User:Sj/community

Notes on building / sustaining local support communities.

6 + 3 things to attend to

from an early-2009 discussion with Pilar

1. recognition. we need a way to recognize good work (and a way for volunteers to indicate they are interested in doing certain work)
2. a welcoming group for new projects. we need a strategy for knowing when there's a group of welcomers who can work with new pilots in a region and how to make that a good first-experience meeting the community (else it will not grow)
3. learning how to connect foundations and community groups. what are the criteria that define a "good community group to work with"? taking some of our time in discussion with foundations/implementers and making sure they know of community resources that are available
4. public assessment of groups and resources (following up in a. above). have a transparent public space to identify people who have helped / can help with pilots. encourage the community, OLPC, and others to share their impressions and experiences -- and their sense of what is important (the olpc model, learning with sugar)
5. naming. separate from the above, have a clear consistent way of naming local and global groups (we're making some progress, but being on the same page will help other discussions)
6. transparency. who is working with whom? what other obligations are there between groups in our community / in the field? what important events are coming up? it's surprising how hurt someone can be by a simple thing such as not knowing an event was going to take place. and there is usually at least one level of politics in the background.
7. organization. meta-groups are needed to help other community groups organize themselves and their plans. a local group committee?
8. communication. better channels / better use of them for comm. b/t OLPC and individual groups, in both directions.
9. group definition. groups wanting to form a formal OLPC <country> group should have a default agreement to sign, laying out their interest in supporting OLPC's mission, limitations on trademark use, &c in exchange for OLPC's interest in providing resources, use of the mark, and collaboration.