[HOT] HOT is now on LinkedIn

Thu Feb 12 18:00:09 UTC 2015

Hi Augustin, Paul and the HOT community;

In regards to the OSM trademark issue – there is a long standing relationship between HOT (before it was incorporated in the US) and the OpenStreetMap Foundation (OSMF) – with documentation going back at least to April of 2010 (http://www.osmfoundation.org/w/images/8/8c/Osmf_board_minutes_20100422.pdf) – although there is mention of humanitarian work even further back, but those minutes are the first to use/document the use of “HOT” that I could find.

I know Paul is a freshman OSMF Board Member, but I hope he knows that HOT (US Inc) has been actively engaged and willing to participate in such documentation/agreement as the Local (and Thematic) Chapter Agreements, Corporate Partnerships, etc.  The most current information that I could find was from the August 2014 OSMF Board Meeting Minutes which said in regards to the LCA, and I quote:

“The plan is to move that agreement to the OSMF web site and add small FAQ, then invite larger existing chapters to enter negotiations. Short list right now: Italy, France, Japan, US, HOT plus probably a few others.”

The use of trademarks is allowed under the LCA – which according to that last documented statement of the OSMF, HOT is recognized and in negotiation.  It actually seems to be more of a problem for non-registered entities to use OSM trademarks because the LCA requires the chapter to submit articles of incorporation and bylaws.  Unfortunately in the US – not-for-profit or non-profit organizations are companies, basically there is no incorporated entity that is not technically a company under US law.

In a nutshell, this really isn’t a community debate but a negotiation between the ‘companies’ OSMF and HOT regarding the trademark issue.

Happy Mapping J

=Russ

From: Augustin Doury [mailto:augustindoury at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2015 9:19 AM
To: bgirardot at gmail.com
Cc: HOT at OSM (Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team)
Subject: Re: [HOT] HOT is now on LinkedIn

Hi all,

Two (2) issues currently exist with this HOT channel on Linkedin. 
The first (1st) one below has not been considered yet in discussions.

1) the HOT company page <https://www.linkedin.com/company/humanitarian-openstreetmap-team>  is "called "Humanitarian OSM Team"

* As we can read on LinkedIn Help Center  <https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/710/ft/eng> "Adding a company page", the 3rd step is "Enter your company's official name and your work email address".

"Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team" is not the official name. The official one is "Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team US Inc".

As it has been done, the company page does not respect the guidelines of Linkedin, moreover it does not make the distinction between HOT as a US NGO and HOT as a project and its thousands of volunteers.

* What about Paul's question related to the respect of "OpenStreetMap" trademark ?

2) I quote Nicolas Chavent here : "the relevance tout court of a HOT presence in LinkedIn which seems to be implicit and somehow beyond question" and don't develop again here.

Thanks for the related work,

Au plaisir de vous lire,

gus

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

2015-02-12 15:14 GMT+00:00 Blake Girardot <bgirardot at gmail.com>:

Hi,

When this issue first came up I did a search for 'non profits on linkedin' and found a great deal of advice that suggested it was a very good channel that non profits often over look.

As already mentioned it connects us to a world of professionals that might otherwise never hear of our organization and gives them a chance to find out more about our organization.

LinkedIn themselves is very happy to have non profits participate and they have at least one program dedicated to listing non profits on their service.

And a search on LinkedIn for openstreetmap will return several entries for local OSM chapters and groups.

I also think that with Mark Cupitt managing the HOT presence on LinkedIn there is no need to worry about our communications channels getting split or diluted and HOT will be very well presented as a professional non-profit humanitarian NGO.

Cheers,
Blake

On 2/12/2015 3:21 PM, Harry Wood wrote:

I think it's good to raise these concerns, so that we are setting the tone of our communication channels correctly, but let's not stress about it too much.

LinkedIn is just another channel. I think we can all agree that it will never come anywhere close to being a main channel of communication for HOT. It's just another place where we now have a presence. I imagine it won't be used too much. After all HOT has a lively community of volunteers who are already well established on other channels including this mailing list. There's no need to change that.

Some of us are on LinkedIn too, and I'd encourage those who are interested to join the group and help put out our messages there. (There's also an OpenStreetMap group on there you can join)

And yes part of our message on there should be that we are not just a professional organisation looking to hire people (although we are this as well) we are a lively community of volunteers, and we are open to contributions. There many smart people out there with valuable skills, who find this kind of community deeply mysterious. They're afraid to get involved. We can work on rehabilitating these people :-)  Presenting ourselves on LinkedIn might help us do that.

Harry

________________________________
From: nicolas chavent <nicolas.chavent at gmail.com>
To: Mark Cupitt <markcupitt at gmail.com>
Cc: "HOT at OSM (Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team)" <hot at openstreetmap.org>
Sent: Thursday, 12 February 2015, 11:25
Subject: Re: [HOT] HOT is now on LinkedIn

Hi Mark,

Thanks for getting back on this thread but the underlying question which is at steak is about the relevance tout court of a HOT presence in LinkedIn which seems to be implicit and somehow beyond qestion.

Well there is nothing neutral for the NGO HOT US Inc to be present on Linkedin, this has been pointed out by Gus in a previous email left un_answered. Paul in his email was questionning the Company page with regard to respect of the OSM trademark.

HOT as a project is not a business and HOT as the US NGO incorporated as HOT US Inc is not a business (for a significant part of its members) and according to a majority of its members an organization which is not only working as business.

The Linkedin anchorage by overstressing the company/for business side of HOT US Inc is not respectful of the hybrid nature of HOT and its use of business scheme as one of the means towards the achievement of its mandate : apply the principles and practices of OSM and open source and open data in the field of Humanitarian action and economic development.

Such decision which has an impact on the image/nature of HOT has to be discussed into a wider audience than the only Communication Working Group.

Reading through your points in favour of Linkedin, I still fail to see the gain in audience since after more than 5 years, both the HOT Project and HOT US Inc (the US NGO) are well established entities not only within the OpenSource and OpenData communities but truly within the Hum/Dev actors. The website, the lists and the social media have a real audience. And specific emails (info at hotosm or individual emails) provide avenues for groups who won't engage through public lists. All those tools have proven to establish connection and build relations with an important ecosystem.

If I fail to see the benefits for HOT on being in Linkedin, I can see clearly drawbacks in terms of promoting HOT members and contributors of the HOT communities in the work of the Organization. What comes first, the engagement in the HOT work (member/community) proven into continued volunteerism or a solid track records of professionals who did not pay attention to the HOT project and its supporting organizations after 5 years of action (outreach included).

To a certain extent, the same applies to donors and partners where time, understanding are key to build trust in relations.

Thanks in advance for your elements about the points above.

Thanks also for your work in the communication group.

++

Nico

On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 4:09 AM, Mark Cupitt <markcupitt at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Sev, have tried to address some of your concerns in line .. below

Cheers

Mark Cupitt

"If we change the world, let it bear the mark of our intelligence"

See me on Open StreetMap

On Sat, Feb 7, 2015 at 12:54 AM, Severin Menard <severin.menard at gmail.com> wrote:

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 generally turn this off on my LI account. It does have quite good Opt-Out capabilities on your profile for emails. Open Groups are often a source of this type of Spam .. I do not think LI emails would make it through to the HOT lists, and there is no intention of having any LI auto generated em,ails showing up on this List. I am a moderator, so will make sore of that :)

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.

Waiting for the communication Group to define. Open to suggestions and can change at any time. I would suggest that this should mirror what is on the web site

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

It is intended to be a way to reach an audience we may not already have contact with. The clear aim is NOT to replicate the HOT List or anything else, but provide a way for people who may not be part of the Open Source Community to become aware of what we do, especially in a Humanitarian context and then join our community. It also may provide possible avenues for Sponsorship with organizations who have never heard of HOT, etc

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

Open Groups are very prone to the Spam you mention above. The closed group is intended to avoid that. It is purely intended to be an Announce Only group and any questions/discussions will be generally redirected to the HOT List. Also, in some organizations, mail lists like the HOT list IRC Channels are not permitted, by corporate policy, so we still have an opportunity to keep in contact with people via this Group It is just another avenue that may or may not be worthwhile. Also, some people are a little shy about asking initial questions on lists that go to a lot of people, so sometimes a small venue to encourage them can be useful.

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?

I just guessed the Number, am totally open to suggestions. I would guess it could be either Voting Members or All Volunteers. If you have a figure, let me know will adjust it.

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 <https://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=6937224&trk=groups_management_edit_group_info-h-dsc> &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

_______________________________________________
HOT mailing list
HOT at openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot

_______________________________________________
HOT mailing list
HOT at openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot

_______________________________________________
HOT mailing list
HOT at openstreetmap.org
https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/hot

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