[Board] Proposal/thoughts for a FOSS4G Advisor Role

[maplabs at light42.com]

I'll offer this brief comment in the spirit that it might aid the Board (and therefore OSGeo)

Three Ways to View the Conference and Advisor
(a Framework for Inquiry)
-------------------------------------------------------------------

    Profit Center Model

    Programs Model

    Organizing Principles Model

Profit Center Model
--------------------------

premisis:
  * the OSGeo organization must generate financial revenue
  * the annual conference is OSGeo's largest revenue generating activity
  * costs, accountability, execution are foundations of making the conference happen

The new advisor role is performance based. There is a direct contract that links efficiency
and execution success (as measured in specific ways) to compensation. 

There is a desire to retain crucial operational knowledge, and build visible leadership
year-over-year. Those resources are an investment, which pays off in measureable ways. 

OSGeo, if well run, could increase its financial capacity year-over-year
this translates directly into better services for participants, and benefits to OSGeo and stakeholders

Programs Model
-----------------------------

premesis:
  * OSGeo exists in order to execute functions that would be unlikely to happen without it
  * resources are raised in order to see goals executed
  * specific costs and income are not a measure of success, rather the programs themselevs are the measure
  * costs and compensation are a means to an end

FOSS4G is a crucial program of OSGeo. Almost everyone involved wants to see it succeed as an event
including intangible benefis of good-will, recognition of accomplishment, community participation, resiliance to changing challenges, etc

Costs and compensation are seen as a necessary but secondary piece of accomplishing desired programs

A conference advisor works on what is desirable to accomplish, and, how to acomplish it
(no one has enough spare time to really tend to all the details that come up with a big conference
except a dedicated person in that role)

OSGeo, if well run, increases its programs quality and quantity year-over-year

Organizing Principles Model    (get ready :)
-----------------------------------------------------------

premesis:
  * Computers, Programming and the Internet have unleashed fundementally new human-machine capacities
  * previously held organizational implementations are inadequate to encompass new function
    therefore, only portions of existing forms are useful or desirable to work in the newly created constructs
  * People and computers are constantly drawing together based on "Organizing Principles" (OP) which ought to be recognized

      a MMO game has organizing principles; a sports event or big concert has organizing principles;
      participants in those two examples are relatively *passive* where the experience is constructed and there are few degrees of freedom
      but in fact there are big teams that enact the construct, from lighting supply to ticket vendors, etc behind the scenes

      both the enacting teams, and the passive participants, recognize the OP implicitly, and cooperate

      wealth is often on display in various ways

  * more relevant is WIkipedia, or Linux itself; there is little sharp distinction between participant and organizing teams
     however, "wealth" is in tech and knowledge itself, and is not well represented. Wikipedia is on the rocks financially btw

  * roles exist for many skill levels, and group sizes; roles are often self-organizing, evolving and redfined

  * OP are fundemental to civilization and culture, commerce and science, yet are too amorphous to be useful in isolation

FOSS4G is an expression, one of many possible, of an OP for computers and people; Code sprints too

The reasons *why* people go to FOSS4G, support it, work for it, pay for it, etc are declared to be only partially known, and 
an important area for inquiry for OSGeo. to discover OP, and to express OP, is the primary task of an Advisor

An advisor is a mentor to the inquiry of what and why FOSS4G, and, as resident expert, grows that knowledge
for the benefit of participants, Board and stakeholders, whose roles are evolving and get redefined

Current monetary accounting may or may not be adequate to express the reach and depth of FOSS4G and other OSGeo OP
Revenue and costs are approached with discipline, but are not the deciding principles at all

=================================================
I completed an alternative MBA program in 2004. here in California
The first two models are roughly, business and non-profit, as they stand, off the top of my head
The third model is a philosophical construct that may or may not be useful
I hope this framework is useful for Board members to measure their own priorities and concerns against
as this topic is worked out

best regards from sunny San Francisco, California

Brian Hamlin
GeoCal
OSGeo California Chapter
415-717-4462 cell

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