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Open_Communities_Group
OPEN COMMUNITIES GROUP
Background – MozFest session
Team (staff) members from the Open Knowledge Foundation, Wikimedia UK, Mozilla, Creative Commons worked together on a session at MozFest 2013.
Topic of the session: bring together various organisations working in the open space to discuss ideas and possibilities for collaboration. There's so much that can be done, but how shall we do it? What do we want to achieve?
Notes here: https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Joint_Mozfest_session
Who was involved:
- Christian Villum, Open Knowledge Foundation - christian.villum@okfn.org
- Zara Rahman, Open Knowledge Foundation - zara.rahman@okfn.org
- Katelyn Rogers, Open Knowledge Foundation - katelyn.rogers@okfn.org
- Stevie Benton, Wikimedia UK - stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk / @steviebenton
- John Cummings Wikimedian in residence, Natural History Museum and Science Museum - john.cummings@wikimedia.org.uk / @mrjohnc
- Alison Wheeler, MozillaWiki - wikimedia@alisonw.com / @AlisonW
- Jane Park, School of Open, Creative Commons - janepark@creativecommons.org / @janedaily
After the session
People who have been invited by the original session organizers to join the post-session e-mail thread to discuss about next steps:
- Beatrice Martini, Open Knowledge Foundation - beatrice.martini@okfn.org
- Heather Leson, Open Knowledge Foundation - heather.leson@okfn.org
- Paul Stacey, Creative Commons - pstacey@creativecommons.org
- Harry Wood, OpenStreeMap - mail@harrywood.co.uk
- Marieke Guy, Open Knowledge Foundation - marieke.guy@okfn.org
Current Status
Shared goals emerged from the first joint session and following e-mail thread.
- #1 – an online or in person event is some format for community coords from different orgs, working together to share best practices, discuss and make plans for the future (e.g. joint projects between communities). Could happen in Spring.
- if in person, could happen in Europe. Important: ensure diversity of invited folks to the event, not locals only, asking for travel funding from orgs.
- potential goals: documentation of the gathering open to the wider community, plans for next steps on broader community involvement (some kind of platform?), & more
- #2 – if from this initial event the wish of an offline multi-orgs event will arise: being *the* festival of all the open communities, OKF would suggest to take the chance to see OKFestival (July, 15-18 2014) as a good place to run anything addressing people from different orgs/ countries (already physically in the same place with no need to organise additional funding plans for travel costs). Personal OKF's take on this :)
- #3 – start sharing ideas of projects we could develop together: e.g. joint online hangouts on specific topics & such
ACTION 1: identify goals and success metrics of the group
ACTION 2: plan together the offline/online event for community coords from different orgs
Who's in to plan and join:
- Beatrice Martini (OKF)
- Katelyn Rogers (OKF)
- Stevie Benton (WMUK)
- Jane Park (CC)
- Paul Stacey (CC)
- others?
Guidelines (please add your ideas):
- duration:
- how many people invited? Best would be having a max number of people to join from each org (to enable balanced conversation and representation). 3 people max?
- which would be the orgs participating? Please mention: name of the org, your role, country you'd be coming from
- Open Knowledge Foundation
- Katelyn Rogers: Working Groups Community Manager - UK
- ...
- ...
- Wikimedia (UK only? Others as well?) SB: Happy to offer this to colleagues from other WM chapters, too
- Stevie Benton
- John Cummings
- ...
- Mozilla Foundation
- Matt Thompson (@OpenMatt), MoFo Webmaker Program Manager, would love to play :)
- ...
- ...
- Creative Commons
- Jane Park, Project Manager, US
- Paul Stacey, Associate Director, Canada...
- ...
- others?
Proposals for the agenda of the event
Potential venues (please indicate venue, city, number of rooms, capacity, cost or free of charge?)
Potential dates (please indicate if any day in March and April is absolutely out of discussion for you)
- 23 April is really difficult for me as it's World Book and Copyright Day and we're looking at planning something around it
- 22 March I have another event
- For OKF: 24-28 April is likely to be difficult for a few of us as we might have another event
- 16-17-April I have another event
ACTION 3:
Update from 12 December
Wikimedia UK has agreed to fund a project to develop this work. A job description will be collaboratively created at (link to follow later) and all are welcome to help create this. Having a person whose role it is to focus on this for all our benefit will really help. Recruitment for the position will begin in January and the details will be shared with the group so it can be forwarded on to our relevant communities. Extension or match funding for this project is also especially welcomed! This will allow the project to continue beyond the original six months
Project role description
Role title: Open Coalition Project Manager <--- is "manager" the best title for this? reply: I'm not precious about the title, happy for it to be changed, but it makes the role more attractive. Happy to change if there's a preferred alternative
Reporting to: Head of External Relations
Salary: £26,000 pa (pro rata)
14 hours per week for six months (with the potential to extend, depending on funding)
Benefits: 25 days annual leave (pro rata) plus bank holidays, stakeholder pension
Location: London / Flexible (remote working possible)
About the project
This project has been initially funded by Wikimedia UK and will support the development of a stronger network of organisations working in the areas of open knowledge and open access. The appointed person will be working to develop this network on behalf of all related organisations and they will have input into the work. However, the post will be directly managed by Wikimedia UK.
To do this, the Open Coalition Project Manager will need to:
- Have a thorough understanding of issues relating to open knowledge, open access, open source and open content licences (should we specify open content licenses, or is it self explanatory) added that in - thank you!
- Act as a conduit for groups acting in the open space, facilitating discussion and collaboration (should we be more specific than 'groups'?) Organisations, perhaps?
- Lead on the creation of a booklet explaining what it means to be an open organisation and what the open sector is (beyond a particular region, globally eg. we wouldn't want it to be euro or western centric?) (this is also a huge task seeing as how there are so many different fields where open applies and orgs/companies in those fields. how comprehensive do we want it to be -- something with more of a wide reach, but that does not go in depth?) This is a sensible point, thanks Jane. I think a broad and introductory overview is probably best to begin with. Any thoughts?
- Lead on the development of a small event for organisations working in this space, including Wikimedia UK, Open Knowledge Foundation, Creative Commons, Mozilla, Open Rights Group and OpenStreetMap among others +1 -- should we emphasize this as their main project? after all.. this was the idea that started it all!
- Build a relationship of trust with the group and the wider open community
- Develop and deliver a session about the open coalition at Wikimania in London, August 2014
Key responsibilities
Management duties
- Work with the Head of External Relations at Wikimedia UK and appropriate people from other open organisations to develop a loose network of groups of shared interest
- Create a matrix of open organisations, their interests and activities/ goals and objectives (we don't want to reinvent the wheel -- maybe specify that they should build on existing and open resources)
- Identify ways in which the organizations complement each other. Identify activities currently underway that overlap or aim for similar outcomes. Explore ways in which existing activities could be coordinated to achieve a larger outcome by combining forces. Define new projects organizations can partner on where strengths are pooled to take on something neither organization could do on their own.
- To explore opportunities for collaboration across this group (how is the open coalition defined? can anyone join at this point? is there a min criteria for joining? is this something this role will explore?) (reply: I don't think we need to have a minimum criteria but happy to work collectively on a definition) and facilitate these collaborations
- Describe joint initiatives and scope out effort, resources, and budget needed along with tangible deliverables or results to be accomplished. (i feel like this in itself is a part time job.)
- Manage overall implementation of shared projects & initiatives. (i'm not sure this in scope of what we initially discussed?) (I think that depends on how we define it - if this is kept it needs to make sure that nobody loses any independence for any work.)
- Prepare regular, publicly available, reports to the group on the delivery of the project and how it can be developed further (this should be lightweight so anyone in the world can read) (totally agree!)
- Encourage and promote the involvement of volunteers from all groups, ensuring that they are provided with opportunities to support and participate in the work of the group.
- Maintain and develop appropriate content aggregator(s) to share materials related to the project
- Create and maintain means of communicating with the members and community including blogging and social media.
- Work with the group to collaboratively create and disseminate appropriate promotional materials
- Create, develop and deliver a session or workshop at Wikimania in London in August 2014
Project Management
- Develop an effective and evolving project plan
- Be the first point of call for related enquiries
- Lead the development of an event for open organisations, from sourcing a venue to arranging a compelling programme I think we should emphasize this. good to organize position around a main deliverable, as the other PM duties are things that will fall away if no one picks it up after
- Lead on the creation of a booklet explaining the concepts of open and the practicalities of being an open organisation (to be jointly supported and badged by all groups in the open coalition) do we want a booklet or a website/web space? both, ideally. Web very important but some printed collateral we can all share at events and conferences would be really helpful
Person Specification
Experience
- Proven experience of working with an organisation in the open sector (whether as an employee or active volunteer)
- Strong understanding of issues surrounding open knowledge, open access, open source and open licences
- Experience of working effectively with a team of volunteers
- Experience of collaboration with multiple organisations with similar aims and values (desirable).
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
- Passionate and knowledgeable about the open movement
- The energy and enthusiasm to drive forward a large collaborative project
- Good people management skills, with the ability to involve and inspire people working in different organisations, settings and locations
- An understanding of internet technologies, including social media.
- Excellent project management abilities. should we add something about being autonomous and being able to work unsupervised? don't know how closely wikimedia uk plans to supervise this position [already in there below :) - I don't plan on managing it closely as they are there for us all and we all have equal weight as far as I;m concerned]
- Flexible approach, with the capability to be able to identify and manage opportunities and risk.
- Logical, clear thinking, diplomatic and patient approach.
- Understanding of working with and managing volunteers; the ability to learn quickly and integrate with a diverse open community.
- Ability to meet tight deadlines
- Ability to manage own workload and work independent of close management
- Ability to work flexible hours and locations as required
- Undertake training as required
- Knowledge of other languages (desirable).
==Update from Stevie, 6 February==
Very pleased to report that we received ten applications for the position. These are currently being shortlisted by Katelyn, Jane and Stevie. The applications were of a very high standard and we should get someone excellent for the position.
==Update on 7 March==
A shortlist of five candidates has now been agreed for the position. It was difficult to make a choice but we are now in the process of pinning down dates for the interviews. Please also help us to create a set of interview questions to put to the candidates.
===Interview questions===
- Visions for the potential of building a more unified, global community through shared projects
- Candidate's ideas for concrete actions?
- How do you propose we communicate better among organizations? What tools would you use? What would you help build?
- Who would be the appropriate representatives at each organization to coordinate with?
- What are the challenges you foresee in bridging communities and connecting organizational projects? How do you foresee working to overcome these challenges?
- Everyone is busy. We don't want to create more work for people. How do you think we can get everyone to collaborate more without creating this work?
- Elaborate on relevant experience
- Explore the candidate's background in community building in general and the open movement
- Explain why the candidate thinks this coalition is important and the value that it can add to the open movement
- What's the first thing you would do if appointed?
- For candidates outside of London, how would you envisage providing regular updates to your manager?