[sakai-pmc] Final Final Community Survey - by Thursday, October 24

[Anthony Whyte]

While I appreciate the effort I am not a fan of this survey.  It is pitched at institutions/organizations but not necessarily at the right people.  It adopts the wrong tone and poses the wrong sorts of questions, especially Q6-Q9, and Q11.  The idea that we would ask "Executive Management (CTO/CIO/VP, Director, etc.)" or a senior developer with tons of game, let alone others, to fill out this questionnaire strike me as the wrong approach.

Personally, I'm not all that interested in querying people as to why their organizations choose not to participate actively in the life of the community (Q7).   I'm sorry but none of the options suggested in Q8 are going to change the current level of engagement in any fundamental way, so why suggest them?   Q9 strikes me as too polite in the asking and lists options tied to groups and tasks that reflect what we do today but not necessarily how we should organize ourselves for tomorrows challenges. The Q11 group already exists; it's called the Sakai PMC.

I think we should set this survey aside.   We should instead hammer out a strategy for a given period in which we articulate project goals, identify our needs, and then pursue aggressively whatever contributor talent we need to execute on our goals.  We lead with strategy not surveys.  We knock on doors rather than slip a questionnaire underneath and hope for a reply.

At Educause I engaged in a number of useful discussions with John Bush, Sam Ottenhoff, Chuck Severance (actually post-conference with csev) and others in the Sakai Community who were in attendance.  Along with Seth I'm going to distill the ideas that were discussed into a straw man strategy doc that we will deliver to the PMC on or before Friday, 8 November 2013 for discussion and hopefully, if it proves of value, action.

Cheers,

Anth

anthony whyte | its and mlibrary | university of michigan | arwhyte at umich.edu | 517-980-0228


On Oct 22, 2013, at 10:14 AM, Neal Caidin wrote:

> To Sakai-PMC,
> 
> https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?PREVIEW_MODE=DO_NOT_USE_THIS_LINK_FOR_COLLECTION&sm=U0kajcfdi9qBPSVdaH%2bpVOrwTHuNSMKIOQR8MnBrHsU%3d
> 
> I think the only change I've made is that I consolidated the roles a little bit, and added an "other" textbox if somebody does not fit into any of those roles. So if you were okay with the survey before, you probably still will be.
> 
> If I don't hear back from anybody by this Thursday, October 24, by silent consent I will assume it is okay to send out to the community. 
> 
> BTW, I had a few community members (non-PMC types) take a sneak preview and they think it looks good.
> 
> Thanks,
> Neal
> 
> 
> 
> Neal Caidin
> Sakai CLE Community Coordinator
> neal.caidin at apereo.org
> Skype: nealkdin
> Twitter: ncaidin
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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