Re: GNOME Foundation and CEO Goals

[Og Maciel]

On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 1:52 PM, Dr. Michael J. Chudobiak
 wrote:
> Those are great goals for gnome overall, but I don't think they have much to
> do with Stormy's actual duties. Do they?

Applying them probably not, but getting the right people together and
soliciting funds to support improving these areas would be, wouldn't?
I mean, here I am proposing that we put i10n and a18n on the roadmap
for 2010. Shouldn't this be considered by the board and then have the
CEO chime in with her opinion if this is viable and the best thing to
do in the immediate future?

>From Stormy's latest update post:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/stormy/~3/O8pfMnb_z-I/stormys-update-week-of-january-18th.html

"We are partnering with Project::Possibility! Look for updates from
the GNOME accessibility folks."
"Met with Jim Zemlin from the Linux Foundation. Briefly discussed
Collaboration Summit, GNOME participation, mobile, Moblin and
fundraising/memberships."

So basically, be the catalyst and get people together to work on the
areas mentioned... metrics would be the before and after picture...
-- 
Og B. Maciel

omac...@foresightlinux.org
ogmac...@gnome.org
ogmac...@ubuntu.com

GPG Keys: D5CFC202

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Re: GNOME Foundation and CEO Goals

[Brian Cameron]

Og:


I think there is more value in suggesting ways that the CEO goals should
be refocused.  However, there has been little discussion about that so
far.  How would you suggest improving the goals and metrics to ensure
that concerns that you have are better addressed moving forward?


For starters I can honestly say that opening things up as you did with
this original email is a great step forward! To be clear, making this
type of information open (that is not to say it wasn't before) and
making people aware of it is what led me to ask about those things.
Making more information like this (perhaps even telling people where
to find it) available to the general public will definitely help to
get more feedback and constructive criticism.


Agreed.  Striving towards more open and transparent process is something
that we always are striving to do a better job.  It would be good to
develop more specific metrics, though, of what we would like to see
going forward.  What are the areas the board needs to focus on in this
area the most?  Also, in terms of Stormy's bonus, what sorts of things
can she do specifically to help?


I'd love to see
milestones related to getting localization and accessibility teams on
the roadmap for 2010 and holding sprints/what-not with members of
these teams to see how to make GNOME more accessible to people who's
first language is not English and for those who cannot currently use
GNOME due to some limitation. One metric could be, how many different
languages with a total percentage of less or equal to 50% translated
strings have improved within the next release cycle? How many kept at
80% or above? How can the Foundation help to improve these numbers?


Goals like this are great in terms of general GNOME Foundation goals.
However, since we are working towards creating metrics for the CEO
specifically, what work can the CEO do to help achieve this goal and
how should we measure a bonus based on this sort of goal?

We could just give the CEO a bonus if the GNOME project meets certain
general goals, regardless of whether the CEO is involved in that
project or not.  However, this probably isn't the best way to develop
an incentive plan.


Are there organizations already using GNOME to attend their
accessibility needs? Are there any goals related to making GNOME more
accessible? Would it make sense to spend a release cycle and focus on
improving these areas? Have we got any metrics on the progress (or
lack of) of work being done in these areas?


Many people do use GNOME's accessibility features, based on the
discussions on the gnome-accessibility-list.  The GNOME a11y team
does have goals like working towards making GNOME shell and other
clutter-based programs accessible, WebKit accessibility, etc.

Again, if we want to focus on such goals in terms of CEO performance,
we need to think about what work the CEO can specifically do to
drive these goals forward.


This was just a quick braindump but I could get more specific if
needed. Basically, I'd love to see reports on how these areas playout
in the overall picture of our roadmap for 2010 and what our CEO's plan
is to improve them.


Indeed.  Our hope is that we can develop these via community discussion
since it is more likely the the GNOME Foundation and CEO will best push
overall GNOME community goals if we decide such things after discussion.
However, there really have not been many comments so far, so I hope
that is just because it takes people some time to consider all the
information.  It's a lot to think about and consider.

Brian
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Re: GNOME Foundation and CEO Goals

[Dr. Michael J. Chudobiak]

On 01/25/2010 01:44 PM, Og Maciel wrote:

get more feedback and constructive criticism. I'd love to see
milestones related to getting localization and accessibility teams on
the roadmap for 2010 and holding sprints/what-not with members of
these teams to see how to make GNOME more accessible to people who's
first language is not English and for those who cannot currently use
GNOME due to some limitation. One metric could be, how many different
languages with a total percentage of less or equal to 50% translated
strings have improved within the next release cycle? How many kept at
80% or above? How can the Foundation help to improve these numbers?
Are there organizations already using GNOME to attend their
accessibility needs? Are there any goals related to making GNOME more
accessible? Would it make sense to spend a release cycle and focus on
improving these areas? Have we got any metrics on the progress (or
lack of) of work being done in these areas?


Those are great goals for gnome overall, but I don't think they have 
much to do with Stormy's actual duties. Do they?


- Mike
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Stormy's Update: Week of January 18th

[Stormy Peters]

**

http://blogs.gnome.org/foundation/2010/01/25/stormys-update-week-of-january-18th/

Finally wrapped up the very long thread on the Foundation list and most of
the side conversations.

Met with a couple of advisory board members (via phone, email and IRC) to
discuss funding and GUADEC.

We are partnering with
Project::Possibility!
Look for updates from the GNOME accessibility folks.

Got all the GNOME Q4 report updates in the report and edited except for one
... actively waiting on that one!

Read all the Google Grants instructions, set up an Adwords account, set up
campaigns, ad groups, ads and keywords. Was ready to submit and the
checklist says we need at least two ads per adgroup, so going back to fill
in today. (Also got a login on our Piwik account from Jaap Haitsma to see
gnome.org web page traffic to help evaluate our adwords usage.)

Sent out requests for sponsorship for the usability hackfest.

Attended GNOME board meeting.

Met with Jim Zemlin from the Linux Foundation. Briefly discussed Collaboration
Summit ,
GNOME participation, mobile, Moblin and fundraising/memberships.

Sent out thank you's for Friends of GNOME.

Worked with Grace Hopper  (a women in
computing conference) on FOSS (free and open source) plans for the
conference. They were already working on it and they've added me to the
group discussing the plans. It's looking promising.

Attended Snowy  (Tomboy Online) IRC meeting.

Talked to Gregoire Gentil from Always Innovating. Their Touch
Bookuses GNOME
technologies. They'd love to see better touch screen support for
GNOME. (Right now you have to use a stylus instead of fingers.) Set up
tentative plans to meet in person at the Collaboration Summit.

Helped with a couple of things (panel, lightening talks, schedule) for OSCON
and for the Women in Open Source miniconference at SCALE.

Luis de Bethencourt  is going to
represent GNOME at FOSS Nigeria. Thanks to Agustín Benito Bethencourt for
recruiting him.

Chuck Payne and Zonker will represent GNOME at the Texas Linux Fest.

Worked on planning my travel for the
year.
I'd love to see more people officially representing GNOME at events.
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Re: GNOME Foundation and CEO Goals

[Og Maciel]

Thank you Brian for a great email and probably the best answer I got
(no offense to John or Dave). It became a whole lot clear to me the
reason behind the milestones I was questioning... it also became
apparent that my concerns *do* apply for the next 'iteration' as some
of these now more mundane tasks will have become part of the routine
and incentives can be shifted to other areas that similarly require
more attention.

> I think there is more value in suggesting ways that the CEO goals should
> be refocused.  However, there has been little discussion about that so
> far.  How would you suggest improving the goals and metrics to ensure
> that concerns that you have are better addressed moving forward?

For starters I can honestly say that opening things up as you did with
this original email is a great step forward! To be clear, making this
type of information open (that is not to say it wasn't before) and
making people aware of it is what led me to ask about those things.
Making more information like this (perhaps even telling people where
to find it) available to the general public will definitely help to
get more feedback and constructive criticism. I'd love to see
milestones related to getting localization and accessibility teams on
the roadmap for 2010 and holding sprints/what-not with members of
these teams to see how to make GNOME more accessible to people who's
first language is not English and for those who cannot currently use
GNOME due to some limitation. One metric could be, how many different
languages with a total percentage of less or equal to 50% translated
strings have improved within the next release cycle? How many kept at
80% or above? How can the Foundation help to improve these numbers?
Are there organizations already using GNOME to attend their
accessibility needs? Are there any goals related to making GNOME more
accessible? Would it make sense to spend a release cycle and focus on
improving these areas? Have we got any metrics on the progress (or
lack of) of work being done in these areas?

This was just a quick braindump but I could get more specific if
needed. Basically, I'd love to see reports on how these areas playout
in the overall picture of our roadmap for 2010 and what our CEO's plan
is to improve them.

Cheers,
-- 
Og B. Maciel

omac...@foresightlinux.org
ogmac...@gnome.org
ogmac...@ubuntu.com

GPG Keys: D5CFC202

http://www.ogmaciel.com (en_US)
http://blog.ogmaciel.com (pt_BR)
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Re: GNOME Foundation and CEO Goals

[Brian Cameron]

Og:


   The bonuses both reflect pie in the sky,
you are probably never going to get this done items to more mundane items
which none the less, contribute to the growth of the foundation.


I just felt that goals such as:

  $500 - Improving relations with the advisory board, starting
 regular 1-on-1 meetings with them, etc.
  $250 - Improving relations with the community (keynotes, blogs)
  $500 - Working with the board.
$1,000 - For being the eyes&  ears of GNOME.  The quarterly report,
 advisory board relations&  meetings.

would be things that are not in the "pie in the sky" category and
should be assumed something any CEO would do for a company. Not saying
that the practice of awarding bonuses to CEOs is not something
companies do, but am questioning some of the goals themselves.


While many of Stormy's goals are "pie in the sky", it is also reasonable
for some amount of Stormy's bonus to be tied simply for doing a good
job.  Whether something is "pie in the sky" is somewhat subjective, but
improving communication within the GNOME community is definitely an
area where Stormy has gone above-and-beyond over the past year.

Before Stormy was hired, the GNOME Foundation had not been doing an
effective job communicating both with the larger Foundation community
or with the GNOME Advisory Board.  So, the board asked Stormy to work to
address these problems, and felt that making improvements in these
areas was important enough to warrant a small percentage of her bonus.

Most, if not all, of the communication vehicles now used to ensure that
the wider public is aware of what is going on (such as the quarterly
report) were Stormy's suggestions.  She organized, executed, and
followed through on making them happen.

The work Stormy has done to improve the relationships with the GNOME
Advisory Board have been particularly significant.  She has dedicated a
lot of time to ensure that each advisory board member is talking with
the GNOME Foundation directly, and has worked hard to ensure that
issues raised by Advisory Board members are responded to and addressed
quickly.  Because of this work, the GNOME Foundation has been able to
take advantage of numerous opportunities that otherwise would have
never materialized.

Overall, Stormy only achieved 58% of her total possible bonus.
Considering the great work she has done over the past year, I think
this is not overmuch.  In fact, had the economy not limited the board's
ability to make funds available, I am sure that her bonus would have
been higher.

Moving forward, the board does agree that we do need to change focus
and ensure that bonuses in the future are clearly tied to those things
that are most important to the GNOME community.  Now that many of the
communication improvements have become more routine, it would make
sense to raise the bar and ensure that future bonuses are tied to more
aggressive goals.  Likewise, now that the GNOME Foundation is in better
financial state, it makes sense to refocus the bonus so less is tied to
fund raising.  Perhaps, going forward, the bonus should be more tied to
community building.

I think there is more value in suggesting ways that the CEO goals should
be refocused.  However, there has been little discussion about that so
far.  How would you suggest improving the goals and metrics to ensure
that concerns that you have are better addressed moving forward?

Brian
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Re: GNOME Foundation and CEO Goals

[Og Maciel]

Hi Dave!

On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 10:56 AM, Dave Neary  wrote:
>>      $500 - Improving relations with the advisory board, starting
>>             regular 1-on-1 meetings with them, etc.
>
> For this one, the starting point is worth bearing in mind. If I
> understand your argument, you're saying that anyone *not* doing this in
> the job of executive director should be fired? [...]

Not at all (not sure how I passed that impression). I'm basically
pointing out that, had I been hired to coach a soccer team, for
instance, it would be automatically assumed that I'd go and talk to my
staff (trainer, medics, etc) as part of my job.

[...] From where we were 18
> months ago, this (very time-consuming) part of the job has been
> invaluable for the foundation. We've gone from being quite passive with
> our advisory board to being forward in asking them to get involved in
> projects we're running.

And that is the impression I've gotten, so things are better indeed.

Once again, I am not questioning the performance of our CEO but only
questioning the tasks that have been elected as being "bonus worth".

Cheers,
-- 
Og B. Maciel

omac...@foresightlinux.org
ogmac...@gnome.org
ogmac...@ubuntu.com

GPG Keys: D5CFC202

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Re: GNOME Foundation and CEO Goals

[Dave Neary]

Hi,

Og Maciel wrote:
> I just felt that goals such as:
> 
>  $500 - Improving relations with the advisory board, starting
> regular 1-on-1 meetings with them, etc.

For this one, the starting point is worth bearing in mind. If I
understand your argument, you're saying that anyone *not* doing this in
the job of executive director should be fired? From where we were 18
months ago, this (very time-consuming) part of the job has been
invaluable for the foundation. We've gone from being quite passive with
our advisory board to being forward in asking them to get involved in
projects we're running.

>  $250 - Improving relations with the community (keynotes, blogs)
>  $500 - Working with the board.
>$1,000 - For being the eyes & ears of GNOME.  The quarterly report,
> advisory board relations & meetings.

If I understand correctly, these are discressionary bonuses allowing the
board to reward the task being done better than expectations.

You're right - all of these should be done anyway by an ED, to some
extent. By setting a performance bonus, you're setting priorities, and
indicating areas where "good enough" won't do. Seems reasonable to me.

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
dne...@gnome.org
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Re: GNOME Foundation and CEO Goals

[Og Maciel]

Thank you for your reply John.

>  The bonuses both reflect pie in the sky,
> you are probably never going to get this done items to more mundane items
> which none the less, contribute to the growth of the foundation.

I just felt that goals such as:

 $500 - Improving relations with the advisory board, starting
regular 1-on-1 meetings with them, etc.
 $250 - Improving relations with the community (keynotes, blogs)
 $500 - Working with the board.
   $1,000 - For being the eyes & ears of GNOME.  The quarterly report,
advisory board relations & meetings.

would be things that are not in the "pie in the sky" category and
should be assumed something any CEO would do for a company. Not saying
that the practice of awarding bonuses to CEOs is not something
companies do, but am questioning some of the goals themselves.

Cheers,
-- 
Og B. Maciel

omac...@foresightlinux.org
ogmac...@gnome.org
ogmac...@ubuntu.com

GPG Keys: D5CFC202

http://www.ogmaciel.com (en_US)
http://blog.ogmaciel.com (pt_BR)
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GNU hackers meeting & GUADEC 2011 colocation?

[Andy Wingo]

Hi all,

At November's GNU Hackers Meeting in Gothenburg, there was some interest
expressed in increasing communication between GNU hackers and GNOME
hackers. Co-locating a GNU Hackers Meeting with GUADEC would be a great
way to do this.

GHM events have in the past been pretty small -- about 25 people or so.
See http://www.gnu.org/ghm/ for info about past schedules.

So inspired by Vincent's recent mail, let this be a mini-proposal for
GHM co-location with the 2011 GUADEC. The ideal needs would be one
smallish (40-50 people) room for three days. GHM events have had some
funding attached to them in the past, enough to support them; while of
course I can't predict the future, GNU probably could help support costs
of the venue, when the time comes to discuss that.

I have copied the GNU internal list on this mail. Unfortunately GNU has
no public lists for internal discussion -- a bit odd, but that's how it
is. So I've also set the reply-to to foundation-list; perhaps we (both
groups) can thread discussion there?

Cheers,

Andy
-- 
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