On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 12:53 AM, Heather Leson <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:hleson@ushahidi.com" target="_blank">hleson@ushahidi.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div id=":6jt">things to be nailed down this year:<br>
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1. Membership policies, election format and growth strategy</div></blockquote></div><br>+1<div><br></div><div>Having just become a voting member of HOT I want to share my response to an email I just got congratulating me on the "membership":</div>
<div><br></div><div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.800000190734863px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">I'd like to emphasize, though -- and would encourage others to do the same -- that I have merely been granted the _voting_ member status in the humanitarian OpenStreetMap community, which is formally/legally known as the H.O.T.</div>
<div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.800000190734863px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.800000190734863px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">
I think that it would be really important that HOT would figure out a way to call the people in the community-at-large members, too. And similarly I'd like to see that voting members were called just that: _voting_ members.</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I feel that this touches Katrina's email yesterday ("I'm _just_ an HOT volunteer" .. emphasis mine, of course) and my own experience from the three years I was involved with HOT as a "non-member". I think that in order to build a solid global community of humanitarian mappers around OSM we have to have a clear "equals status" for the community members at-large. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Should voting members possibly e.g. rather create a HOT council (or congress or something) and should we maybe start calling all active people in the community (HOT) members (.. or at least some sort of members)?</div>
<div><br></div><div>e.g.</div><div><br></div><div>Current voting member:</div></div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px"><div><div>name=council member</div></div><div>old_name=voting member</div>
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short_name=voter(?)</div><div>description=the official/legal members of HOT, the non-profit organization</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Community members:</div><div><blockquote style="margin:0 0 0 40px;border:none;padding:0px">
<div>name=community member</div><div>short_name=<b>member</b></div><div>loc_name=HOT member (?)</div><div>description=all the wonderful active people that make HOT what it is and pitch in to making OSM even better humanitarian mapping environment</div>
</blockquote></div><div><br></div><div>The point of this is that while we surely need people who are especially dedicated to developing/promoting HOT it's just as important that all who have a humanitarian itch + interest in scratching that itch with OSM should be made to feel equally welcomed to the community. </div>
<div><br></div><div>This is one of the two main reasons that I feel that it is important to have people on the Board who are intimately involved with the emerging communities / in the field as well as with other like-minded communities.</div>
<div><br></div><div>As per the question of compensated people on the Board question: I share the thought that it is certainly a goal to aim for. But this is not a new thing in good practices of organization management. The question I have is: What is needed to make HOT a successful organization and what might risk making it happen? And in contemplating that I think that having solid field experience is at least as important as the other important factors. </div>
<div>But so, hopefully sooner than later we will have a situation where it's possible to have a board with no employees in it _and_ where the board has solid field experience that has been represented until now by Kate, Nico and Mikel. And with Kate stepping down -- which is very good -- as the director of the organization on the board is structurally the most problematic case (purely in terms of management principles) -- I think it would not be good for HOT if we would not see Nicolas or Severin on the new board.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Other than Severin and Nicolas I want to +1 Heather for the board (as of now); these are the three easy choices for me.. I'm not sure I have ever _talked_ with Heather for more than 5 minutes, btw, but I am impressed by pretty much all of what I know of her / see in her profile / character. And diversification is not among the least important factors.</div>
<div><br></div><div>As for the other 4 to vote: I haven't made up my mind yet. .. I feel that there are a number of equally good candidates -- and a few that I don't feel I know well enough. ... All candidates that haven't pitched themselves for the position yet: There's still time to do that!</div>
<div><br></div><div>Cheers,</div><div>-Jaakko</div><div><br></div><div>Ps. If HOT (hopefully) looks into it's election format I would (based on my prior experience with organizations' voting reforms) recommend that HOT would change its election format to some sort of preferential voting system such as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote">STV</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_vote">IRV</a>. I would be also happy to commit my time to an HOT electoral working group should such be formed at some point.</div>
<div><br clear="all"><div><div>--</div><div><div><a href="mailto:jaakko@helleranta.com" target="_blank">jaakko@helleranta.com</a> * Skype: jhelleranta * Mobile: +509-37-269154 * <a href="http://go.hel.cc/about.me" target="_blank">http://go.hel.cc/about.me</a></div>
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