[sugar] Sugar Labs introduction

[David Farning]

On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 1:34 PM, Yamandu Ploskonka <yamaplos at bolinux.org> wrote:
>
> <snip>
> David Farning wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 4:17 PM, Sebastian Silva
>> <sebastian at fuentelibre.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> My research question has been "¿how to jumpstart an ecosystem?"
>>>    Hernan Pachas from the ministry, and I offer to organize volunteers
>>> for support and training, etc. At the time, they had their hands full
>>> LiveCD in spanish for download. Alas, as yama puts it, I was "nobody",
>>> so we were left out of helping out in the deployment and were pointed
>>> to "boring" (but important) stuff like translating the wiki. This was
>>> very frustrating and I will not make this mistake again. This is not
>>> to say we wont translate - its part of our mission too.
>>>
>
> Standard procedure seems to be everywhere point volunteers to work no one
> wants (like cleaning up the mess, etc)
>
> lesson for us:  See volunteers differently, point them to "fun stuff".
>
> In successful volunteer-dependent organizations (I've been with Scouting and
> YMCA for several generations), you choose your volunteer coordinator as
> carefully as you choose your CEO, and pay him better than pretty much anyone
> else - often he is the only one who actually gets paid...

Hmmm. Maybe this is why we asked Yama to take a leadership role in
establishing Local Labs:)  I am pretty good at organization stuff.
But, I realize that I suck at group community stuff.  So, if you find
anyone interested in being the face of the community, please let me
know!

david

>>> Now back to the point, Regional SugarLabs. I investigated the Ubuntu
>>> LoCoTeam "model" if there is such a thing. I found none, sorry to say,
>>> only a Howto describing very crude "how to run a team" and "what a
>>> team can do". It does not go into the relation to the mission a local
>>>
>>
>> There is nothing in the LoCo team documentation about how to run a
>> successful Local Lab.  Because, no one know how yet:)  It is still an
>> unsolved problem.  Hence, my approach to Local Labs is to make them as
>> autonomous as possible.   Over the next several months and years a set
>> of best pratices, adjusted for cultural differences, will develop.
>>
>
> Yama calls community building  an "art", precisely because it doesn't seem
> to fit into "how-to" manual models.  Maybe people who get communities
> running don't read manuals, don't write manuals?  different skill sets?  Or
> maybe it is a good thing, that because communities are organic things they
> can be dealt with only by organic things, not by something inherently dead,
> as a manual?
>
> Best-practices list is a good start.  I'll check with my pals at YMCA, ACA,
> Scouts
>
>>> Regional SugarLabs should be highly autonomous, carry their own
>>> identity and mission (which should significantly overlap or include
>>> central sugarlabs's mission). They should agree on similar set of
>>> values / principles and also joint set of goals. We just want to be
>>> "community centers", nodes in a network, not "Regional Offices".
>>> Basically this means recognition as local partners and ability to
>>> collect donations for our efforts. The reason for this perhaps is
>>> obvious: ¿How are we to expect peer recognition if our own structure
>>> is vertical?
>>>
>>
>> Yes, I agree and am pushing for autonomy!  My goal is for Local Labs
>> to become the key component of Sugar Labs.  Once we get the initial
>> Local Labs setup.  I am guessing that the Local Labs will have 10
>> times as many activate participants as the upstream Sugar Labs.
>>
>
> +1
>
>