[HOT] Some thoughts about HOT Inc. (long)

Kate Chapman kate at maploser.com
Wed Jul 11 09:51:40 BST 2012


Hi All,

Here is my response below. As I have stated before to people, I'm
available and open to answer questions. This can be through whatever
means of communication people prefer.

Just as a reminder to everyone. There are four levels of management
and participation in HOT. People can be members of multiple levels. I
recently became the Acting Executive Director, the goal of this is to
move the organization forward so we can hire a permanent Executive
Director. I am responsible for the day to day activities to run HOT
the organization.

Executive Director: Run day to day decisions
Board Members: Strategic decisions. e.g. fundraising, long term strategy
Members: elect the board of HOT and currently we are working on ways
to incorporate more direct feedback.
HOT volunteers: participate in activations and project work.

My preference is for people to have open discussions on mailing lists.

-Kate


Hi Jean-Guilhem,

I appreciate your frankness and honesty. I'm speaking as myself here,
but I would assume others would weigh in with their opinions.

Commons-Based Peer Production and HOT

The intent is not for the HOT board to control the interaction between
the humanitarian community and OpenStreetMap. These processes and
methods could be improved. There does remain the "issue" though if HOT
specifically decides to activate/react to something I think there is
an organizational responsibility to make sure it gets done versus an
individual reacting and their personal responsibility.

One of the hopes with an activation working group would be to improve
the way this works. I realize process has been slow, perhaps not that
many people are interested or concerned. There are many people that
come just to digitize and help that way.

HOTs Structure

HOT is a non-profit NGO, this is different from the OpenStreetMap
community similar to how the OpenStreetMap Foundation is not the
OpenStreetMap community either. I wrote the articles of incorporation
and the bylaws back when we originally incorporated. The intent there
was to allow us to do paid work so we could work on the ground, the
entire initial reason for the incorporation was to be able to do a
specific project in Haiti with IOM. Previous to that individuals were
contracted to go on missions to Haiti starting in March 2010 until
August 2010.

The structure created was mostly my input. Meaning I requested
feedback from the mailing list, the documents were in the wiki, but
ultimately I submitted the paperwork and put a deadline on the
creation. My personal intent was to create a membership organization
so there would be a way for the board to change with elections as the
membership saw fit. Or the membership could displace the board if they
were unhappy with its action throughout the year.

The Bridge

John can probably speak more to the specifics of this, but large
organizations want to speak to structures not bands of individuals.
For example negotiation to obtain access to imagery through NextView,
there has to be an NGO that the government is working with in a
response. It can't just be "some people that do OpenStreetMap."

I do think that HOT serves as that structural bridge, it doesn't have
to be the only one HOT does not have a monopoly on it. What we do have
a monopoly on is the recoganized organizational name. HOT can sign a
legal document for example. individuals can sign a legal agreement,
but the collective cannot. Since we are that legal organization we
have a name. Meaning when people speak for "The Humanitarian
OpenStreetMap Team" they are speaking for HOT, meaning there should be
a specific set of values, goals and mission being spoken. If someone
wants to talk as OpenStreetMap contributor with a particular interest
in humanitarian response, they are free to do that.

Financial Transparency

There is not a requirement to seperate the board and those receiving
financial renumeration. It is quite common for Executive Directors for
non-profits in the United States to serve on the board and head the
organization. Though one of the goals I would like to see if the board
be more strategic and employees and volunteers handle the majority of
the day to day activities. How this structure will work out longterm I
think is to be seen and discussed.

In the short-term we are defining the Executive Director position and
in the next 6-9 months will hire a permanent person to do the job. I
want this to be done in the most open way possible and would like
suggestions on how that might be accomplished.

As for the lack general financial transparency. Honestly that has been
a serious of bookkeepers and accountants failing us. I am gathering
quotes from accounting firms now so that we can provide quarterly
financial reports to HOT's membership. I understand and believe this
type of transparency is important and have failed at executing it.

Other Transparency

Yes other things could have been done with the money spent on your
trip to Haiti. Maybe this would have helped in the short-term on the
project or in the country. The reason HOT has been offering these
internships is so that more people are exposed to the fieldwork that
has been ongoing for the past two and a half years. The goal of the
interships aren't specific to a single project, they are meant to
allow the development of skills to work in other places and
potentially lead projects. There are many interested in OpenStreetMap
in disaster and development context, but who lack that sort of
experience. The hope is to allow the building of that experience.

I'm not sure what you mean about the mailing lists going through a PR
filter. Everything onging is cannot be immediately public. For example
when negotating a project, coming to an agreement for a donation or
other types of discussions I think it can't always be immediately
public. Especially when talking to large organizations that have many
rules for communication. It has been suggested before that we create a
mailing list for the HOT membership. Do you think that makes sense? I
would like to see more voting on governance and structural topics, but
I'm not sure the best way to do that. For example there could be
project discussions that maybe we don't want on a public mailing list
that particular potential donor would read or other reasons to have
those involved limited.

Elections

I sought suggestions for the initial board elections. The methodology
in which was did it was the best way I could think of to do it. What
would have been your suggestion? Currently I think this is less of a
problem. There is a membership of 49 HOT members and they are free to
nominate whoever they want to the membership and to run for the board
of directors. So it is possible for the entire structure of the
organization to change.

However the intent was not to create a full umbrella of all of
OpenStreetMap interested in humanitarian action and development. The
intent was to be able to have a structure organization that could
negotiate agreements and do project work to fulfill the mission of the
non-profit incorporated organization.

Best,

-Kate

On Wed, Jul 11, 2012 at 3:30 PM, Jean-Guilhem Cailton <jgc at arkemie.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Here is an email that I had sent to the members of the HOT Board on June
> 2nd.
>
> Kate had replied. Netiquette would make it inappropriate for me to send her
> answer to a public mailing list, but she can do it herself if she wishes, of
> course.
>
> As it appears that I may be censored soon, I'd like to share this with you
> while (and if) I still can.
>
>
> ----------
>
>
> Hi,
>
> A while ago, input has been asked from members of the HOT mailing list about
> the strategy of HOT. I've put together a few thoughts about HOT, that I have
> had for a while - for some of them.
>
> I've followed HOT since before it was created. Mostly remotely. Recently, I
> am grateful to have been able to attend the internship in Saint Marc in
> March, which has given me an opportunity to witness directly and appreciate
> the work done in the field.
>
> I have a lot of respect and appreciation for the individuals in the HOT
> Board, and what they have done. I don't know much about the inner workings
> of the Board. Yet there are things that I think could be improved in what I
> could perceive of the Board's way of working.
>
> I think that the potential of OSM for humanitarian action and development is
> very important, and that it might be useful to share my views on these
> things, in an attempt to try to raise some hindrances to this potential.
>
> Commons-Based Peer Production and HOT
>
>
> What is the fundamental organizational principle that explains how
> OpenStreetMap in general, and the remote mobilization after the 2010 Haiti
> earthquake as an example in particular, work ? Yochai Benkler had described
> it as "commons-based peer production" (CBPP) in his paper "Coase's penguin"
> (http://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.html), that Schuyler mentioned in his
> talk at Where 2.0 2010.
>
> Why do I feel the need to recall this? Because in this same enlightening
> paper, Yochai Benkler opposes this mode of production to hierarchical
> management based organizations and to market prices based organizations.
>
> So these are fundamentally different modes of organization.
>
> In practice, for some of the activities of HOT, a mixture of these types of
> organizations may be appropriate. For example, for the mapping project in
> Saint Marc, a dimension of top-down managerial organization was probably
> appropriate to organize the logistics, training and coordination work of 30
> young local mappers, and to satisfy the requirements of the sponsor USAID.
>
> Yet, for the broad spectrum of OSM activities related in some way to
> humanitarian action and development, this mix should be done carefully.
> Otherwise, the risk is to sterilize the huge potential of CBPP for the
> humanitarian dimension of OSM.
>
> Let me quote Yochai Benkler (p. 47):
> "The point here is qualitative. It is not only, or even primarily, that more
> people can participate in production. The widely distributed model of
> information production will better identify who is the best person to
> produce a specific component of a project, all abilities and availability to
> work on the specific module within a specific time frame considered. With
> enough uncertainty as to the value of various productive activities and
> enough variability in the quality of information inputs and human creative
> talent vis-à-vis any set of production opportunities, coordination and
> continuous communications among the pool of potential producers and
> consumers can generate better information about the most valuable
> productive actions and the best human agents available at a given time.
> Although markets and firm incentive schemes are aimed at producing
> precisely this form of self-identification, the rigidities associated with
> collecting and comprehending bids from individuals through these systems
> (i.e., transaction costs) limit the efficacy of self-identification,
> relative to
> peer production."
>
> and (p. 50):
> "This initial statement is a simplification and understatement of the
> potential value of the function by which the sizes of the sets of agents and
> resources increase productivity. There are two additional components: the
> range of projects that might be pursued with different talent applied to a
> given set of resources and the potential for valuable collaboration. First,
> a
> more diverse set of talents looking at a set of resources may reveal
> available
> projects that would not be apparent when one only considers the set of
> resources as usable by a bounded set of agents. In other words, one of the
> advantages may be not the ability of A1 to pursue a given project with r2
> better than A2 could have but the ability to see that a more valuable
> project
> is possible.
>
> Second, the initial statement does not take into consideration the
> possible ways in which cooperating individuals can make each other
> creative in different ways than they otherwise would have been. Once one
> takes into consideration these diverse effects on the increased
> possibilities
> for relationships among individuals and between individuals and resources,
> it becomes even more likely that there are increasing returns to scale to
> increases in the number of agents and resources involved in a production
> process."
>
> You can also refer to figures near these pages that show how the potential
> of positive interactions increase when restrictions are reduced.
>
> An area that I see as having a potential for improvement from this point of
> view in the context of HOT is the exchange of information (I'll use this
> term instead of "communication", which tends to be ambiguous with "public
> relations"), between, on one the one hand, the needs and existing data
> resources of ("traditional") humanitarian actors, and, on the other hand,
> the volunteers that could help.
>
> HOT Inc. present itself as a "bridge" between the two. It should be more
> careful not to be a bottleneck.
>
> Let us illustrate this with a very simplified model, that should yet be
> sufficient to give an idea of the orders of magnitude involved. If N is the
> number of NGOs, international, governmental or local organizations that
> could interact in a positive way with the humanitarian OSM community, and V
> is the number of volunteers or potential volunteers in this community, the
> number of potential interactions, matching needs with volunteer resources to
> act on them, is of the order N x V, (O(N.V) in computer science notation),
> IF all volunteers can be aware of all the needs, and decide to allocate
> their time and competence to them if they think it can useful.
>
> If all the potential interactions have to go through a central point, such
> as the Board of HOT Inc., for example, the number of potential interactions
> is limited by the processing capability of this center, which is a constant
> C (small relative to V - currently C is no more than 7). The number of
> potential interactions "with the outside" is O(NC). And the number of
> potential interactions "with the inside" is O(CV). The total number of
> potential interactions is not more than O(CN + CV). Which is in general very
> small relative to O(NV).
>
> If we plug in example numbers, to give a concrete idea, and, to be
> conservative, set N to the order of 100 and V to 1000, the number of
> potential interactions if information flows freely is of the order of 100
> 000, but only of 7700 if they have to go through a center point. That is to
> say that more than 90 % of potential interactions does not even have any
> chance to happen. (And nobody knows about it).
>
> Basically we fall back to the limitation of the hierarchical management
> model, where allocation of "resources" relies on the limited knowledge of
> management hierarchy.
>
> Whatever the quality and talent of the members of the Board, the actions
> that can be understood, approved and controlled by them is only a very small
> subset of all the potentially positive actions that could be carried out by
> the community at large. The Board should thus be careful not to reduce this
> potential by limiting information exchange.
>
> Some external organizations may be happy to find interlocutors with whom
> they can interact in the traditional way they are used to. But if this were
> the only way to interact with the community, the true potential of CBPP
> would essentially be lost.
>
> "Center does not scale."
>
> CBPP cannot really scale to its full potential without more transparency in
> the interactions with the outside. And it should be accepted that not
> everything that can happen in the interactions between the "traditional"
> humanitarian community and the OSM community be controlled by the HOT Board.
>
> There are already so many things to do in support functions. And there will
> be even much more if these interactions are left to grow naturally.
>
>
> It is not easy to define a priori exactly how this new paradigm of CBPP
> should best be organized. But at least,organization types that go against
> its core principles should be avoided as much as possible.
>
> Good intentions are not enough. (It is not difficult to find examples of
> good intentions that had bad results). "The road to hell is paved with good
> intentions".
>
> So please be careful, and take this into consideration. It is a fundamental
> problem, and a lot of damage could be done if it is not taken into account.
>
> "We do not know what we ignore, until we know it."
>
> Financial Tranparency
>
>
> After this fundamental organizational question, I think there is more
> specifically a governance question.
>
> Actually, it depends upon what HOT Inc. intends to be.
>
> If it wants to help support the humanitarian OSM community, there are some
> governance principles that should be appropriate. For example, those that
> apply to non-profit organizations. The intention to get this status formally
> in the US has been stated. Given the international status of the community,
> some international considerations could be taken into account as well.
>
> For example, in France, it is a basic fiscal principle that people who
> receive a remuneration from a non-profit association cannot be on its board.
> The reason is probably that if there are divergences between the particular
> interests of the employees and the general interest, it would be too much to
> ask from the employees on the board to systematically make choices against
> their own interests. (Thus the non-profit status would be endangered.) I
> think this also applies to people who are professionally active in the
> field.
>
> The proposed status rule that a member of the Board should abstain when his
> or her direct personal interests are at stake is not really satisfying, as
> in practice it is known that in organizations where this is the rule, people
> can easily work around it with behaviors that can be summarized by "you are
> nice to me, so I'll be nice to you". It is also quite possible that there be
> a kind of corporatist interest for the "professional" members of the Board,
> distinct from the general interest.
>
> So it seems that having at least one level of independence in the decision
> process would be a good thing.
>
> Given the current situation and history of HOT, I don't know what would be
> the best way to improve the situation in this respect. Maybe introduce a
> kind of "surveillance council" (similar to what was envisioned, e.g., for
> Ayiti Living Lab), that could be composed of independent personalities, both
> from the "traditional" humanitarian community, from OSM volunteers or even
> more independent.
>
> Or, at least, a first step would be to be much more transparent.
>
> OSGeo, that was mentioned as an example for HOT structure, has monthly open
> board meetings on IRC. This is also the case for OSM France, where the board
> meetings were weekly on IRC, and open to all those interested. These
> organizations also have board mailing lists, open to the interested members.
> (The current HOT communication efforts - mailing list, blog, IRC - are
> commendable, but it feels like they go through a PR filter, and that the
> real issues are not there).
>
> Also, if you look at HOT Inc. as a company, in the traditional capitalist
> sense, it would be fair to consider that a part of its founding capital was
> contributed by the OSM contributors, for Haiti and elsewhere before that,
> mappers and developers, whose contribution "in kind" gave it its value. This
> virtual debt should not be forgotten. And in traditional capitalist
> companies, shareholders are entitled to information, including financial
> information. Given the specific context and philosophy of the OSM community,
> open information would seem to be an appropriate analogy.
>
> Another thing about associations in France is that they inform their members
> of their financial accounting. Especially if they are non-profit, and
> especially if they are humanitarian and make public calls for donations,
> they must inform the public. So this has come to be considered as a minimum
> standard (and it is likely the same in the US).
>
> Full financial transparency
>
>
> While on this subject, I would even suggest to take into account the fact
> that we are in 2012, and promoting open data, and to go further than
> traditional financial reporting. The inspiration for this comes from the
> founder of an associative ISP (Tetaneutral.net). In a presentation to a
> local FOSS user group, after explaining the technical and legal aspects of
> setting up an ISP, he detailed every expense incurred in running it. His
> vision, as a former finance professional, is that it is all too easy to hide
> things in traditional summary financial statements. And that the day when
> open data will include all detailed public finances, for example, corruption
> will be much easier to detect. Corruption is a major plague in today's
> World. HOT is, or might be, involved in countries where it may have some of
> the worst presence at all levels. Thus there is an opportunity to show an
> example of open detailed financial data, as a practical mean to fight
> corruption.
>
> While we show the benefits of open data in the cartographic field, we could
> as an added benefit show its advantages in the governance field.
>
> This could actually be rather easy to implement in practice. Since
> accounting must already be done, it is only a matter of taking the decision
> to open it.
>
> So these are minimum or desirable ethical standards that I'd suggest for HOT
> if it wants to better support the humanitarian OSM community.
>
> In a word, _transparency_ would bring both scaling capacity and ethical
> benefits.
>
> It could also be a way to get interested people really involved, as the wish
> has been expressed at the last strategic meeting.
>
>
> Financial transparency could also be instrumental in finding a proper
> balance between CBPP and market prices driven production. If an organization
> financially supports a HOT project, the modalities of this support should be
> transparent, so that volunteers can knowingly choose to allocate their time
> to this project. Otherwise, in a worst case scenario, we could imagine that
> financially influential actors could manipulate behind the scenes the
> mobilization of volunteers, by orienting it based on hidden price signals.
> For a sound CBPP, the information about these price signals, which may be
> justified and even necessary to carry on some projects, should be
> transparently available among the other elements of information available to
> volunteers. And projects should be able to be considered even if they are
> not financed.
>
>
> Alternatively, it is also possible that HOT Inc. would rather be a
> consulting or humanitarian business around OSM, as there are others. But
> then this should be clear, and HOT should not let itself be perceived as
> representing the humanitarian OSM community, from the outside as well as
> from the inside. (By the way, it is unfortunate that the process by which
> the initial HOT Board nominated itself, and then chose or approved the
> electoral body cannot be, in my humble opinion, adequate to be considered a
> legitimate democratic representative of the OSM community interested in
> humanitarian action and development).
>
>
> Thank you for reading this far. I'd be curious to know if any of you agrees
> with anything expressed here, however awkwardly.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Jean-Guilhem
>
>
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