[FM Discuss] FM Meet Up Report *important*

[Lachlan Musicman]

On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 07:45, Anne GOLDENBERG
<goldenberg.anne at gmail.com> wrote:
> What a beautiful and energizing email and perspective.
> I'm very very happy that all this is happening,

+1

> :-)
>
> Anne
>
>
> 2011/10/13 adam <adam at flossmanuals.net>
>>
>> hi,
>>
>> So we had a fantastic 3 day meet up in berlin (Oct 3,4,5). We hired a
>> large apartment for everyone to stay in and then hired an equally cool venue
>> (a cafe in a park which used to be no-mans-land). It turned out the cheapest
>> AND most comfortable way to do things.
>>
>> Attending were:
>> Janet Swisher
>> Tomi Toivio
>> Elisa de Castro Guerra
>> Laurent Giacobino
>> Tuukka Hastrup
>> Aleksandar Erkalovic
>> Luka Frelih
>> Mick Fuzz
>> Michael McAndrew
>> Sacha van Geffen
>> Helen Varley Jamieson
>> Adam Hyde
>>
>> So, before we go one...a few announcements. First and foremost, part of
>> the meeting was to choose a new board for FLOSS Manuals. It is now in place
>> and consists of:
>> Sacha van Geffen (Chair)
>> Janet Swisher
>> Tuukka Hastrup
>> Elisa de Castro Guerra
>> Eric Kluitenberg
>>
>> This is *big* news for us. Its a great board and signals a new era for
>> FLOSS Manuals. The board will introduce themselves to the list over the
>> days...I am extremely happy to see this board in place. It is a great
>> selection of people that know FM for a long time and from many different
>> perspectives. I'm looking forward *very* much to this new era with this new
>> board.
>>
>> Other outcomes from the meet - I am appointed Chief Executive, a fancy and
>> overly formal title which means pretty much that I do what I do now but
>> perhaps not all of it (shedding some of the sysadmin and other tasks I have
>> been doing by default). Essentially that means I keep my role with 'staying
>> the ship' and am trusted to play somewhat of a leadership role. You might
>> read this as 'more of the same' from me ;)
>>
>> So the meeting put in place this board and we covered a lot of other
>> terrain including :
>> * discussing new part-time staff roles
>> * establishment of FLOSS Manuals ORG
>> * strategic discussions about Booki
>> * organising a new series of events
>> * establishing a budget for the next 6 months
>> * establishing new admin list
>>
>> and more...
>>
>> If you wish to read the full minutes (35 pages) of the meeting please
>> visit the new FM.org (www.flossmanuals.org)  site....and check under the
>> 'staff & meetings' tab (or get direct from
>> http://www.flossmanuals.org/sites/default/files/minutes_Feb_2011.odt).
>>
>> So, kicking it off - big news for us is that we have some new part-time
>> staff. First - we have a new part-time Fundraising Manager. I am astounded
>> that we have been lucky enough to have Laurent Giacobino (formerly of
>> Internews) join us in this role. Laurent is working approximately half time
>> for FM for the next 6 months. We are working now to get funds in the bank to
>> keep him, and FM in general, going after that period. Any tips for
>> fundraising for Laurent please send them to laurent at flossmanuals.net (or
>> [name]@flossmanuals.org, this works for all fm email addresses eg
>> laurent at flossmanuals.org, adam at flossmanuals.org etc).
>>
>> Also Camille Acey is onboard for 5 hours a week working on PR for FLOSS
>> Manuals. We are also extremely lucky to have Camille onboard. Camille is
>> based in NYC and also works on questioncopyright.org (if you don't know that
>> site you should!). Any press contacts (we need them all!) please send my
>> sleuth or sail to camille at flossmanuals.net
>>
>> John Curwood is now going to be managing the FM admin side (he currently
>> does this) AND the online (lulu.com) FM book shop - updating all the books
>> etc...so any help needed send an email to this list and i am sure he will
>> respond quickly.
>>
>> Tuukka Hastrup and Luka Frelih share the role of technical managers. Both
>> extremely capable and we are lucky to have them...tech issues? send them to
>> the discuss list (this one) and call them out by name.
>>
>> And...the new FM ORG I hear you ask? Yes, a further outcome of the meeting
>> is that we have decided to create a new entity - www.flossmanuals.org -this
>> is the home of the umbrella organisaton for FLOSS Manuals. The board is
>> appointed to oversee this AND (at present) the English FM. In time however
>> we foresee (and it will be milestoned) creating a new foundation for FLOSS
>> Manuals English. We believe that the English FM should not be the 'default'
>> home of FM but each language community should be equal.
>>
>> Each FM language community will be its own legal entity (as is true for
>> the French FM) and the umbrella org will assist each language community with
>> resources such as fundraising expertise, PR, tech support etc.
>>
>> So FLOSSManuals.org is effectively where you will find people like Laurent
>> and Camille, (increasingly) me and the board.
>>
>> We have this site in place already in scratch form (www.flossmanuals.org)
>> - it is running CiviCRM (thanks to Michael McAndrew) and we aim to work this
>> site into shape over the next weeks.
>>
>> Next- We are going to start running a series of FM conferences known as
>> Sprint Conferences. We have a reputation for delivering a lot of content
>> despite small resources (especially with Book Sprints) and the Sprint Confs
>> will push this further. Sprint Confs will build upon the model in place for
>> the Google Summer of Code Doc Summit happening next week (co-organised and
>> facilitated by FM, GSoC and Aspiration). At this event we will run 4
>> parallel Book Sprints (KDE, OpenStreetMaps, Sahana, and OpenMRS). With
>> future Sprint Confs we aim to explode this model and push our doc output to
>> another level - the first to happen perhaps as early as March.
>>
>> The Sprint Confs are not just a random thing we wanted to do but fulfil
>> two other purposes (we hope) - fundraising and a strategic move to further
>> push FLOSS Manuals into the role of 'enabler' and 'context provider'.
>> Fundraising is reasonably self explanatory but the last two items may sound
>> esoteric.
>>
>> In essence they mean we need to focus on helping people make docs about
>> free software. That means 'enabling' that process where ever possible, and
>> providing the contexts for this to happen. We should never be a team of
>> professional doc creators or some such doing 'our own thing' - if we did get
>> a load of cash from fundraising it should be put to helping people create
>> docs and getting the most out of the docs. Those people might include you or
>> me and our doc needs/wants, a disparate group rallying around a manual 'in'
>> FM, or a group working on docs within established free software project etc.
>> Sprint Conferences fit into this role perfectly, as do Book Sprints, the
>> current website, this list etc...we aim to help people make free
>> documentation about free software and provide the spaces to do it, not to
>> employ teams of fulltimers to do it for you...
>>
>> Essentially we realise that FM has achieved a lot already and our past
>> (and present) could e categorised something like:
>> * content building
>> * platform building
>> * community building
>>
>> We now think we have come a long way in each of these. Building content
>> and community is always going be close to the heart of FM but we should
>> should only be in the business of making tools for as long as it takes to
>> make the ones we need. We have done a good job with Booki and it might
>> almost be time to find a partner org to help us with managing its
>> development. Now its time to move into this new phase of 'context
>> provision'. If this still seems unclear to you just hold on to the rails, it
>> will become clearer in time as we start actioning some of this and refining
>> this objective.
>>
>> ok...so. At the meeting we also outlined a budget, it is detailed in the
>> minutes. Essentially we are spending money to lift FM to a new level (not
>> just to keep going as we are now). We don't have a lot of money so we are
>> spending it wisely but needless to say the next 6 months for FM is very
>> critical.
>>
>> For this reason we have also put the board in place and we are starting a
>> new admin list for managing some of these activities. Anyone can join the
>> admin list but if you join it you are expected to *do something* for FM.
>> Something more than you currently do. Same with the board, they are there to
>> push FM along and so if you have the time and energy to volunteer to make
>> things happen then join here:
>> http://lists.flossmanuals.org/listinfo.cgi/admin-flossmanuals.org
>>
>> Currently on that list are all those that attended this very special FM
>> meet up. Each has made a commitment to get stuck in. All those attending
>> also have FM email addresses (janet at flossmanuals.net, sacha at flossmanuals.net
>> etc)...so if you want one of those then come to the next meeting....
>>
>> Ok, believe or not that is a *brief* summary. I will leave it to the board
>> members and those present to highlight anything they think is important that
>> I might have missed or under emphasised.
>>
>> I can only say that I am astounded at the quality of people we had at this
>> meeting - it further highlights what an amazing community we have. The
>> discussions were amazing and we (FM) came out of it very strengthened I
>> believe. Not only in terms of the (fantastic) board and new part-time staff
>> but the meeting is the start of a very strong vision for FMs future and a
>> very strong commitment from those that were there to help achieve it...we
>> hope you will also pitch in as much as you can...
>>
>> :)
>>
>> adam
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> --
>> Adam Hyde
>> Founder, FLOSS Manuals
>> Project Manager, Booki
>> Book Sprint Facilitator
>> mobile :+ 49 177 4935122
>> identi.ca : @eset
>> booki.flossmanuals.net : @adam
>>
>> http://www.flossmanuals.net
>> http://www.booki.cc
>> http://www.booksprints.net
>>
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The politician’s syllogism, also known as the politician’s logic or
the politician’s fallacy, is a logical fallacy of the form:
- We must do something
- This is something
- Therefore, we must do this.
(via http://bestofwikipedia.tumblr.com/ )