[Board] a request for you

Wed Oct 28 18:16:39 PDT 2015

Hi Maria,

I am glad that you are very focused on the direction of OSGeo.  That you 
care so much about the foundation, is a good thing.

Speaking of that, 2 days ago the new OSGeo board met for the first time, 
over video and audio, to get comfortable and start getting things done. 
  We are also planning on a 2-day face to face, to tackle some of the 
issues that you mention.  I will start drafting an agenda shortly.

Tomorrow I will also draft the new UN committee page for OSGeo, and put 
out a call for members, which you can also join and share your passion 
and knowledge and effort.  More on that shortly.

You likely are also following closely the sponsor work that is being 
championed by Jody.

I'm happy you are very concerned about the OSGeo board activity.

Actually while I have you here, I would like to put a request to you 
Maria.  Could you clarify the focus of GeoForAll as the OSGeo education 
committee?  There was a request to rename the OSGeo education committee 
as GeoForAll, by Suchith, but there seems to be some confusion as to the 
focus of GeoForAll.  Can you speak with the GeoForAll group and come 
back to the OSGeo board regarding this?  We need to clarify that 
GeoForAll is in fact the new OSGeo education committee.  It is important 
that OSGeo has a strong focus on education.  If you can champion that, 
it would help the OSGeo board a lot.

Thanks,

-jeff

On 2015-10-28 6:56 PM, Maria Antonia Brovelli wrote:
> Dear Directors
> saturday evening I was so lucky to run into a Paul Ramsey's tweet related to the mail I had sent some time ago to you (https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2015-October/013400.html). I have to say that I was lucky because I'm not an assiduous frequenter of twitter ;-)
> But this was the occasion to start a (limited) discussion (140-character is definitely not enough!) about spending or not spending "our" money and how to do that.
> Paul concluded that "Despite repeated attempt to have plan/policy, OSGeo lurches from minor spending kurfuffle to minor kurfuffle. Maybe #future better." and I'm sure about the last point.
> In my opinion OSGeo has to plan at least annually which is the target, what we want to reach and (consequently) how to invest the money we have. This means also discussing  about volunteer activity and paid work.
> Just to mention some cases: the activity of the incubator or the SAC's activity or communication activities (via social media), or the creation of a new website. Do we need to pay someone for working on that?  Some time ago we spoke about OSGeo cloud but some people have not experience about that, other people have not time, other again have neither time nor experience. So, at the end, nothing happened at all.
>
> There are also other activities we are not considering at  the moment but that can be useful: for instance the production of OSGeo MOOCs (we have GeoForAll and therefore experts in education: why not to take advantage of these people for producing, as OSGeo,  professional MOOCS?) And why not to think about OSGeo summer of code, giving students and young people the possibility of implementing pieces of OSGeo software?
>
> In my opinion it is the very time of having a clear plan/policy.
> My proposal to the Board is to analyse the current situation, what we want to do and where we want to go and to propose such a plan to the community. Once we have decided that,  it would be easier to decide what is strategic and what is secondary and how to spend the money.
> And,at the end, in my opinion, the point is not to spend the money we have, but to invest them.
> But, for doimg that, we need a plan....
>
> Thanks for considering my request. I know that it is a huge work but  designing/proposing strategies is one of your committments and we know that you are a wonderful team of Directors!
> Best!
> Maria
>
> P.S. Obviously I'm available for any discussion, if needed.
>
>
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Prof. Maria Antonia Brovelli
> Vice Rector for Como Campus and GIS Professor
> Politecnico di Milano
>
> ISPRS WG IV/5 "Web and Cloud Based Geospatial Services and Applications"; OSGeo; ICA-OSGeo-ISPRS AB; NASA WorldWind Europa Challenge; SIFET
> Sol Katz Award 2015
>
> Via Natta, 12/14 - 22100 COMO (ITALY)
> Tel. +39-031-3327336 - Mob. +39-328-0023867 - fax. +39-031-3327321
> e-mail1: maria.brovelli at polimi.it
> e-mail2: prorettrice at como.polimi.it
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________________
> Da: Board <board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> per conto di Jeff McKenna <jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com>
> Inviato: mercoledì 28 ottobre 2015 20.20
> A: OSGeo Board
> Oggetto: Re: [Board] sponsorship document
>
> Thanks Jody, I have added my name to the working group.  I am moving
> this to the public discussion (as mentioned on your wiki draft page).
> As I mentioned offline, I do like giving the small
> businesses/consultants a more reachable price point than 3000 USD, so I
> am glad that you have subsequently added a 1k option
> (http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_2015_Sponsorship).
>
> Also, regarding organization size, could you explain this more?  Is this
> a guideline, or are you proposing that organizations must sponsor
> according to the number of employees they have?  I'll give you a
> physical example: for my local provincial non-profit GIS association (I
> was on their board a long time as well, ha, small world) the lowest
> sponsor level (bronze) is now 500 CAD.  For many years this was 250 CAD,
> and it just this went up to 500 CAD this year for bronze.  My company is
> a bronze sponsor, as well as a huge vendor, which I think is great that
> both organizations are involved there, I'm happy to see me listed with
> them.  However, that brings up several issues.  What would happen if we
> have 1000 USD as the bronze sponsor? (which I cannot afford, so I'd be
> gone)  What would happen if organization size was <3 for bronze?  That
> then knocks out both sponsors.
>
> Long story short, I do like adding more sponsor levels, especially for
> the average sized small business (the average business size in my
> province of Nova Scotia is 1.5 workers).  I like seeing as many logos as
> possible there, promoting their support for OSGeo.  So I even like a 500
> USD option.
>
> As a side note (yet strongly related), I saw today someone asking about
> the OSGeo service providers page.  Yes, interesting timing to be
> mentioning that :)
>
> -jeff
>
>
>
> On 2015-10-27 4:00 PM, Jody Garnett wrote:
>> You are welcome to take notes/ideas on the
>> wiki page <http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_2015_Sponsorship>, if so
>> please "join" the working group
>> <http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/2015_Sponsorship_Drive_Working_Group> (by
>> adding your name to the list) rather than as a board member.
>>