[HOT] A company page for HOT on Linkedin, is it normal ?

Sun Feb 8 23:32:43 UTC 2015

Hi all,

I rename the object of the discussion because from the example of Linkedin,
this email is dealing with a bigger issue. Begining of the discussion is
available at the bottom.

If the HOT US Inc organization have a "company" page on Linkedin, I don't
really feel affected even if it's not insignificant.
I know this designation of « HOT US Inc » embarasses some people but this
is a main part of the essence of the problem : the distinction between HOT
as a project and HOT US Inc as an US-based NGO. So I will use "HOT US Inc"
as a convenient way to refer to this organization.

By creating this page, the Communication Working Group must use a different
name of « Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team ». By using this inappropriate
designation, the HOT US Inc organization keeps up the monopolization of
public/private positions around the HOT objectives, speaking as if you were
representing the thousands of volunteers working with praiseworthy
motivations, it's how people can feel about this, it's how I feel.

 Let's begin with an example :
I work as a volunteer for the Projet Espace OSM Francophone in Burkina Faso
for the year 2015 to support the growth of the local OSM community,
improve the map and to outreach civil society, academics, authorities,
association, medias etc. (last blog post
<http://projeteof.org/le-local-dosm-burkina-est-ouvert/>) We organized
mapathons to support, with other african communities, Ebola response : we
are here in the heart of the HOT Project.
But what happens ? people like the HOT concept, they go on the internet and
search for "Humanitarian OSM Team" : they find hotosm.org with the HOT logo.

They see the page "Leadership" with "Finance" or "Membership" sections, or
the page "Get Involved" with the "Joining the organization" section ...
and they ask "hum...but OpenStreetMap is not a free, open and collaborative
project ?", "are you working for them ?", « HOT is american ? »
And now the new "company" page on Linkedin will reinforce this kind of
dangerous confusion : this is not insignificant.

Everybody is free to choose his/her approach within the HOT concept but
what occurs now is that choices are more and more restricted, less choices
for individuals, for us, volunteers … because of this monopolization.

Just put this in the context of the wide OSM community : imagine that ALL
the information linked to OSM project was linked to a specific-country
incorporated organization called ... OSM ! same logo, same name, same aims,
same websites, same tools … Here is the problem !

HOT is a powerful name, built by a collaborative work !
It can't be taken away by anybody, by any organization, even if the birth
of the organization was intimately linked to the birth of the project :
same context, same people ...

It's not a good approach to say "you should join us in Working Groups" to
help decide the future of HOT ... this is really time-consuming, in english
with a majority of native-english speaker and people don't seem to be
pretty interested by this kind of concern (it has been already raised for 1
year now and it's worse and worse).
Within the HOT Project the responsability :
- of the membership is to be challenging and demanding because we can do
best for the HOT project.
- of the community is to refuse the consequent appropriation of his HOT
Project by an organization growing quickly.
- of the board of the HOT US Inc organization is to do the best to preserve
the independence, the autonomy of the HOT Project and not be at the source
of these dangerous confusions because your power is now too large.

Proposition : again it shows the importance of defining a HOT Project +
Charter + Commons as it's nicely explained in Severin's diary here
http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/sev_hotosm/diary/21846

gus

PS : as an element of context, I'd like to remind that I worked 6 months as
a volunteer for the HOT US Inc organization in Senegal in 2012
<http://hotosm.org/projects/senegal_0>

Augustin Doury
+22660717822
Projet Espace OpenStreetMap Francophone | projeteof.org | @ProjetEOF

2015-02-06 18:07 GMT+00:00 Russell Deffner <russell.deffner at hotosm.org>:

> Hi Sev,
>
>
>
> I don’t have much to specifically reply about your concerns, but wanted to
> invite any and all who are interested to join the Communication Working
> Group meeting today, in about 2 hours.  We typically meet via Skype and
> also have a group mailing list, if Skype is a problem we can try to
> accommodate folks; just reply to this message and myself, Kate, Kristen or
> Blake will help get you connected.
>
>
>
> In regards to the description, I’m pretty sure that is a copy/paste of our
> About page on the website – which is actually the bulk of work we are
> currently doing – updating that content for the website redesign.  But also
> the larger conversation about they who/what/when/why of our Social Media
> sites is part of this groups TOR.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> =Russ
>
>
>
> Russell Deffner
>
> Russell.Deffner at hotosm.org
>
> Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT)
>
> http://hot.openstreetmap.org/
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Severin Menard [mailto:severin.menard at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Friday, February 06, 2015 9:54 AM
> *To:* Mark Cupitt
> *Cc:* HOT at OSM (Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team)
> *Subject:* Re: [HOT] HOT is now on LinkedIn
>
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> Sorry for getting back late on this thread.
>
> Linkedin may be a large social media for professionals, what it has
> achieved by building its audience by emailing systematically personal
> contact lists, what makes it one of the most spamming site in the OSM
> talking lists, from my experience of moderator of a few lists. Therefore
> Linkedin is not very OSM friendly and reading the email title,  I thought
> it was again one of these Linkedin spams slipping through the net from time
> to time. Linkedin finally got its point, ha!
>
> I have a few (other) concerns:
>
>
>
> 1. The description of what is HOT in this page is not very clear about
> what HOT is. As a Board member, I must admit we did not work yet on
> defining what the HOT project is, what we have planned to after the HOT in
> Person meeting but did not take the time yet to work on it. In IMHO it does
> not emphasize enough that HOT the nGO has been created to coordinate and
> support the free contribution of hundreds (almost thousands) of volunteers,
> that are the core of the HOT project.
>
> 2. What is exactly the aim of "to reach out and engage with Humanitarian
> and Mapping Professionals" with this group. Finding new people volunteering
> among the professionals or publishing positions every time new ones are
> available? IMHO again, would be good tfor the two cases to drive the people
> interested either to the OSM lists or HOT website. But for the second case,
> it would be better to have people volunteering first before applying to
> positions
>
> 3. Why the Discussion group, where it seems discussions are planned to be
> done, rather than simply linking to existing channels? And this is a closed
> group (maybe by definition in Linkedin) so it will not help people
> volunteering to have a clear picture of what happens if there is this group
> with discussion behind the scenes
>
> A few minor remarks or questions: I think HOT the NGO has been officially
> created in 2010 and not 2012, and do not understand well the figure of
> 51-200 employees. Is it the total number of people that have been
> contracted since the creation of the organization?
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Severin
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 9:42 PM, Mark Cupitt <markcupitt at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear All
>
>
>
> The Communications Working Group is pleased to announce that HOT now has a
> presence on LinkedIn. The objective of this move is to further promote
> HOT's work to the professional and business community world wide and
> directly engage with people who may be interested in our activities.
>
>
>
> We have two pages, a Company Page and a Discussion Group
>
>
>
> The Company Page is designed to showcase HOT, what it is and highlight key
> activities that HOT undertakes.
>
>
>
> The company page is at
>
>
>
> https://www.linkedin.com/company/humanitarian-openstreetmap-team
>
>
>
> If you are a LinkedIn Member, please show your support by following the
> company page and sharing the page to your contacts
>
>
>
> Hot also has a Discussion Group
>
>
>
>
> https://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=6937224&trk=groups_management_edit_group_info-h-dsc
>
>
>
> This Group is not intended to replace the main Hot List, rather it is
> intended as a mechanism to reach out and engage with Humanitarian and
> Mapping Professionals all over the world as well as promoting HOT
> Activities and events
>
>
>
> Again, please join the group and share it with all your contacts.
>
>
>
> We are excited about this New LinkedIn Presence!
>
>
>
> LinkedIn has a reach that extends to millions of professionals world wide
> and we look forward to engaging with people from all over the world and
> showcasing our work.
>
>
>
>
>
> Regards
>
>
>
> Mark Cupitt
>
>
>
> "If we change the world, let it bear the mark of our intelligence"
>
>
>
> See me on Open StreetMap <https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Mark_Cupitt>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
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