<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<p>Board,</p>
<p>I like the idea of drawing on the skills within the OSGeo
Community to support the activities of the board, however I
suggest the best approach to achieve that is to reduce the number
of roles and scope of responsibility.</p>
<p>If the President and Board have too much work to do, there are a
few different approaches which can be taken:</p>
<p>1. Ask our board / president(s) to work harder. The board is
already hard working, and asking more of them results in burn out
and people leaving. This is not viable long term.<br>
</p>
<p>2. Increase the board workforce by increasing number of roles,
effectively increasing hierarchy in the process. This is
sub-optimal in a volunteer driven organisation, as volunteers
become dis-empowered, expecting someone with an official title to
do a particular job.</p>
<p>3. De-scope the responsibilities of the board/president, creating
space for volunteers to step up with initiates. This leaves the
board/president to be mostly just providing rubber stamping of the
great initiatives from within the volunteer community. I think
this path of community empowerment and a flatter hierarchy holds
the most promise.<br>
</p>
<p>Volunteers work best as a Do-ochracy/Merit-ochracy. Language we
want to see on our email lists should be:</p>
<p><i>"I've got this idea, I'd like to do <xxx>. What do you
think?"</i></p>
<p><i>"Great idea, have you thought about <xxx>."</i></p>
<p><i>"Great idea, I can help you with <xxx>."</i></p>
<p>Language which doesn't work as well:</p>
<p><i>"<xxx> is broken. <yyy> should implement ..."</i></p>
<p><i>"Why isn't the <xxx> group doing <yyy>?"</i></p>
<p><i>"We should create/delegate <xxx> responsibility to
<yyy> group."<br>
</i></p>
<p>If there are no volunteers stepping up to implement an idea, it
is typically crowd wisdom feedback saying the idea needs some
work, or is not viable. <br>
</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>Cameron<br>
</p>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/11/2016 8:04 PM, Massimiliano
Cannata wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAMKYQEtBeaL=s+kze0mi5u=8uYmvTjYMHArnqHxjDMz8pK5-sg@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<p dir="ltr">My position on this MOT5 is that the president and
vice-president should be selected among the board of directors.</p>
<p dir="ltr">There is no clue and legal basis for deciding that
"members with experience on the board" are eligible while others
don't: anybody could have great leader ship: or are we a closed
community?</p>
<p dir="ltr">Moreover there's a dissociation between the president
role and the decision making process in the case he's not a
current director.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Moreover if you've not been elected in the board it
means that you have not been trusted enough to have a decisional
role in our community (I also speak for myself here :-) ).</p>
<p dir="ltr">OSGeo siempre ;-)</p>
<p dir="ltr">Maxi</p>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">Il 05 nov 2016 3:14 AM, "Venkatesh
Raghavan" <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:raghavan@media.osaka-cu.ac.jp">raghavan@media.osaka-cu.ac.jp</a>>
ha scritto:<br type="attribution">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Dear
Board,<br>
<br>
I prefer that discussion on such matters take place on the
board<br>
mailing list to which more than a hundred of our members<br>
(with or without board experience) are subscribed rather
that<br>
on loomio where only 10 of our members have currently
joined.<br>
<br>
My view on "MOT5: Accept nominations for President and
Vice-President<br>
from members with experience on the board"<br>
<br>
a) To the best of my knowledge, the board has not set any
precedence<br>
wherein the President was not an member elected by our
charter members.<br>
<br>
b) OSGeo regional Vice-President was new position that was
created<br>
in January 2016 with the aim of sharing the workload with<br>
the President and board. There is no precedence of
Vice-Presidents being<br>
appointed from outside of our elected* board membership.<br>
<br>
(*In some instances we have the precedence of board member<br>
vacancies being filled in by members who had secured highest
number<br>
of votes among the candidates who contested for the
election<br>
but had not been been elected)<br>
<br>
c) We also do not have a precedence of calling for
nominations<br>
from outside the Board to fill in the positions of President
and<br>
newly created positions of regional Vice-Presidents.<br>
<br>
d) I feel that for the smooth conduct of the day-to-day
affairs<br>
of OSGeo, the President and regional Vice-Presidents should<br>
be members *elected* to the board who can cast their valid
vote<br>
on motions brought before the board.<br>
<br>
e) Our bylaws do permit us to appoint officers to our
committees<br>
from our charter members (as in the case of Treasurer,
Secretary,<br>
Project Officers, Committees) or even outside of the charter<br>
membership.<br>
<br>
f) I am all for making full use of the rich experience and
tremendous<br>
capabilities of charter members (with or without board
experience).<br>
However, I would like to reiterate my view of the President
and regional<br>
Vice-President being appointed by the board from among the
elected<br>
board members.<br>
<br>
In light of the above, I strongly disagree with "MOT5:<br>
Accept nominations for President and Vice-President from<br>
members with experience on the board" and suggest that we<br>
continue with our existing practice of appointing the OSGeo
President<br>
and regional Vice-Presidents from among the elected board<br>
members.<br>
<br>
I have pasted a link of this mail to the MOT5 thread
currently<br>
being voted on loomio and have also voted on MOT5 expressing<br>
my (strong) disagreement to MOT5 on loomio.<br>
<br>
Lastly, I feel that loomio can be used for voting and
keeping<br>
a public record of our motions, but the discussions on
motions<br>
can be on the open (in rare cases private) board mailing
list.<br>
<br>
Best<br>
<br>
Venka<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
______________________________<wbr>_________________<br>
Board mailing list<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:Board@lists.osgeo.org" target="_blank">Board@lists.osgeo.org</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman<wbr>/listinfo/board</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<br>
<pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
Board mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:Board@lists.osgeo.org">Board@lists.osgeo.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board">http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board</a></pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Cameron Shorter
M +61 419 142 254</pre>
</body>
</html>