[FM Discuss] FM Meet Up Report *important*

[adam]

wrong link for the minutes, should be:
http://www.flossmanuals.org/sites/default/files/minutes_Feb_2011_0.odt

adam



On 10/13/2011 04:07 PM, adam wrote:
> 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
>
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-- 

--
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