[HOT] Board Elections: another Personal Opinion

[Kate Chapman]

On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 11:05 PM, Jaakko Helleranta.com
<jaakko at helleranta.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 12:53 AM, Heather Leson <hleson at ushahidi.com> wrote:
>>
>> things to be nailed down this year:
>>
>> 1. Membership policies, election format and growth strategy
>
>
> +1
>
> 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":
>
> 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.

Honestly though I think the issue with that is people just expect
someone to think to nominate them. There are people that get forgotten
(obviously). So I would hope that there is a way for people to
indicate their interest or something.
>
> 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.
>
>
> 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.

Well, I think the main issue is actually that we only have membership
drives once a year. I don't think there is anything wrong with having
the statement of member. It just shouldn't be impossible for someone
to get it.

I would also ideally like there to be a certain amount of volunteer
time required for voting members. Meaning it should be a two way
street. There are some non-voters that do a ton of work, but then
there are some voting members that we only hear from once a year when
they tick a ballot.

>
> 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)?
>
> e.g.
>
> Current voting member:
>
> name=council member
> old_name=voting member
> short_name=voter(?)
> description=the official/legal members of HOT, the non-profit organization
>
>
> Community members:
>
> name=community member
> short_name=member
> loc_name=HOT member (?)
> description=all the wonderful active people that make HOT what it is and
> pitch in to making OSM even better humanitarian mapping environment
>
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
> 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.

Though you forget the circular issue of the Executive Director being
the staff's boss and then if the staff is on the board they are the
ED's boss. That is also kind of a mess.

It is not as if the staff is never going to speak to the board again.
Staff would work with the board to create policy in the first place,
so I don't think the lack of experience is the end of the world. There
are members of HOT with extensive field experience, they could have
also been nominated to run for the board. I'm unsure they were not.

>
> 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.
>
> 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!
>
> Cheers,
> -Jaakko
>
> 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 STV or IRV. I would be also happy to commit my time to an HOT
> electoral working group should such be formed at some point.

The current election format is just one I made up. So it would not be
bad for people to have input. The reason I say "I" is I did most of
the paperwork for HOT and people mostly just said "ok".

-Kate


>
> --
> jaakko at helleranta.com * Skype: jhelleranta * Mobile: +509-37-269154  *
> http://go.hel.cc/about.me
>
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