[HOT] What I want from HOT (was: Re: Let's make the most of this)

[Robert Banick]

Hi all,




In addition to the comments from Althio, Maning and others (which are excellent), I have a few things I’d like to see from HOT at this moment of transition:





1. Greater clarity on what support to local groups look like. I think everyone agrees that fostering local (HOT) OSM chapters around the world is a laudable goal. I’ve seen less details about what that means. 




Some of you are experts at building communities, some of you are active members of your local OSM communities and some of you are interested in getting started helping out. I put myself in the latter group, and speaking from that position, I would like to know exactly what kind of support local groups need and how exactly we think we can make that support happen. Lists! Explanations! Budgets! Basics we can build off of. I would hope that in a year’s time we could be on our way towards having a local community “toolkit” and some projects / support underway.





2. Recognition from the general membership that we can do multiple things at the same time. And that if a volunteer / member / board member / executive director doesn’t talk about one topic that much it may just reflect lesser familiarity, not a lack of approval. We all have our specialties that we focus on.




I’m worried by how often our discussions imply that it’s My Priority vs. Your Priority. In English we call this “zero sum” thinking — the idea that one side winning means the other side losing. For HOT this is nonsense. We can all win. We will all win.




If it feels like some parts of our mission are getting neglected then help us figure out what the bottlenecks are and how we can address them. If there’s not enough resources to address your priority, help us think how we can fix that.





3. Honest discussion about direct democracy. I know some of our members feel really strongly (here’s looking at you Severin) that we should operate on a more direct democracy model for our operations. I disagree but am open to being persuaded otherwise. I want to know exactly how that’s supposed to work, particularly when attendance at events is a problem.





4. Clear responsibilities for the membership. Right now membership is more of a recognition than a responsibility. I think we expect more from members but do too little to define what that more is. Until we do so I don’t think we’re prepared to really step beyond the traditional NGO mold — which we should aim to do.





6. Congratulate ourselves a little. Those who follow the main OSM listservs know that the broader OSM community has had a lot of turmoil in the past year. Big questions were posed about the effectiveness of the OSM Foundation and OSM’s direction. We should be proud that during those (intense) discussions HOT was repeatedly cited as a model of a functional international OSM group that gets things done and done well. We’re on to something really good here. Thanks to all of you for making that happen.




Finally I want to strongly second the rotating board idea from Althio. That will introduce more constant discussion of HOT’s direction and prevent months of unproductive time being spent preparing for / adjusting from annual elections.




Best,

Robert




P.S. Also please goodness let’s working on being more diverse. We’re an international organization and we need a more international, gender-balanced membership. This isn’t something that happens overnight but we need t


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On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 11:19 PM, althio <althio.forum at gmail.com> wrote:

>> Dear everyone,
>>
>> Let me kickstart this.  First, no, I’m not running for the board, but
>> here’s what I want HOT to aspire for in the future.
> Good ones, Maning! Very inspiring.
> Here is my brain dump of ideas, wishes, concerns and requests. No
> priorities either. Not a complete assessment, just my point of view.
> What I want from the Board:
> A global overview of the running organisation.
> A strategic view of the key positions and organisation bottlenecks.
> A clear roadmap and to-do list of most-needed actions, most-wanted
> features, most-blocking blockers. Directions. Priorities. Guidance.
> Decision to allocate efforts and money where it helps the most. With
> open decisions, always motivated; open debate whenever it is possible,
> open budget. Transparent. Reports. Feedback.
> What I want from the Board and/or Governance WG:
> Board rotating, eg. 2 seats every 6 months, 2-year term.
> For all processes including nomination and vote for board and
> membership: clear requirements, extended periods, no rush. eg.
> announcement, 1 month for nomination, 1 month for discussion, 1 month
> for vote.
> What I want from Projects and Working groups:
> Project manager(s) collecting, organising ideas and proposing to-do
> lists so that more contributors can help without having to figure out
> the entire organisation or project structure and needs. More
> documentation.
> I would like to see more collaborative work done by online text pads,
> more exchanges on WG email lists, more polls and decisions and reports
> with collaborative online tools.
> There is a wide diversity of languages, a range of language
> proficiency, time zones, personal time availability, limited network
> access...
> What kind of diversity do we want in the Working Groups?
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