[Grassroots-l] [Marketing] Information flow problem

Sameer Verma sverma at sfsu.edu
Thu May 14 12:27:42 EDT 2009 

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 7:16 AM, Bastien <bastienguerry at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Just to make sure: maybe I misunderstood Sameer's email.  My point was
> about fixing OLPC's information flow management, not Sugar's.
>

The focus/scope of our project this semester has been the Contributor
Program at OLPC. Although many other constituencies plug into this
map, we simply didn't have time to do justice to all of them,
Sugarlabs included. I'll be the first to point it out that the
analysis is by no means complete, but it does provide a good degree of
clarity to the process. I hope we can do the same for other
constituencies in the next few months. After all, OLPC is still
Sugarlabs' largest customer, and Sugar seems to be the only viable
source for OLPC XOs in the field - they have to be connected.

cheers,
Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/

> Frederick Grose <fgrose at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> According to http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs#Principles, participants
>> and contributors will.
>>
>> One problem might be where best to document. The pending reports should help us
>> sort out that issue.
>>
>> === Principles === In order for Sugar to be successful, it needs the
>> participation of a large number of people who share common goals while
>> maintaining independence, so that each participant has the ability to act
>> independently. For these reasons, Sugar Labs subscribes to the principles
>> described [http://flors.wordpress.com/2008/05/04/
>> the-paradigm-of-the-open-organization/ here], which are the author's own
>> translation of an [http://web.archive.org/web/20050317231119/http://
>> interactors.coop/organizacionabierta original text in Spanish.] ====Identity===
>> = * Clear mission – Fully disclosed objectives. * Declared commitments –
>> Affinities and aversions explained. * Declared outside connections –
>> Relationships with other organizations explicitly listed. ====Structure==== *
>> Horizontal organization – Teams and facilitators work on responsibilities and
>> agreements. * Identified contributors – Who is who, people are reachable. *
>> Clear responsibilities – Who is in charge of what. * Activities described – All
>> of the ongoing work is acknowledged. See [[http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/
>> Wiki_Team/Guide/Wiki_Structure | Wiki Structure]] for a guide to how the wiki
>> models Sugar Labs' structure. ====Operation==== * Open participation – Anybody
>> can access the information and get a first responsibility. * Meritocracy –
>> Responsibilities are acquired (or lost) based on one's skills, results, and
>> contributors’ support. * Voluntary (non-)engagement – Nobody is forced to be
>> involved or to keep responsibilities. ====Information==== * Regular reports –
>> Reported activities and future plans allow monitoring and participation. *
>> Information accessible – Even internal operational information is available by
>> default. * Explicit confidentiality – It is explained what matters are
>> confidential, why, and who can access them. ====Goods==== * Economic model –
>> Feasibility and sustainability plans are exposed. (Please see/contribute to the
>> discussion [[Sugar Labs/Funding|here]].) * Resources – Inventory of items
>> detailing who contributed what and why. * Public accounts – It’s clear where
>> the money comes from and where it goes. * A special [[Sugar Labs/Thank You|
>> thanks]] to our contributors.
>>
>> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 6:12 AM, Bastien <bastienguerry at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>
>>     Sounds interesting.
>>
>>     It's a useful first step.  IMHO the second step is to attribute clear
>>     responsabilities to real human beings: who does what when it comes to
>>     sending/receiving information.
>>
>>     I helped with maintaining the OLPC News page on the wiki for a while.
>>     It was not clear who was in charge of this; now that I declined doing
>>     it, it is still not clear who have to do it.
>>
>>     Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> writes:
>>
>>     > Information flow is a critical problem for any organization. Some
>>     > researchers even point out that an organization is shaped by how
>>     > information flows within and outside of it. Free flow of information
>>     > builds networks. Restricted flow of information builds hierarchies. In
>>     > the OLPC context, information flow happens over several channels:
>>     > mailing lists, IRC, Talk pages, Wiki pages, phone calls, RT,
>>     > face-to-face, and IM (did I miss anything?). We all have preferences
>>     > for channels and applications. One can largely divide the channels
>>     > into synchronous (IM, Phone, etc) and asynchronous (e-mail, wiki) and
>>     > the applications that support these channels. We also tend to have
>>     > preferences for applications: wiki, forum, mailing list, IRC etc.
>>     > Then, there's the element of public vs private conversations. As a
>>     > researcher in Information Systems, I find these problems very
>>     > interesting.
>>     >
>>     > Two problems arise:
>>     > 1) too many channels (example: if I wasn't on the phone conference,
>>     > I'll miss out the details via IRC) lead to lack of critical mass and
>>     > fragmentation
>>     > 2) The application (wiki or IRC or mailing list) is a hammer and every
>>     > problem looks like a nail that it can fix. "Throw it on the wiki" is a
>>     > source of a lot of misery!
>>     >
>>     > Then there is the element of fashionable social networking (flickr,
>>     > twitter, tumblr, etc)...as if e-mail, IM, IRC, and chatter at cafes
>>     > aren't social networking! That topic is for another day :-) My
>>     > approach is that we figure out the problem first, and then find a tool
>>     > to fix it. Activity centric as opposed to application centric. Sound
>>     > familiar?
>>     >
>>     > So, this semester, I worked with five of my graduate students who
>>     > undertook a Information Systems Analysis and Design project to analyze
>>     > the OLPC information flow problem and come up with some design
>>     > concepts. All the students were new to the problem. This was useful
>>     > because their perspective was quite new and they asked some very good
>>     > questions.
>>     >
>>     > They used phone interviews, e-mails, in-person interviews, and
>>     > observations on the mailing lists, phone conferences, and the RT
>>     > system to gather data. A huge thank you to Adam Holt, Seth Woodworth,
>>     > SJ Klein and a bunch of other who contributed and facilitated.
>>     >
>>     > In brief, they have pulled together the following:
>>     >
>>     > A general problem mind map (Freemind)
>>     > Context map (Dia)
>>     > Data Flow Diagrams (Dia)
>>     > Entity-Relationship Diagram (Dia)
>>     > Prototype (Drupal)
>>     > Report and presentation (OpenOffice)
>>     >
>>     > Their semester ends next week, and the report and presentation are due
>>     > on the 21st. However, given that SugarCamp is this weekend, we'll try
>>     > to post bits and pieces on the wiki in the hope that it will help with
>>     > some of the discussion (marketing at sugarlabs cc'd). In the spirit of
>>     > keeping things open and generative, we have decided to release the
>>     > documents, slides and diagrams under a CC license and also release
>>     > source files to make modifications easier. We've also stuck with FOSS
>>     > titles and open formats for all documents - this was a bit of a
>>     > struggle because some of the tools are not as mature as their
>>     > proprietary counterparts (Dia vs Visio) and the students were a lot
>>     > more familiar with the proprietary ones (Visio vs Dia).
>>     >
>>     > There are some unfinished pieces, which will hopefully be worked on in
>>     > the next few months to add better definition to the overall flow of
>>     > information. Stay tuned to this thread for updates.
>>     >
>>     > cheers,
>>     > Sameer
>>
>>     --
>>      Bastien
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>
> --
>  Bastien
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