[okfn-discuss] Next steps on the Open Knowledge Tagline

Sat Jun 14 13:28:15 UTC 2014

Hi Daniela,

On 14 June 2014 12:43, Daniela Mattern <daniela.mattern at okfn.org> wrote:

>
> So, my suggestion is: Why can't we just have a set of taglines (3-5) that
> we endorse as Open Knowledge and people can select the one, they most
> identify with.
>

*Personally* I think that's a great idea; it allows folks to pick the
phrase they feel most strongly about, and/or that they think will work best
for the audience they have. In fact, that's sort of what is happening at
the moment :) folks are using different phrases, as they need to (in email
signatures, T shirts, etc). To make this work well we'd need to have an
agreed shortlist which people can easily find to select phrases from, and
potentially as Heath suggested, modify those phrases if appropriate too (eg
for those working in a specific country or topic).

One of the big learnings for me in the first half of this year has been
that the open knowledge community is *even more* diverse than I had
understood before. Of course, with the range of local and working groups
and activities and projects, it's been clear for years that there was a
wide range of things, but the evident challenge in coming up with a short
shared statement has really highlighted this even more. I had thought that
with input from the community survey, a series of interviews and workshops,
and some skilled synthesis, we could have come up with a single phrase of
words about open knowledge that would work 'well enough' for most folks,
and I was wrong.

I feel that at this point, we should perhaps park the idea of a single
tagline, and instead as you suggest agree a short list of lines for people
to choose from. Folks could decide within their own groups/organisations if
they, as a group want to stick to just one or two of those lines, or use
the full range. For instance, a Chapter might pick a single phrase which
works well for their work and local community.

The exploration of what beliefs and vision we all share will be easier and
richer in the context of longer texts than a tagline. I'm hopeful that the
manifesto idea might be one part of that :)

In order to find these we should have a list of suggestions and then a
> voting process - probably multiple rounds of voting. OKF Finland has a lot
> of experience on how to organize group decision making, so maybe Joonas or
> Jaakko can help. Before this, we should encourage people to contribute with
> suggestions - not only on this list, but have an at least one month process
> after which Working Groups, Chapters, Local Groups, and individuals come up
> with an idea.
>

I should note that the working-group and local-group coordination lists
were asked to contribute ideas etc on the tagline page on the wiki quite a
few weeks ago now, so I hope we've gathered their input a bit; but I don't
think that Rufus's email at the start of the thread went out to them yet,
so we should make sure that we include these key lists in whatever is
happening now/next.

Laura
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