[Viscom-dev] Merger with WebCom?

Committees Marketing
1

Hi all,

Last week I floated the idea of merging WebCom and VisCom into something that I call ComCom (communications committee) on the WebCom list and it got a reasonable level of support.

Given that mpg is not continuing as Chair, I think that this would be an opportune time to merge the two memberships. The division between these areas has been a bit of an ongoing struggle for me anyway...

Please let me know what you think. If you'd like, we could discuss during the WebCom IRC meeting tomorrow too:

http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/WebCom_Meeting_20070321

If we can agree on this, I'll forward a recommendation to the board for their approval.

Jason

2

I agree in principle, but just worry that the VisCom event management duties will eclipse other tasks and help Webcom to lose focus. Any thoughts on that? Guess you could argue that focus is needed on both sides anyway. Just thinking out loud - the only reservations I can think of at the moment.

Tyler

On 20-Mar-07, at 10:23 PM, Jason Birch wrote:

Hi all,

Last week I floated the idea of merging WebCom and VisCom into something that I call ComCom (communications committee) on the WebCom list and it got a reasonable level of support.

Given that mpg is not continuing as Chair, I think that this would be an opportune time to merge the two memberships. The division between these areas has been a bit of an ongoing struggle for me anyway...

Please let me know what you think. If you'd like, we could discuss during the WebCom IRC meeting tomorrow too:

http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/WebCom_Meeting_20070321

If we can agree on this, I'll forward a recommendation to the board for their approval.

Jason
_______________________________________________
Viscom-dev mailing list
Viscom-dev@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/viscom-dev

3

Jason, thanks for bringing this up. As we have not had a deluge of volunteers for the VisCom top job, I'm certainly open to alternate organizational structures!

I see VisCom these days as being about "events" and "everything else". The latter category seems very demand-driven: I think it is mostly about connecting tasks with volunteers, tracking such things, and occasionally giving helpful nudges -- it is a tractable task, and could be done by a good ComCom cat-herder type of person.

The events category, however, I personally find somewhat daunting right now. In part because I think we don't have a good common vision as a Foundation as to how we want to get our word out. That in turn leads to budgeting issues, which leads to Fundraising, which leads back to VisCom, and so on. Events are also a problem because the Big Ones seem to require a significant amount of up-front planning and committment, and that's hard to do with volunteer labor. And then there's the whole Booth thing... As Tyler says, Events could subsume everything else.

ASIDE: I think I've learned two things on the Events side. First, if Autodesk (or whoever) says to us "free booth!" I've felt like we have to take it -- and that's wrong. Free gifts like that aren't free! Second, OSGeo isn't a company and need not market itself like one: big booths at large shows are maybe not all that valuable to us. We could probably get more mileage out of having workshops or speakers -- or a hosted BOF -- than a booth. [Others, like Frank and Arnulf, have said as much in the past. It takes a while for messages to sink into my brain, sorry guys.] For now, maybe OSGeo should only do events of the type where people come to us and say "our local chapter (or whatever) will do everything, just give us $1-2K".

So, I might perhaps be willing to consider the following possible suggestion:

- move the Big Event question over to the ED (sorry, Tyler), because for now it requires substantial up-front planning and monetary committment; if the Board and ED don't want to do any Big Shows this year, then great; all other Events should be only of the form "we'll give you small grant" and handled by ComCom -- unless someone volunteers for more (again on a case by case basis, like Intergeo)

- all other VisCom issues be merged into a unified ComCom team

I'll think some more tonight and try to join the webcom mtg tomorrow if I can.

-mpg

________________________________

From: viscom-dev-bounces@lists.osgeo.org on behalf of Tyler Mitchell
Sent: Tue 3/20/2007 10:40 PM
To: Visibility Committee Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Viscom-dev] Merger with WebCom?

I agree in principle, but just worry that the VisCom event management
duties will eclipse other tasks and help Webcom to lose focus. Any
thoughts on that? Guess you could argue that focus is needed on both
sides anyway. Just thinking out loud - the only reservations I can
think of at the moment.

Tyler

On 20-Mar-07, at 10:23 PM, Jason Birch wrote:

Hi all,

Last week I floated the idea of merging WebCom and VisCom into
something that I call ComCom (communications committee) on the
WebCom list and it got a reasonable level of support.

Given that mpg is not continuing as Chair, I think that this would
be an opportune time to merge the two memberships. The division
between these areas has been a bit of an ongoing struggle for me
anyway...

Please let me know what you think. If you'd like, we could discuss
during the WebCom IRC meeting tomorrow too:

http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/WebCom_Meeting_20070321 <http://
wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/WebCom_Meeting_20070321>

If we can agree on this, I'll forward a recommendation to the board
for their approval.

Jason
_______________________________________________
Viscom-dev mailing list
Viscom-dev@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/viscom-dev

_______________________________________________
Viscom-dev mailing list
Viscom-dev@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/viscom-dev

4

On 21-Mar-07, at 12:09 AM, Michael P. Gerlek wrote:

Events are also a problem because the Big Ones seem to require a significant amount of up-front planning and committment, and that's hard to do with volunteer labor.

I think we're doing okay on this so far, but having a budget will help with this by providing more resources to the volunteers.

- move the Big Event question over to the ED (sorry, Tyler), because for now it requires substantial up-front planning and monetary committment; if the Board and ED don't want to do any Big Shows this year, then great; all other Events should be only of the form "we'll give you small grant" and handled by ComCom -- unless someone volunteers for more (again on a case by case basis, like Intergeo)

I see it as really being up to VisCom to decide what events/types of events to aim for. I think we've laid out the vision/plan for VisCom pretty well - at least on the event side.. now it's just a budget question. That's why we went through the event brainstorming and budgeting exercise.

It seems to me that others on the committee are happy to take on some of the bigger events as long as adequate support is available. How much financial support the board approves is another matter, but don't let it confuse you. Perhaps we need to have this discussion again, but thought we ironed this out a while back.

I'm not sure exactly what you are thinking I could do better than the committee, but I don't think it will help. I can really only handle 1 at a time max. and am not so perfectly attuned to the community to be able to know what events are best or most important, etc. It gives a false sense that I am "in charge" of something that is really the mandate of a committee that is more than adequate to handle it.

Back to Jason's question... when I say I think event management could subsume the new committee, I mean that when we have a meeting about events they tend to take a long time or require high energy. Sometimes you have little time/energy left after going through it - but that could just be me :slight_smile: Also they have such real timelines/deadlines associated with them that events tend to take priority over everything else.

Is that a showstopper or major concern to others? Still, if there is significant overlap between the people on both committees, perhaps working closer together on the whole visibility side would make sense.

I'm not sure either way...
Tyler

5

I'm not so sure we do have the volunteer resources to staff as many
non-small events as we'd like -- aside from Arnulf and Intergeo, I'm not
sure we're well-off. I know Josh could use more help for Where, and I
feel like you (Tyler) sort of got stuck with both AU and Location
Intelligence by default. I certainly don't think it should have to be
the ED role to *run* all the events!

I guess what I meant my separating out the Big Events to the ED role is
precisely because it requires so much work up front to figure out where
the money is coming from; I don't see many of us being able to do that
well, and in fact I'm not sure such a financial responsibility ought to
be distributed. Furthermore, by saying "we will do N big shows" implies
that we *will* do them -- and then if no one can readily commit to a
full-on effort to seeing each one through, I feel like it falls to
VisCom to "make sure it happens". I'd almost rather see the ED be able
to say to the world "we have $ for the X event, is there anyone willing
to run it?" -- and then it gets run as a a mini-task-force, not VisCom
proper, kind of like we're treating FOSS4G. Could VisCom fill that
role? Yes, probably, but I (speaking for myself) don't feel I've been
successful at managing that.

And on other hand, of course, yes, VisCom will always have to help out
somehow, as we have the collateral, booth (maybe), etc.

*sigh*

I know we've gone around and around on this, but I think I myself am
lately still not comfortable with our general approach [which is why in
part I'm stepping down, I think we need some new blood and fresh
perspectives].

-mpg

-----Original Message-----
From: viscom-dev-bounces@lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:viscom-dev-bounces@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of
Tyler Mitchell
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 1:40 PM
To: Visibility Committee Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Viscom-dev] Merger with WebCom?

On 21-Mar-07, at 12:09 AM, Michael P. Gerlek wrote:

> Events are also a problem because the Big Ones seem to require a
> significant amount of up-front planning and committment,
and that's
> hard to do with volunteer labor.

I think we're doing okay on this so far, but having a budget will
help with this by providing more resources to the volunteers.

> - move the Big Event question over to the ED (sorry, Tyler),
> because for now it requires substantial up-front planning and
> monetary committment; if the Board and ED don't want to do any Big
> Shows this year, then great; all other Events should be
only of the
> form "we'll give you small grant" and handled by ComCom -- unless
> someone volunteers for more (again on a case by case basis, like
> Intergeo)

I see it as really being up to VisCom to decide what events/types of
events to aim for. I think we've laid out the vision/plan
for VisCom
pretty well - at least on the event side.. now it's just a budget
question. That's why we went through the event brainstorming and
budgeting exercise.

It seems to me that others on the committee are happy to take
on some
of the bigger events as long as adequate support is available. How
much financial support the board approves is another matter, but
don't let it confuse you. Perhaps we need to have this discussion
again, but thought we ironed this out a while back.

I'm not sure exactly what you are thinking I could do better
than the
committee, but I don't think it will help. I can really only handle
1 at a time max. and am not so perfectly attuned to the community to
be able to know what events are best or most important, etc. It
gives a false sense that I am "in charge" of something that
is really
the mandate of a committee that is more than adequate to handle it.

Back to Jason's question... when I say I think event
management could
subsume the new committee, I mean that when we have a meeting about
events they tend to take a long time or require high energy.
Sometimes you have little time/energy left after going through it -
but that could just be me :slight_smile: Also they have such real timelines/
deadlines associated with them that events tend to take
priority over
everything else.

Is that a showstopper or major concern to others? Still, if
there is
significant overlap between the people on both committees, perhaps
working closer together on the whole visibility side would make sense.

I'm not sure either way...
Tyler
_______________________________________________
Viscom-dev mailing list
Viscom-dev@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/viscom-dev

6

Tyler wrote:

It seems to me that others on the committee are happy
to take on some of the bigger events as long as adequate
support is available. How much financial support the
board approves is another matter, but don't let it confuse
you. Perhaps we need to have this discussion again,
but thought we ironed this out a while back.

Probably. From an outsider's viewpoint, I'm in favour of supporting
smaller events that don't cost the foundation as much. I'm worried
about the ongoing viability of OSGeo as a high-outlay organisation, and
feel that in a lot of the budgeting we are definitely putting the cart
before the horse. Are we still confident of the level of funding that
we will be able to sustain on an annual basis? If not, VisCom needs to
rethink priorities. Even if there is money available, large events take
up a disproportionate amount of VisCom's scarce volunteer resources.
They might be better spent on grass-roots communications efforts than
big shows.

Also they have such real timelines/ deadlines associated
with them that events tend to take priority over everything else.

For specific events, I'd suggest striking subset groups which can meet
outside of regular times and present their decisions to the committee.

Jason