[okfn-advisory] Notes from today's Advisory Council call
Laura James
lbjames at gmail.com
Mon May 18 21:18:49 UTC 2015
Thank you to everyone who joined today's call and especially welcome Pavel!
Notes: https://pad.okfn.org/p/AdvisoryCouncil2015 [also inline below]
Audio recording (two very small gaps where the call dropped)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwrlF51mx2ojZlRzYzJGR3ZyTEU/view?usp=sharing
Actions:
Rufus: update AC website to include all AC members with appropriate bio
Rufus: get list of AC emails so that the AC can know how to reach each
other individually
Laura: set up call in 3m
Laura
*Agenda:*
1. introductions
1. decide who will chair/facilitate today's call, decide who will take
notes
1. review of actions from last time
1. * *Laura* to arrange a similar call in around 3m [DONE]
1. * *Glyn* to kickstart a discussion on this list about digital rights
matters and whether/how Open Knowledge should be involved [DONE]
1. * *Rufus* to consider whether others from the executive and/or board
of directors should be on this list (enabling them to get more involved
with AC and spreading the load from Rufus) and add them if so [DONE]
1. * *Rufus* to endeavour to share more info/updates with the AC and
will provide a commitment around this within a week [PARTIAL - more
updates but not regular yet]
1. discussion of recent strategy refinement from Rufus
1. * *Denis - *re: strategy*, *it's good to know where we want to
be, but how
will we get there? (What's the means?)
1. ** Denis* - to share a local group perspective on community
empowerment
1. interesting things from local groups
1. AOB
1. *Rufus *AC website listing (raised by Martin K)
*the call is being recorded*
*Notes from the call*
1. Introductions
Apologies - Martin, Carolina, Glyn, Daniel, Soren, Peter
Present - Denis, Hannes, Mayo, Pavel, Pieter, Rufus, Laura
Chair: Rufus
Introductions - welcome Pavel! Hearing from Pavel:
- Pavel's background, experience in growth in nonprofits, and as a
volunteer at wikipedia since 2004,
- Keen to apply what learnt at wikimedia to a more mature &
international org at Open Knowledge, and to learn from Open Knowledge.
- What's happening now: meeting and reading! strategy, commercial
services, personnel, grant requests.
- official start 1 june
- been at Omidyar Network event in San Francisco last week. Attending
Open Data Conf in Canada shortly
- on the Advisory Council: ... approach Pavel, let him know how things
are going, help him learn. Also happy to hear what AC expect from Pavel
-
Denis - OK Ireland. Since 2012 working on open, with OKF since 2013.
Hannes - OK Switzerland, Zurich. opendata.ch. entrepreneur and activist.
Laura - immediate past CEO :) Renewable energy consulting and IOT/privacy
things.
Mayo - Barcelona....
Pieter - Ghent. Studying for a PhD in linked open data publishing.
cofounder OKF Belgium. Now succeeded by a new chair (success!)
Rufus
2. review of actions
3. discussion of recent strategy doc from Rufus
Denis: ... where's the money? 3 options: grants, revenue generation,
donations?
- in Ireland, no donations for this sort of cause. Revenue - Ireland
small. hard; there is a state funded org employing many data scientists
which can take the tendres from government. Grants - few international orgs
interested in Ireland; money goes to global south, or to central org (OKF
london or ODI UK).
- last week US ODI nodes disassociated themselves because central org
can compete in local space in tendering and in grants
- how can Central empower local groups to do what they need to do? Even
to pay for hosting, space for events, etc. Difficult to attract money for
regular costs.
- how can OK Ireland continue? Recently found out from Sander (OK
Central) that OK central was bidding for EU money with an Irish org
(competitor)
-
Rufus: question about resourcing both for local and international groups.
What's the value of being a network? What impact do we want to have?
(that's important because it's why resourcing is needed)
- EU consortiums.... OK international doesn't lead such bids (too hard
for small orgs). Someone else therefore puts together consortia and if you
are just a member not a lead you have limited control and influence. There
is one 2020 project which funds several OK local groups in europe.
- founding and funding these groups is hard and we appreciate how hard
it is. similar to Rufus in 2004-7.... no one writes back.
- useful to share insights across network. Laura started some knowledge
sharing. German chapter has grown a great deal; support from OK
International
- What do we think of strategy?
- What are resoruces? minds, spirits, time, money?
-
Pieter:
- as chapters we have our independence and that's great, can do
anything. Good feeling. But when competing with each other, that's not
good. but it's a tradeoff. Lean, mean, quick, agile, but may lead to
clashes. If we have to notify each other of new bids etc in advance, this
becomes a lot of work, slows things down.
- idea: a very small group, OK Europe, just to coord in 2020 calls and
similar. maybe a europe scale advisory call. see who is doing what, can we
be more efficient.
- stop competitors running away with all the 2020 money!
-
Rufus:
Hannes:
in Switzerland decided to keep core association v small and lean, and
be enablers for others in the ecosystem, and that we ourselves are not a
competitor.
how do we fund that core work? not trivial. but not seeing ourselves
as a player in these bids is good. Pros and Cons to being an active
competitor [for funds]
Rufus:
- Swiss also run a great conference and is very well connected as an
enabler. Eg Hannes writing open data law
- individuals who contributed have also been members of other
organisations, maybe already employed or doing work in open data ecosystem
-
hannes:
- agree, flexibility of people being employed in related
organisations. Helps keep budget of core low.
-
Rufus:
Swiss core costs - paid for membership model for orgs and individuals.
The professional association for open data people
Laura
- easy for contributed time if folks are employed in related work. Not
possible in all countries, depending on state of economy, and in
interest/support for in open locally. Countries without this are the ones
we should support more
-
Rufus
- would like feedback on strategy. More distilled than before. Diagram.
- idea that local groups will make change, and OK INternational wil
enable/support this
- support for local groups is difficult, people want to fund projects
not network engagement and support
- recent months, any discretionary money went to local groups and
chapters and network support
-
Rufus:
- note latest vision and mission - updated - building on past work.
very important to note these. "all essential public interest information"
- diagram
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/125_JL7AIU9rOUpOLKq4twHfcN5vgl6Wx23PF-Zv6CsY/edit
-
Pieter:
- will there be an expiry date on some projects?
- like a certain time when projects should be spun out?
-
Rufus:
- great question
- stewardship. better place to look after projects, run by others, with
a stable home
- also retiring projects or spinning out, yes, eg pybossa/crowdcrafting,
span out to the guy who worked on it. we have retired proejcts. want to be
able to retire or move to stewardship
- hands off or hands on stewardship. legal, financial support, different
levels
- if you've had the impact you wanted, wind down or retire. Going into
production on software is a huge investment.
- CKAN $10-15m investment (not from OKF but others) - high risk, huge
commitment.
Pieter:
- Should high risk projects such as CKAN still be part of open knowledge?
Rufus
- CKAN is moving to hands off stewardship
- less high risk now anyway
- CKAN Association effort. will go on but not responsibility of OK
international
- chapters could join the CKAN association.
-
Pieter:
- if understood correctly, reason for keeping CKAN in OK
international is for funding reasons ?
Rufus:
not quite
aspect of commercial revenue, grant funders like to see this
setting up a new entity is a real pain, save money by not doing this
- note CKAN the commercial revenue stream is not the same as CKAN the
project [association]
-
Pieter:
- Belgium decided to spin out commercial things, the data tank, "we open
data". Only community management now in OK Belgium.
- safer for the organisation (OK belgium) because people don't think
they are a commercial entity pushing for clients
- better on commercial side too
- not carrying the risk of what happens if people don't need open data
portals any more!
-
Rufus:
question of what happens to OK International commercial services?
also a question for local groups.
[notes not taken at Rufus's request]
CKAN association, can follow good non profit / FOSS governance
Denis
- good news, opening hospital waiting lists!
http://openknowledge.ie/projects/open-hospital-waiting-list/ yay!
-
Pieter
- sad few American / latam people on call given time of call
-
Rufus
- maybe AC members could individually follow up and encourage attendance?
-
ACTION rufus: update AC website to include all AC members with appropriate
bio
ACTION rufus: get list of AC emails so that the AC can know how to reach
each other individually
The meeting closed.
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