorm about the sleeping arrangements feature.
    
    
  • Weston, Cam, Diamond, Laura, Douglas - Design brainstorm about the meetings/events feature in general and how to improve it.
    
    
• Coordinated the delivery of the "CouchSurfing Expedition" logo - for use in special expeditions such as a Mount Everest expedition. The logo was printed as a patch and on a flag carried by a climber. The logo was designed by Leo (a co-founder and a principal designer in the design team).

• CouchSurfing Logo Redesign Project:
  
  
  • Revived the CouchSurfing logo redesign project, and drove its process with the contributions of Mattthew, Shonali, Shai, and Leo.
    
    
  • Recruited several talented designers to continue the CouchSurfing logo redesign project, after a thorough review of all previous logo submissions.
    
    
  • Crafted a revised logo design brief and delivered it to the designers, based upon what was identified in the work completed by Identity Team on CouchSurfing’s core values and communication style, and color exercises.
    
    
  • A first round of designs were submitted and reviewed, and we are now in the second round. Four rounds are scheduled. 

House Management (Shelley Meabon)

• Pre-Collective Preparation:
  
  
• Wrote Collective Survival Guide, which was a guideline to all participants for standards of behavior expected.
  
  
• Wrote Cultural Guide to Thailand for volunteers who would be entering Thailand for the first time.
  
  
• Reviewed all applicants for short term positions, selected and notified participants.  
  
  
• Scheduled short-term volunteers' arrivals and departures.
  
  
• Wrote numerous posts in the Thailand Collective - Public group to inform participants who had not yet arrived of the conditions of living and what to expect upon arrival.
  
  
• Found a suitable caterer and arranged for daily delivery of food.
  
  
• Researched the town so as to be able to answer any and all questions the participants might have had. (e.g. where is the nearest optometrist, etc).
  
  
• Bought all necessary items for the set-up of the house (e.g. blankets, towels, dishes, cutlery, etc).
  
  
• Contacted the landlords if something needed fixing or adjustments, and making sure they actually did what asked/promised.

• Collective Activities:
  
  
• Designed and facilitated group activities for Collective participants.
  
  
• Performed a bi-weekly shopping trip to keep the house well-stocked with essential items.
  
  
• Managed all short-term volunteers, including oversight of short-term projects and hand-over of projects between different volunteers.
  
  
• Created daily rotating chore roster, including scheduling all participants for duration of Collective.
  
  
• Secured a song and its rights by a local band for the Collective Video created by Public Relations & Media.
  
  
• Joined the Member Communications Team and assisted with drafting two news items and answering emails from potential short-term volunteers and members interested in visiting the Collective.
  
  
• Coordinated visits between CouchSurfing members and the Collective group, such as dinner invititations and nights out when members were in town. 
  
  
• Help facilitated weekly house meetings.
  
  
• Managed and recorded all house expenses, including weekly meeting with Collective Manager to go through all purchases.
  
  
• Wrote requirements and job description for House Manager position in Alaska.
  
  
• Provided emotional support to participants during the Collective - countless meetings with individuals to discuss issues, resolve problems, meeting their needs to ensure they were productive throughout the Collective.
  
  

• Facilitated the shut down and packing up of the Collective house.