**
*The 2017 OSGeo Board elections are about to start. Some of us
who have been involved with OSGeo over the years have collated
thoughts about the effectiveness of different strategies.
Hopefully these thoughts will be useful for future boards, and
charter members who are about to select board members.*
*
The Yin and Yang of OSGeo
As with life, there are a number of Yin vs Yang questions we are
continually trying to balance. Discussions around acting as a
high or low capital organisation; organising top down vs bottom
up; populating a board with old wisdom or fresh blood; personal
vs altruistic motivation; protecting privacy vs public
transparency. Let’s discuss some of them here.
Time vs Money
OSGeo is an Open Source organisation using a primary currency of
volunteer time. We mostly self-manage our time via principles of
Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy. This is bottom up.
However, OSGeo also manages some money. Our board divvies up a
budget which is allocated down to committees and projects. This
is top-down command-and-control management. This cross-over
between volunteer and market economics is a constant point of
tension. (For more on the cross-over of economies, see Paul
Ramsey’s FOSS4G 2017 Keynote,
http://blog.cleverelephant.ca/2017/08/foss4g-keynote.html
<http://blog.cleverelephant.ca/2017/08/foss4g-keynote.html>)
High or low capital organisation?
Our 2013 OSGeo Board tackled this question:
https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Board_:_Board_Priorities_2013#OSGeo_as_a_low_capital.2C_volunteer_focused_organisation
<https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Board_:_Board_Priorities_2013#OSGeo_as_a_low_capital.2C_volunteer_focused_organisation>
Should OSGeo act as a high capital or low capital organisation?
I.e., should OSGeo dedicate energy to collecting sponsorship and
then passing out these funds to worthy OSGeo causes.
While initially it seems attractive to have OSGeo woo sponsors,
because we would all love to have more money to throw at worthy
OSGeo goals, the reality is that chasing money is hard work. And
someone who can chase OSGeo sponsorship is likely conflicted with
chasing sponsorship for their particular workplace. So in
practice, to be effective in chasing sponsorship, OSGeo will
probably need to hire someone specifically for the role. OSGeo
would then need to raise at least enough to cover wages, and then
quite a bit more if the sponsorship path is to create extra value.
This high capital path is how the Apache foundation is set up,
and how LocationTech propose to organise themselves. It is the
path that OSGeo started following when founded under the umbrella
of Autodesk.
However, as OSGeo has grown, OSGeo has slowly evolved toward a
low capital volunteer focused organisation. Our overheads are
very low, which means we waste very little of our volunteer
labour and capital on the time consuming task of chasing and
managing money. Consequently, any money we do receive (from
conference windfalls or sponsorship) goes a long way - as it
doesn't get eaten up by high overheads.
Size and Titles
Within small communities influence is based around meritocracy
and do-ocracy. Good ideas bubble to the top and those who do the
work decide what work gets done. Leaders who try to pull rank in
order to gain influence quickly lose volunteers. Within these
small communities, a person’s title hold little tradable value.
However, our OSGeo community has grown very large, upward of tens
of thousands of people. At this size, we often can’t use our
personal relationships to assess reputation and trust. Instead we
need to rely on other cues, such as titles and allocated
positions of power.
Consider also that OSGeo projects have become widely adopted. As
such, knowledge and influence within an OSGeo community has
become a valuable commodity. It helps land a job; secure a
speaking slot at a conference; or get an academic paper published.
This introduces a commercial dynamic into our volunteer power
structures:
*
A title is sometimes awarded to a dedicated volunteer, hoping
that it can be traded for value within the commercial
economy. (In practice, deriving value from a title is much
harder than it sounds).
*
There are both altruistic and personal reasons for someone to
obtain a title. A title can be used to improve the
effectiveness of the volunteer; or to improve the volunteers
financial opportunities.
*
This can prompt questions of a volunteer’s motivations.
In response to this, over the years we have seen a gradual change
to position of roles within the OSGeo community.
Top-down vs bottom-up
OSGeo board candidates have been asked for their “vision”, and
“what they would like to change or introduce”.
https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2017_Candidate_Manifestos
<https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Election_2017_Candidate_Manifestos> These
are valid questions if OSGeo were run as a command-and-control
top-down hierarchy; if board made decisions were delegated to
OSGeo committees to implement. But OSGeo is bottom-up.
Boards which attempt to centralise control and delegate tasks
cause resentment and disengagement amongst volunteers. Likewise,
communities who try to delegate tasks to their leaders merely
burn out their leaders. Both are ignoring the principles of
Do-ocracy and Merit-ocracy. So ironically, boards which do less
are often helping more.
Darwinian evolution means that only awesome ideas and inspiring
leaders attract volunteer attention - and that is a good thing.
Recognising ineffective control attempts
How do you recognise ineffective command-and-control techniques
within a volunteer community? Look for statements such as:
*
“The XXX committee needs to do YYY…”
*
“Why isn’t anyone helping us do …?”
*
“The XXX community hasn’t completed YYY requirements - we
need to tell them to implement ZZZ”
If all the ideas from an organisation come from management, then
management isn’t listening to their team.
Power to the people
In most cases the board should keep out of the way of OSGeo
communities. Only in exceptional circumstances should a board
override volunteer initiatives.
Decisions and power within OSGeo should be moved back into OSGeo
committees, chapters and projects. This empowers our community,
and motivates volunteers wishing to scratch an itch.
We do want our board members to be enlightened, motivated and
engaged within OSGeo. This active engagement should be done
within OSGeo communities: partaking, facilitating or mentoring as
required. A recent example of this was Jody Garnett’s active
involvement with OSGeo rebranding - where he worked with others
within the OSGeo marketing committee.
Democratising key decisions
While we have a charter membership of nearly 400 who are tasked
with ‘protecting’ the principles of the foundation and voting for
new charter members and the board. Beyond this, charter members
have had little way of engaging with the board to influence the
direction of OSGeo.
How can we balance the signal-to-noise ratio such that we can
achieve effective membership engagement with the board without
overwhelming ourselves with chatter? Currently we have no formal
or prescribed processes for such consultation.
Reimbursement
OSGeo Board members are not paid for their services. However,
they are regularly invited to partake in activities such as
presenting at conferences or participating in meetings with other
organisations. These are typically beneficial to both OSGeo and
the leader’s reputation or personal interest. To avoid OSGeo
Board membership being seen as a “Honey Pot”, and for the Board
to maintain trust and integrity, OSGeo board members should
refuse payment from OSGeo for partaking in such activities.
(There is nothing wrong with accepting payment from another
organisation, such as the conference organisers.)
In response to the question of conferences, OSGeo has previously
created OSGeo Advocates - an extensive list of local volunteers
from around the world willing to talk about OSGeo.
https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Advocate
<https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Advocate>
Old vs new
Should we populate our board with old wisdom or encourage fresh
blood and new ideas? We ideally want a bit of both, bring wisdom
from the past, but also spreading the opportunity of leadership
across our membership. We should avoid leadership becoming an
exclusive “boys club” without active community involvement, and
possibly should consider maximum terms for board members.
If our leadership follow a “hands off oversight role”, then past
leaders can still play influential roles within OSGeo’s
subcommittees.
Vision for OSGeo 2.0
Prior OSGeo thought leaders have suggested it’s time to grow from
OSGeo 1.0 to OSGeo 2.0. Update our vision and mission. A few of
those ideas have fed into OSGeo’s website revamp currently
underway. This has been a good start, but there is still room to
acknowledge that much has changed since OSGeo was born a decade
ago, and there are plenty of opportunities to positively redefine
ourselves.
A test of OSGeo’s effectiveness is to see how well community
ideas are embraced and taken through to implementation. This is a
challenge that I hope will attract new energy and new ideas from
a new OSGeo generation.
Here are a few well considered ideas that have been presented to
date that we can start from:
*
Michael Gerlek July 2015, “We won. It's time for OSGeo 2.0”,
https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2015-July/014521.html
<https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2015-July/014521.html>
*
Darrell Fuhriman: September 2015, “OSGeo is becoming
irrelevant. Here's why. Let's fix it.”
https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2015-September/032616.html
<https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2015-September/032616.html>
*
Marc Vloemans, March 2014, OSGeo Marketing Analysis,
https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Talk:Marketing_Committee
<https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Talk:Marketing_Committee>
*
OSGeo Board of 2013, “OSGeo Board Priorities”,
http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/osgeo-board-priorities.html
<http://cameronshorter.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/osgeo-board-priorities.html>
*
(There are a few more which I haven’t located - please do
suggest them).
Recommendations
So where does this leave us.
*
Let’s recognise that OSGeo is an Open Source community, and
we organise ourselves best with bottom-up Meritocracy and
Do-ocracy.
*
Wherever possible, decisions should be made at the committee,
chapter or project level, with the board merely providing
hands-off oversight. This empowers and enables our
sub-communities.
*
Let’s identify strategic topics where the OSGeo board would
benefit from consultation with charter membership and work
out how this could be accomplished efficiently and effectively.
*
Let’s embrace and encourage new blood into our leadership
ranks, while retaining access to our wise old white beards.
*
The one top-down task for the board is based around
allocation of OSGeo’s (minimal) budget.
--
Cameron Shorter
Open Technologies Consultant
Geospatial & Software Architect
Information Demystifier
M +61 (0) 419 142 254 <tel:+61%20419%20142%20254>
http://shorter.net
*
