[Marketing] Website/Outreach Project

[Brian M Hamlin]

On 2/26/24 07:24, Scott McHale via Marketing wrote:

> Folks,
>
hello all - my comments inline .. this is a community org, I am 
discovering not prescribing here..

> I’m not a marketing professional or website developer (or a GIS 
> person, oddly) so I am definitely open to thoughts, corrections, and 
> suggestions from everyone on my ideas and approach on the matter.
>
humility can go a long ways in the long run.. great to see this new 
effort at #osgeo ScottMH

> My initial interest in this change was specifically related to the 
> process for gaining an OSGeo UserId and how best to communicate both 
> the instructions and the value to potential new community members from 
> varying backgrounds. Initial mailing list discussion seems to suggest 
> there’s openness to addressing those specific issues but also review 
> whether there are changes to the website, generally, which would also 
> be of value.
>
I am a fixture with the #osgeo-sac group, as the "loyal opposition" not 
a key-signer.   I have participated in bringing up services online at 
#osgeo-sac that make use of the LDAP OSGeo-ID.  The original founding 
group is aging out and/or dissipated. There are two dozen people on the 
SAC page and almost none of them actually make changes since the 
covid-19 time.

A side-effect of the SAC services situation is - be careful what is 
promised to others. There is a modest amount of skilled admin time 
available, and some of these changes to inner services that rely on 
OSGeo LDAP ID are security-sensitive for real reasons.

In early days I enthusiastically visited coder meetings, university 
public events and hack-a-thons and promoted both #osgeo itself, and 
later the #osgeolive linux distribution.  At the same time, mobile apps 
became massive, and funding through the FAANG companies exploded. A net 
effect is that my own out reach efforts had very modest success.  As 
with any public outreach, the effort also attracted people with social 
skills deficit or other personal challenges. Thats OK!  but not really 
strengthening the dot-org. I eventually wrote an email that promoted the 
#osgeolive linux as inclusive include "neuro-diverse" communities.. that 
email was met with silence, well-intentioned as it was.

Summary of this -- the OSGeo LDAP ID is used right now to access online 
services provided by OSGeo-SAC and not much else. That LDAP system is 
used for security-sensitive things as well as a general ID.  Uniquely 
identifying people on the vast globe, and building some sense of trust 
while actually in-real-life getting hack attempts, is not trivial.

I believe #osgeo has to build on the local chapter concepts, to develop 
a trust (and revoke) mechanism over time, that can respond and grow in 
these times.  I believe there is a role for anonymity on the net for 
political reasons, however #osgeo is not setup to deal with this alone. 
There are many senior people in #osgeo who only use a logged and 
authenticated communication channel today. The new laws in the EU 
regarding chain of responsibility and public, govt ID for coding are 
going to make these lines even bolder in the near future.


> _My Intended Approach:_
>
> __
>
> I will, on my end, take a lightweight Business Analysis project 
> approach recognizing this is a volunteer organization and will try to 
> make the effort as frictionless as possible for other contributors 
> where I can. Obviously, if we end up taking on a significant effort as 
> part of an agreed solution, more formality will make sense.
>
>   * I’ll need help to better understand the context
>       o What we measure as an organization and what we consider success.
>           + Product installations, project contributions/contributors,
>             membership, fundraising, other?
>           + Specifically related to the webpages: page visits,
>             sign-ons, other?
>       o What internal and external stakeholders we need/intend to address.
>           + Assuming existing and prospective sponsors, members,
>             contributors, and users (in addition to this committee and
>             the board)
>           + Any specific business/org types (gov, academia, specific
>             industries)?
>       o What we’re currently capable of as an organization in terms of
>         implementing changes
>           + Constraints arising from org structure, technology
>             choices, budget, etc.
>       o The market(s) we currently serve and whether there are
>         specific areas of focus or challenge within those?
>           + I’m guessing there is a lot of this information floating
>             around in our current organization and membership, but I’m
>             also open to reaching out more broadly. I’ll need help
>             understanding:
>               # Personas of our various stakeholders
>               # Best avenues for outreach
>
* measures of success.  The FOSS4G event system was the only revenue 
generating activity and a few years ago, open fighting occurred for 
control of that brand and approval process.  I do not know all the 
details but I believe that has been partly patched up now.  The current 
elected Board members are the ones to drive priority at this time, 
ultimately, but hours are short and there is much to do.

I personally am working with coding teams, groups of people who write 
software, partly including power users, OSM power users, and champions 
of Wikipedia and other very public data  sources.  These are not the 
only people to measure success! but when I comment, I am mostly thinking 
of those people.  Second I think that the individual person is the basic 
unit of intelligence, not collective legal forms.

* Product installations, project contributions/contributors, membership, 
fundraising, other?  The product I have long-term connection with is the 
#osgeolive linux setup. I care about it a lot, and it has been very 
successful for #osgeo. Two other people who also care a lot about that 
project are currently Board members.  The disk is not ready to be used 
in production. It takes intermediate skill to install and customize it 
(I do that).  I know all the contents, the teams that produce the 
contents, and the way it works, very very well.

Our #osgeolive success is measured in several ways, and would need its 
own white paper to explain well from my point of view. I will refrain 
from random comments on the main website - Jody Garnett has been a 
champion at all stages for the website and I trust Jody very much for 
his insights there.

* What internal and external stakeholders we need/intend to address?  
for me, the other main open knowledge orgs are my guiding stars, the 
formal standards groups like OGC are the law-and-order, and massive 
FAANG-MSFT American corporations are the Monarchy of the network that I 
use every day.  I am an environmentalist and my personal priority is 
climate and the natural world.

* What we’re currently capable of as an organization in terms of 
implementing changes  -- as mentioned above, be cautious with the LDAP 
identity assignment itself. Make opportunities to collaborate, but be 
careful with the technical implementation, which is subject to 
real-world attacks (it already happened more than once).

* The market(s) we currently serve -- I joined #osgeo to be with coders 
and the projects they release. This is not the only stakeholder group, 
now including the Board level at OSGeo.  Note that for me, there are 
several disparate coding communities that really do not interact much 
with each other, yet the content is related. Java is a first-class 
citizen on #osgeolive for example. We did not connect with the Leaflet 
crowd, and after some deals, they actively dislike #osgeo in my 
experience. Lots of other smaller examples.

* best avenues for outreach -- in real life? on the network? mass media? 
social media?  all very different. In some ways there is no best, 
especially for resource constrained volunteer org. It is a "do-ocracy" 
so, someone making progress with any of that, is welcome IMHO.

> Having these questions – and others you might suggest – answered will 
> help me put together a plan to dig in more deeply on stakeholder needs 
> and then draft a current state analysis speaking to what we’re trying 
> to do and where stakeholders feel requirements are being met, or not.
>
> From there, we can agree a means for getting a few solutions – likely 
> of varying size and scope – to refine and prioritize.
>
> Please always feel free to give me your very honest opinions on 
> whether my recommendations here are too much, too little, or just 
> plain wrong. I’d rather re-think the whole thing now than get started 
> on an effort that the team doesn’t think can create real value for us 
> going forward.
>
* honest opinions on whether my recommendations here are too much, too 
little, or just plain wrong -- humility will go along way, thank you for 
this intro ScottMH.  Unfortunately, the 'honest' people are not the 
entire crowd on this Earth, and that includes greater osgeo dot org. 
They say the most severe tenure fights are in the English department, 
where the rewards are few and the alternative is barely survival.   SO 
it is in the fringe of geospatial. You will find horrible conflicts 
between well-meaning people, and complacency among the most privelaged. 
Dont be shocked, the work must continue. Did I mention Climate?  :-/

   all for now in Berkeley   -Brian M Hamlin /  MAPLABS  /  OSGeoLive PSC



> All thoughts appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Scott.
>
>
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