SBI Community Guidelines

By joining the SBI community you are agreeing to abide by these community guidelines. The SBI community includes the following programmes: ACE IT, CEDaCI, DeK Growth Programme, Digital Grid, Enterprise Steps, Dagile, LAFIC, SimDH, Sustainable Innovation (A2i and LCLDN), and R&D for SMEs.

The SBI Community aims to unite entrepreneurs from across the SBI programmes. It aims to encourage inclusion, creativity and innovation, as well as the sharing of experiences and challenges. We also hope to help create collaborations and the provision of peer support.

These guidelines intend to keep the SBI Community as a welcoming environment for all members. Please abide by them at all times. They apply across all SBI channels, including but not limited to: Email, Eventbrite, Facebook, F6S, Instagram, MeetUp, Slack, The Dots, Teams, Twitter, WhatsApp and Zoom.

1. Be respectful

The SBI Community is a harassment-free environment.

Please refrain from the following behaviour:

• Use of inappropriate language, including discriminative language, personal attacks, threats, or sexually explicit language.
• Discrimination on any basis, including but not limited to: abilities, gender identification, race, ethnicity, physical appearance, religion, or any other characteristics.
• Heated debate of any topic - please respect differences of opinions.
• Harassment of any kind, including but not limited to: inappropriate use of images and/or language, threats of physical or non-physical harm, deliberate intimidation, stalking, consistent disruption of conversations, or inappropriate contact.
• Posting negative comments about your SBI experience. If you encounter an issue with the service you're receiving, please email your programme contact - this will be the Project Coordinator or Programme Manager of your SBI programme. They will then treat your complaint appropriately.

Please note that SBI has no control over the Slack applications or its functions - if you have any account or software issues, please note that we are unable to help.

This guideline includes maintaining appropriate and reasonable contact with SBI staff:

• SBI staff are invited to take part in conversations on the channels but are not required to respond to instant messages. It is suggested that you treat email as the main channel of communication with academics and programme staff.
• Please note that no member of staff is expected to respond to email enquiries immediately or beyond the hours of 09:00 - 17:00, Monday - Friday. On this basis, we ask you to please ensure that all expectations of requests and questions are reasonable.

If you and the SBI staff in question are happy to use other forms of communication, such as direct or group WhatsApp messaging, we ask for all parties to remain respectful and abide by community guidelines as appropriate.

2. Avoid 'spamming'

Please refrain from posting repeat messages on community channels, and do not directly message people without permission.

• Please do not repeatedly message people in order to try and prompt a reply.
• Please do not message anyone who has requested not to be messaged.
• Please use the tagging function with restraint and do not tag anyone unnecessarily in posts or comments.

We encourage all members of SBI to share their news and relevant content, such as promotions, events, interviews, newsletters, blogs or PR pieces. Please only do so in the #content channel.

Vacancies can be posted in the #general channel, but members should abide by the spamming rules.

If you would like to share external opportunities, EG funding, accelerators or awards from other organisations, please email hello@sbi.business so we can add to the relevant SBI resource as well.

3. Avoid illegal activity

Do not post anything that can be construed as advising others to break or evade the law.

Do not post links to pirated content, including computer programmes or applications.

4. Maintain confidentiality & IP

We encourage our members to connect on LinkedIn and other networks, but please be mindful when posting personal information on the channels.

Please treat all information, including challenges and experiences shared, tips or advice, as privileged. This means you should not repeat this information outside the channels unless it is non-specific or you have been permitted to do so. Please always give credit to those whose advice or tips you do share.

If the information you wish to share is not publicly available, please confirm you are able to share it. This includes email addresses.

5. Other:

Access to the Slack Community

All members of the SBI cohorts from Autumn 2020 will be automatically permitted access to the SBI slack community. Alumni members from before this date can request access by emailing hello@sbi.business.

Violations

The SBI team reserves the right to make judgement calls about violations of the Community Guidelines. Violations may result in access to our channels being limited or removed. This can include removing you from the programme(s) if necessary.

Disclaimer

SBI reserve the right to limit access to its channels as needed. SBI are not responsible for the content posted on the SBI channel or for comments on other channels. Comments on the channels, including posts on the SBI Slack, do not reflect the opinions of London South Bank University, South Bank Innovation, or relevant partners and staff members.

If you see or experience any violations of the code of conduct, please email a screenshot and details (nature of violation, date, time and channel) to hello@sbi.business.