[Board] Proposal/thoughts for a FOSS4G Advisor Role

[Peter Batty]

Hi Jeff, certainly I appreciate your great contributions to FOSS4G over the
years, and I can understand your sentiment that you should be compensated
for that effort. I definitely appreciated the help I got from you and Tyler
in organizing things this year.

But at the same time I was also surprised at the amount of stuff we had to
reinvent within the LOC, and was frustrated that on several occasions I
received input on important items when it was way too late to change things
(which is why I think the cookbook / template is so important - I think the
LOC should have flexibility to deviate from that as it makes sense, but
having this to make sure things don't get missed is important).

And like I said I feel we have this enormous hole in terms of nobody having
responsibility for the finances. Yes the board approves the budget as Paul
said, but the reality was after that point there was zero follow up or
oversight from anyone on the board (though I had occasional questions from
Tyler). I just think if we're paying someone $30K to run FOSS4G then it
makes sense that they should be the OSGeo person responsible for the
finances in particular (and the success of the conference in a more general
sense). I don't think this is a heavy time commitment and don't understand
why this suddenly makes this a full time job. To reiterate, this
responsibility is currently entirely within the hands of the volunteer
conference chair (after the board approval of the budget), I really think
it makes much more sense that the paid OSGeo representative owns this
responsibility.

I really do feel we need to fix the issue of how much work it is for the
conference chair, I feel strongly that this proposal should address that
too.

Cheers,
    Peter.

On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 11:49 AM, Jeff McKenna <
jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com> wrote:

> Hello Peter,
>
> Thanks for responding, I'll do my best to comment on your responses inline
> below:
>
>
> On 11-11-22 1:07 PM, Peter Batty wrote:
>
>> 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).
>>
>
> Peter, try to imagine planning for your event without Tyler or my input?
> (I've been playing that role on my own time for approaching 7 years now)
>
> (Tyler was active in FOSS4G planning for the first time in Denver, so I'd
> like to hear his comments as well on this, as he now knows the amount of
> work to go into this)
>
>
>
>> 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.
>>
>
> If this was a fulltime position I would definitely agree to your points
> about linking the 'success' of the event with the compensation.  However it
> is only a part-time position, so therefore we must limit the tasks for this
> advisor/role (my opinion).
>
>
>
>> 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.
>>
>
> In fact for the list of tasks the effort is realistically much higher, so
> I disagree with you here.  But this is similar to the comments I expected,
> and I was ready for them.   To me this is like a bid for a contract: you
> may choose to go with a cheaper solution.  I can tell you that I have been
> doing what you saw for the Denver event for every FOSS4G, and therefore the
> rates/compensation reflect that experience.
>
> I am definitely aware that OSGeo may not have the budget for this
> position, as you said this is on par with the rate of the executive
> director position.
>
>
>
>> 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.
>>
>
> For the record, Tyler for the first time decided to help with FOSS4G
> planning this year, and I don't need to repeat his salary that he got this
> year...and myself I again was there on donated time.
>
> This is me saying enough is enough, I have value for the FOSS4G brand.
> (wow that is strong, but, well, this is my feeling)
>
> Re: conference chair responsibilities: this was not my focus in the
> proposal.  The proposal aims at bringing continuity to FOSS4G, and has
> nothing to do with lightening the load of the chair.
>
>
>
>> 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.
>>
>
> I agree here, but this definitely adds to the responsibility to the
> advisor role (which means to me: more effort must be allocated in the
> proposal).
>
>
>  - 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.
>>
>
> I am not for a cookbook/template that structures their event, but I agree
> that more deadlines need to be included in the event RFP like you mentioned.
>
>
>
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
> Thanks for these points Peter.
>
> -jeff
>
>
>
>
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