Hi Guys, Thanks Bryan for the plug. Looks like I need to sign up for another list :-) I added my self to Health list.
I'm maxed out but can try to add some project planning focus if people find it helpful. The first step is to find a user. In this case that is probably a health care worker near an XO school. Without a user you don't have well defined requirements and its hard to know if you are building the right thing. Maybe someone on the list already lives near an XO school and knows what health care challenges people are facing... I also saw this site go up recently. Maybe someone can reach out to them: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC-Bangalore At the same time you reach out to a user, evaluate the capacity of the group to deliver. You don't want to promise anything you can't deliver. That's especially true in health care where if you have a bug or don't come through, peoples health is on the line. Then ask the user what they need, what their concerns are and what their biggest challenges are. Then come up with a proposal on how to address it and run it by the users. Enumerated steps: 1 - Find real user ready to communicate and work with you. 2 - Line up volunteers and evaluate group skills and time. 3 - Discuss with user the key challenges and pick one or two you want to address. 4 - Come up with a design proposal and validate with users. 5 - Code up a prototype or working example. 6 - Run beta test, refine and gather feedback. 7 - Deliver code and give great support in the early going. 8 - Go back to step 1 or to step 6 and keep at it :-) That's my 2 cents. Maybe you already have steps 1 and 2 done? If so put the info in the wiki and send out a link. We need to hear from a real health care worker who also has access to kids using Xos. The more voluble they are the better! Doesn't have to be a Bryan-class communicator but needs to be ready to e-mail and give lots of feedback. HTHs. I've seen lots of e-mails about the health project so my impression is that you have many capable people working on it already. I don't mean to jump in mid-stream or impugn any existing work. It's a great project but I'm squeamish so I have never worked on anything close to wetware :-) I look forward to learning more about it. Thanks, Greg S ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:32:04 +0545 From: Bryan Berry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [Grassroots-l] Health Jam 2008 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: library <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, health <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Greg Smith \(gregmsmi\)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [email protected] Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain absolutely, Start w/ some simple goals for Health 1 activity for first aid 1 activity on nutrition 1 activity on the causes of disease 1 good pdf on the causes of disease Then do some work on them to get started. After you have some prototypes __then__ go look for help. The argument is "Here are our goals, here is what we have so far, please help us improve what we have. However, if you are think you could create better content yourself by starting from scratch, please do so." If you ask the larger community for help w/out having any existing prototypes or precise goals, everyone goes off in different directions. Martin Langhoff's e-mail motto sums it up quite well "don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first" Since you have an all-volunteer team on OLPC Health, you need projects where folks can contribute a few hours a week. I recommend avoiding architecturally complex or esoteric technical projects, it will be hard for folks to put in the necessary time and for others not so acquainted w/ that obscure platform to contribute. We are running into this problem w/ EPaati since it is coded in Squeak. If you could get some of Greg Smith's time, he could help you put together a project plan. He has been very helpful to me. He is also resident in Boston hope this helps _______________________________________________ Grassroots mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/grassroots
