Talk:Executive Director - Revision history

Wiki-JoWalsh: i speak too much

2006-08-16T05:28:36Z

i speak too much

Wiki-JoWalsh at 05:27, 16 August 2006

2006-08-16T05:27:40Z

Wiki-JoWalsh at 05:22, 16 August 2006

2006-08-16T05:22:34Z

Wiki-JoWalsh at 02:28, 16 August 2006

2006-08-16T02:28:09Z

Arnulf: typo

2006-08-10T19:47:49Z

typo

Wiki-JoWalsh at 20:05, 9 August 2006

2006-08-09T20:05:39Z

Wiki-JoWalsh at 20:03, 9 August 2006

2006-08-09T20:03:08Z

New page

Issues that may affect how we-the-board spec and recruit the position:

* Desire to avoid "volunteer indifference" of the kind which affected WebCom so direly when Daniel was chairing it:
- ED would have a facilitator/support/mentor role, not 'manager' role

* Desire to avoid causing "member envy"; ED is a perception-of-kudos role, even if the reality is mostly gruntwork and overcommunication
- We need to be transparent, accountable (which to me implies
keeping as much of this public as we can)
- ED ditto - totally open process, reporting, timesheeting, whatever.

* Desire to avoid "request overload" / bottlenecking for ED - they would wind up dealing with all manner of member and user support issues
- ED's priorities should be 'sandboxed'
- but we can't predict this upfront - depends on a person's skills
and on the foundation's emerging needs and short/medium term focus

* Desire to make position self-sustaining - it's a really significant financial commitment. I wonder whether after the first year it would be viable to say 'okay we guarantee you half-time+benefits and the rest you have to raise for yourself through participation in grantwriting / admin / etc for project directed sponsorship through OSGeo'

@@ Line 79: / Line 79: @@
 expectations results in press articles about "disorganization" and
 "confusion". Meeting those expectations results in community flames about
-"egomania" and the like. It would be a no-win scenario. Sort of like what
+"egomania" and the like.
 Like I have said many times before. Each of our communities is captive to

← Older revision		Revision as of 05:27, 16 August 2006
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	well at Mozilla and Eclipse, but only because of our somewhat long and		well at Mozilla and Eclipse, but only because of our somewhat long and
	winding roads of history.		winding roads of history.
		+
		+
		+	----
		+
		+	A board member of the GNOME foundation shared these points of advice for "doing it right" as they have found the experience:
		+
		+	* clear goals, ways of measuring progress towards those goals, and
		+	ways of setting new ones when the first batch are achieved.
		+
		+	* clear rules about the interaction of the ED and the community.
		+
		+	* a sub-set of the board responsible for management of the ED- ideally
		+	one person, in our experience, but perhaps a sub-committee
		+
		+	* clear board policy on decision making

← Older revision		Revision as of 05:22, 16 August 2006
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	us: only within the past six months have we gotten around to that		us: only within the past six months have we gotten around to that
	view.''		view.''
		+
		+	----
		+
		+	In response to all this, the ED of Eclipse now had this to say:
		+
		+	Part of the problem is the expectations that go with the title. If some
		+	unfortunate soul was to carry such a title, they would be expected by a
		+	myriad of outsiders to be the leader and spokesperson. Failing to meet those
		+	expectations results in press articles about "disorganization" and
		+	"confusion". Meeting those expectations results in community flames about
		+	"egomania" and the like. It would be a no-win scenario. Sort of like what
		+	Luis was talking about in the Gnome context but with even more opportunities
		+	for failure.
		+
		+	Like I have said many times before. Each of our communities is captive to
		+	its own history and culture. What works for one community does not
		+	necessarily work for another. Vive la difference!
		+
		+	As for Jo's original question, I think that in most cases it is very hard to
		+	avoid "volunteer envy" once you start adding full-time staff. It has worked
		+	well at Mozilla and Eclipse, but only because of our somewhat long and
		+	winding roads of history.

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 Issues that may affect how we-the-board spec and recruit the position:
@@ Line 24: / Line 25: @@
 * 3/ if 2/ holds, make a public posting of position - needs a window of probably 2 weeks for applications
 * 4/ if 3/ succeeds, have a window of 1 week for us to decide - which means it has to be a time when no board members are unavailable...

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		+
		+
	Issues that may affect how we-the-board spec and recruit the position:		Issues that may affect how we-the-board spec and recruit the position:

Line 15:		Line 17:

	* Desire to make position self-sustaining - it's a really significant financial commitment. I wonder whether after the first year it would be viable to say 'okay we guarantee you half-time+benefits and the rest you have to raise for yourself through participation in grantwriting / admin / etc for project directed sponsorship through OSGeo'		* Desire to make position self-sustaining - it's a really significant financial commitment. I wonder whether after the first year it would be viable to say 'okay we guarantee you half-time+benefits and the rest you have to raise for yourself through participation in grantwriting / admin / etc for project directed sponsorship through OSGeo'
		+
		+	== Gestural outline plan for getting stuff done about this ==
		+
		+
		+	* 1/ the Board reaches consensus on the need for an ED
		+	* 2/ if 1/ holds, turn the wiki page into a real job spec and agree on it - this should have a stoppage time to focus minds?
		+	* 3/ if 2/ holds, make a public posting of position - needs a window of probably 2 weeks for applications
		+	* 4/ if 3/ succeeds, have a window of 1 week for us to decide - which means it has to be a time when no board members are unavailable...

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 Issues that may affect how we-the-board spec and recruit the position:
-* Desire to avoid "volunteer indifference" of the kind which affected WebCom so direly when Daniel was chairing it:
+* Desire to avoid "volunteer indifference" of the kind which affected WebCom so directly when Daniel was chairing it:
    - ED would have a facilitator/support/mentor role, not 'manager' role