[okfn-discuss] Minutes of Open Knowledge Foundation board meeting May 2013 posted

Sun Jul 21 19:51:45 UTC 2013

First, I think it is great that OKFn is soliciting community feedback on 
the strategy slides.

I agree with Abbas and others that the slides would be better if they 
provided more specifics. While a strategy can't be expected to include fine 
details, it would be nice to see a list of key initiatives with 1-2 
sentence descriptions.

I would also like to share a thought about what those initiatives to be.  
It seems that OKFn is in the "business" of encouraging people to create 
public goods - databases and web sites that can be consumed for free 
without restriction. Because there is no direct profit to be derived from 
them, it is hard for non-governmental organizations to deliver them 
sustainably and with quality. OKFn can help its community by sharply 
reducing the difficulty and cost of delivering open data solutions.

Given limited resources, I suggest OKFn select a small number of target 
areas. Within each area, OKFn should develop open source software, funding 
sources and leaders who can stand up sustainable operations.  It would be 
great if we could have 2-3 new Wikipedia-like organizations maintaining 
quality, complete data sets over the long term.

I want to stress the importance of quality, completeness and sustainabilty 
(or consistency).  If we can't create knowledge resources that the public 
can rely on, they won't gain traction.  A lot of volunteer efforts I have 
seen are well intentioned, but too often they result in incomplete, 
orphaned solutions that don't create real social value.

Regards,
Marc Joffe
Public Sector Credit Solutions
http://www.publicsectorcredit.org

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On July 21, 2013 11:01:17 AM Everton Zanella Alvarenga 
<everton.alvarenga at okfn.org> wrote:
> Hi Abbas,
>
> I agree with you the presentation about the strategy should be
> improved. And I think we should help OKF to do that. We can give
> examples of other communities we worked with, mainly those aligned
> with OKF vision. Kenya has a lot to teach, for instance, from its
> experience with the Wikimedia local group.
>
> I'll try to help later. I need to think.
>
> Tom
>
> 2013/7/21 Abbas Mahmoud <abbasjnr at gmail.com>:
> > Hi Laura,
> >
> > I'm sorry to say that I am a bit disappointed by these slides. Being a
> > strategic plan, I wouldn't expect only 2 pages/slides (20%) out of the whole
> > presentation to be about the strategy, while the other 8 pages are an
> > overview of the OKF. Especially if this presentation was targeted to an
> > audience which is already aware of the OKF, I would've expected the
> > presentation to spend little time on the overview, and _focus_ on
> > elaborating the actual plan, the resources you'll need, the revenue plan,
> > setting targets, and the role of Local Groups (and the rest of the volunteer
> > movement) in achieving these goals.
> >
> > My two cents,
> > Abbas.
> >
>
> --
> Everton Zanella Alvarenga (also Tom)
> OKF Brasil - Rede pelo Conhecimento Livre
> http://br.okfn.org
>
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