[Board] Proposal/thoughts for a FOSS4G Advisor Role

[Peter Batty]

I am supportive of the general idea of this position (and of Jeff doing
it), but I have several concerns about the current proposal.

I'm close to this of course, having just been on the hot seat of being
conference chair and so I know how big a job that is. I think we definitely
need something to reduce the load on this voluntary position, and we need
more proactive involvement and continuity from year to year to ensure that
FOSS4G meets the expectations of OSGeo and the community (I think that
we've done well so far thanks to the efforts of successive conference
chairs and LOCs, and somewhat ad hoc advice from the likes of Jeff, Tyler
and former conference chairs, but without some changes I think there's a
high risk we will "crash and burn" at some point).

I have a problem with this role being just "advisory". I think the person
we are paying (well) to do this needs to be clearly accountable for the
success of FOSS4G, and I would lean strongly towards some component of
their compensation being tied to that. I don't think we should measure
success purely in financial terms but I think that should be a piece of it.
Another piece might be attendance, and maybe another the overall attendee
rating on the final survey. For me this goes back to the whole Executive
Director saga we've just been through. There was a general feeling that we
weren't getting the value that we wanted from that well paid role, even
though we hadn't set specific objectives. I see a big danger that this role
as proposed quickly gets into a similar position if we don't have some
clearer objectives for it.

Jeff seemed resistant to this role having ownership of the success of the
conference, but right now we're in the crazy position that we entirely hand
financial responsibility (and more) over to an unpaid volunteer who we may
not know well, they have no financial incentive to make it a success, and
if they make a loss OSGeo covers that. It seems essential to me that we get
closer oversight/ownership of this, and this role is the obvious way to do
that I think.

The proposal seems expensive to me, both in terms of the absolute number
and for the work as proposed (personally I don't see how the list of items
described adds up to 4 days a month). We're saying $30K for 4 days a month,
which is 20% of a full time job, so that's equivalent to $150K a year,
which is substantially more than we were paying our executive director, and
there seemed to be a perception from many board members that his
compensation was high. The current objective we give to FOSS4G committees
is that they need to return a profit of $20K. This past year we paid GITA
$65K for all their services, which were very substantial (I have a separate
list if anyone is interested). Comparing either of these numbers to a $30K
fee for a role that is just advisory without clear responsibility for
owning the success of FOSS4G seems disproportionate to me.

Another concern I have is that I don't see anything specific on this list
that would reduce the load on the conference chair, which I think it's very
important to do. Everything on the current list of tasks already happened
this past year through either Tyler or Jeff, yet I as conference chair (as
a volunteer) had a workload and responsibility that was substantially more
than is described here, for which it's proposed someone should be paid $30K.

A couple of specific things I would like to see the person in this role
take on include:
- Responsibility for owning and managing enhancements to the web site that
we put together for this year's conference - with just a little more work
from the contractor we used (Jonathan), this could handle the whole
abstract submission, evaluation and program publishing process with far
less effort than it took this year (or come up with some alternative system
that does the equivalent, though I'd lean strongly to building on what we
did). This would be something that does significantly reduce the effort
needed to run the conference, and would provide real value to the chair and
LOC.
- Own and manage a "FOSS4G cookbook" or "FOSS4G template" - this is
something we've had quite a lot of discussion on and which would be very
useful, but which we still don't have. The core information we need for
this largely exists in lessons learned pages and various discussions
online, but it needs to be pulled together into more of a checklist that
can be followed by the chair / LOC. Something like by December you need to
have the logo completed, have initial holding web site up including dates
and venue details, have budget completed, have contract with venue signed,
etc etc - plus supporting details as needed on each of these items.

Those are a minimum I think, I would like to see other ideas for specific
items that would reduce the workload of the conference chair and LOC.

So in summary:
- I think the person in the role needs to be clearly accountable for the
success of FOSS4G
- I think a portion of the compensation should be tied to the success of
the event - open to how we define success, but think some reasonable
portion of that should be financial (to make sure we can afford to pay this
compensation), and some portion should be based on other factors
- I think the proposal needs to have more clarity on how the role will
reduce the load on the conference chair and LOC - see my suggestions here,
would welcome others

Cheers,
    Peter.

On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 8:32 AM, Paul Ramsey <pramsey at opengeo.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 21, 2011 at 7:54 PM, Daniel Morissette
> <dmorissette at mapgears.com> wrote:
>
> > - I am realizing that this investment in such a position we are
> effectively
> > subsidizing ~30k$ to the LOC. Should we charge that amount to the LOC, or
> > have a way to force them to account for this amount somehow in the way
> they
> > calculate the profit (i.e. in case that they choose to keep part of the
> > profit and return the rest to OSGeo, profit should be calculated after
> > accounting for that 30k$ expense, so this is treated as an actual
> conference
> > expense and we don't take that money out of OSGeo's share of the profit)
>
> This is left pocket/right pocket stuff (or it should be), since OSGeo
> should be on the hook for all losses and receiving all profits. (With
> the exception of the 2008 event, where there was an explicit agreement
> otherwise.) So whether it's booked at the source event or in OSGeo's
> books, the fact is that OSGeo is making the strategic determination
> that spending this money will cause revenues to rise by equal or more
> dollars.
>
> (You can perhaps tell by my tone, that I don't think that's the case.
> I think it'll make a better event, but one that's $30K more
> expensive.)
>
> P.
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>
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