Notes from Jan 30 conference call
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Crisis Commons Governance phone call Jan 30 - 10:30am PST Back to Governance Notes page
Montreal Boston Chicago New York DC LA
Start to discuss governance and structure of CC and how we want to move forward as an organization.
Have time for people to provide what may work, and what we should look at to move forward.
Heather Blanchards's thoughts - Last summer with first CC, idea was a lot of folks could create CC all over the country and world. All participants in camps would be able to come together once a year to create a Crisis Congress. When thinking about it, Crisis Camp is an event and all of us as a collective could be members of a commons. That is really where the idea came from, being able to be a member of an uber org and have chapters. What we have seen since the EQ is that has happened. Difft cities have created camps and will establish chapters that will have programming that will live on beyond this crisis.
Heather Toronto - When teams come on board, there should be a process at front before people get engaged.
Susan Chicago - In addition to higher level CC governance, perhaps standardize what governance needs are in each of cities. Want to keep as simple as possible, but needs to be some structure within each city which standardizes across the cities.
Heather Toronto - Bought all of domains for Toronoto to reserve them, and will hand them over to the larger Org.
Chad - Whether to give sep domains to each camp or have subdomains - they are not official unless they are on the domain.
____ DC - two hierarchies - one is geographic location. Then there is projects themselves which across geographic locations. Translation has people in 5 difft cities. Last weekend there were overlapped projects that were focused on their geographic priorities.
Heather Blanchard - Project piece is forcing the issue. We need strong leadership in separate areas. Maybe the commons need 5 uber-project leads that oversee areas - mobile, translation, mapping, etc. All of projects last few weeks would fall into one bucket.
Do we need that? How does one become a common? ex: KC, Missouri is hosting a camp and Heather has not spoken to them In a way we have chapters, and in a way we have programs. One of pr grams would
_____ - This is bureaucracy, but it is important. Look at successful of projects. Top down meritocracy, determines what gets done. Doesn't know what right balance is, but without it things duplicate.
Heather - 2 cabinets. International Programs, representatives of countries, cities, chapters.
Chad - Of the opinoin that less is more, doesn't understand why we need to break down by chapter.
Heather - to have manageable amount of people coordinating.
Chad - Looking at Twestival and ____ (ted ex?) Both are similar. Do a licensing process/approval process. Maybe do regions?
Heather - When this organization becomes a legal org, there are separate conversations. Dealing with IP
Heather - Core beliefs and values will be the compass that we abide by.
Heather read it
Susan - Who participated in coming up with it? How was it vetted?
Heather - This is the vetting session. She wrote it the night after crisis camp. It was a reaction after the first camp.
Chad - How about reordering
Heather - Human rights. If your govt is controlling your ISP. They are limiting your access to information.
______ - Do we need to spend a lot of time on how we believe versus how we will act. Anyone can start a project, but they
Universal Declaration of Human Rights - http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
Heather - These are just my thoughts. At the end of teh day, CCommons must be a neutral third party. We are here to help the helpers. We are not on the ground, we are not working directly with governments. We are here to help NGO's. NGO's are in competition with eachother for funding, for mission and that's not a bad thing. That's just reality. How can the commons be this Geneva where we can bring competitors to the table, along with the private sectors - to have people collaborate. Being that Geneva type of organization, we are a trusted partner. So people are coming to us because they can't work across spheres. I am really supportive of this being independent of this organization supporting open systems. Our volunteers wouldn't work on a closed system. We promote open data sharing. For examples, if vols are gathering data - that data must be open to everyone. Real example, is translation.
Chad - I think one thing. Personally, one thing we need ot be most careful of is private sector. People coming in saying there are 1000 volunteers, we have a cool idea and let's work on this. One of the things that might help with that kind of stuff. Not just is it open, but where is it stored. Interested to hear what everyone thing - when I think of the commons, I think that is where I go to get information. Do we repository or just link.
Heather Toronoto - Security and privacy of the people who we are trying to help is so important.
Heather Blanchard - Are you thinking of a data.gov?
Chad - I'm opposed to directing people where and how to work. Rather people come to grab parts and get ideas. That keeps us more neutral. It is actionable, but scale wise wants one developer to jump on and grab pieces and make applications.
Noel - Piece we def want to keep in there is idea that regular people can now help in a crisis, and CC is a place where they can plug in. Notion of social networking and mass collaboration. A big part of what we do is bring people together to help in a crisis. Connecting people with things that are going on.
____ - Coordinating so that they are effective. Bring this up because I've seen projects spread across cities. More about communication and coordination, and not control. Have bylaws that say we don't do translation for microsoft - clarify what we don't do.
2 aspects - make sure data is available under Commons license, not as important where it is stored.
Greg Smith - Relatively new kind on the block. What we are trying to focus on is end solutions for people. e need content, code, infrastructure, structure. I think to accomplish what we are tyring to get done, we need all of these pieces. We are good at the content and code part.
Heather - (1) A sourceforge for data. and (2) Data.gov that puts all datastreams linkable in one place (like a library)
______ - Should create a license code, as part of that model must be accessible. Like GPL or Commons. Real dangers in the code world. Unlicensed code from the get-go destroys the whole product as you can determine what is derivative.
Heather - Spent 5 hours with gaggle of lawyers talking about just that.
Chad - Doesn't have to be stored in just one place. But what about one place where most of it is. How about just talk to github or someone else, can you just set up a place where people can, grab code, and know it is under the Crisis Commons.
_____ - Need to have an authoritative list that links to that place. In terms of making sure any creative work is available to all. Google Code, Sourceforge and Github. Must have this license on the top, linked from this repository, and make a Crisis Commons administrator able to edit code.
Heather - Who enforces this?
_____ - The Council. When a project manager is brought on board, they are brought up to know how code is managed. Very little of it has licensing. Translations too, and open maps - not just code.
Heather - Thing about this org is it is creating things of value in the market place. So need to think about the IP. Perhaps breakup into an IP committee and introduce people to pro bono lawyers. One is Stephen Lu, current chair of American Bar Associations Science and Technology.
Heather - Where does a project originate, who is behind it, and what do you need to move it forward? 2 pieces to throw out - from experience of last few weeks. Project needs a home, i.e.: a Sponsor. Sponsor is NGO has said this is what the need is, can you do this for us? On the Commons side, who accepts that need and will take it on as a project. A good example is Haitians Voices, and Open Solace, and another IT. A bunch of pieces can be brought together and connect the dots. Who should we be accepting projects from?
Chad - Have we determined that projects must be approved? I just want to be clear.
Heather - What if the governance structure at which you could make a decision.
Chad - Thinks, if I build it they will come.
_____ - Onboarding camps, people and projects. We should do a proof of concept to understand what we are doing for those three on boarding buckets. Determine what needs to be added to make them more mature. Would that be useful?
_____ - Chad, Tim and I threw these ideas around and made Submission Form. We could build on it.
_____ - Other questions. How we do project selection and ingestion. How we choose which projects, what are the key things we need, I think third area is how do we coordinate across projects
Alex Rose - And what about Why?
Noel - Crisis wiki has a why, without a clear customer. Separately, Jeff Johnson can create a wiki that keeps track of all projects automatically.
Heather TO - Crisis Wiki I look at it and think there are other things we need to do first. There are priorities.
Noel - It's where people's hearts take them. We can't direct them.
_____ - Not sure if that is right. There are some people that will volunteer for anything and this group should have some responsibility to determining what is important.
Heather - We help the helpers and it's important to have a sponsor.
Chad - I am not arguing that. But we are not always going to be a crisis. There must be a way for people to bring in new ideas. We could have a voting, digg like system. And when it gets to a certain level then work can start.
Noel - That is what Jeff is talking about building.
Heather - We would see a need a proactively go to the NGO. It needs to go to a home, its not gonna just reside on Crisis Commons. If it doesn't go to Red Cross or UN we are just going to be working for ourselves.
Chad - Are we not sponsoring tools that skip NGOs and Governments and work directly for the people. If something happens in Chicago and we build apps that NGOs don't need but this is something people on the street use. I'm not sure our only customers are NGOs and Governments. Then the question is are we serving the people directly.
Heather - I am all about what Ushahidi does and crowd source of information. If we are building systems and applications.
_____ - There are already robust communities that do this. Commons will need to work within those communities. What is unique value that the commons adds. 1) More structured management, 2) Positive human outcome goals. Projects that accept those beliefs will agree to the charter.
_____ - One of key values is volunteers with unique skill sets to come on and help. If it encourages someone to say "I will build a Creole translator" That is a powerful thing even if it isn't fully blessed. This is a great discussion because it gets to the heart of what we want to do and what we want our volunteers to work on. Perhaps an in between for project selection from. Projects get added to the mix, volunteers will self-select to see what they are interested in, but add editorial layer on top that includes information from NGO's.
Consensus this works. We all like this.
Chad - Add requirements
Heather - International Red Cross said their data system that is where people should go to locate missing people. Google made people finder. It is in direct competition of what Governments and UN said people should do. There is a competition in data right now. What should we do, who should we work for?
Alex - Red Cross has thought through privacy concerns and during an emergency google doesn't have time to think through those issues when building tools.
Heather - Authoritative. Whoever is responding to that disaster is saying to the public and is saying this is official place where we put missing people. Maybe it is a closed system and maybe it is crappy, but this is where we say to go.
Noel - We already gave an answer to that. We directed people to help people finder.
Heather - If I am from Red Cross, I wouldn't think this is responsible. It is not helpful.
Noel - Hospital finder was created in the absence of leadership.
Heater - But when an authoritative organization says this is what we need, these are the hard questions. If we end up being in the way and not augmenting, what does that look like.
But, if people are sitting on their hands when something can b
Chad - What issue here is. Who are the authoritative people. There are 1000s of NGOs. You said they compete with eachother. It goes to the neutrality We should have a spot on the crises commons for Red Cross to put release that ...
Heather - this is a decision making tree. When I raise the issue on not impeding
Noel - At first Crisis Camp is to change perception that there are other human resources available than just police and fire. There will be fires in Los Angeles next year, can they engage with local organizations before hand.
Chad - I am already setting up meetings locally to start working with governments.
____ - That is fundamental to what the Commons is - working locally. There are folks understanding things I don't - NGO's, Crises, etc. Volunteers have that feeling that they are doing things of value. They are not restricted by those things. Key part of value is to be seen as giving guidance and recommendations, but of course projects could be selected through other channels.
Chad - We don't want to be the "used clothes" of data - and that is why I rail on needing to be associated. But we need to innovate, and not wait. There is that decision tree
____ - Christmas cards for Haiti conversation. Do we tell volunteers not to do that?
_____ - 2 roles. Facilitate development to accomplish goals. Other is integrating into structures of governments and NGOs. They have ethical dilemmas. You can't do both.
Heather - It's not, what about the independent voice. At first camp, we brought 4 NGOs together. They normally wouldn't be in room together.
_____ - Analogy. We need to make sure we capture innovation and volunteers interests. We can't push a programmer into a project that he doesn't have have an interest. How do we get them to come in and capture innovation. Take OS as example. Linux needs app for people to edit word document. I'm going to write it 80% of way and then submit it. We need a process for operating a new project. We will set a standard, sponsor, 2 leads, let us know what you are doing. Standard is framed in such a way that it can do quality control so that people can use, maintainable, portable, not wasting peoples time.
Heather TO - Signing off
Heather Blanchard - We are used to the volunteers that are coming to do this. But during peace time, it is really about digital democracy, getting people interested in technology, and that is where we can get people involved. To let people know how to get involved. Right now we are very focused on where we are here. As we start talking to other countries, they may be a lot more interested in digital freedom of it and how it will be
____ - Works for US Health and Department of Human Services. One value is available resources and understanding of what requirements are. I can't think of any other group within Government or NGO. Doesn't know of a group that has created that marketplace. Contracting between Government, NGO's, and IT community.
Heather - Amnesty International should do more with digital literacy. Telecoms Sans Frontiers is setting up cyber cafe for people to contact each other. Down the line are we doing to have a crisis response team - do we have people that can go to Virginia beach after a hurricane - do we set up a cyber cafe.
____ - Bringing it back to Haiti. The NGOs down there have a coordinating council. Are we doing anything to coordinate with that group.
Heather - We don't have an official structure. This has grown organically. For this crisis, Crisis Commons is very new to the scene. The question is that what we are doing isn't for Haiti, but creating a structure that next time there is a disaster we are ready to help and they will call us. I am very conscious of being in a supportive role.
Susan in Toronto - Need to get back to working.
Heather - We have been on the call for 2 hours. Perhaps we will wrap up. Edit the mission, visions. etc. Let's have another call next week, in DC we will do a decision tree. We will do a call next week with lawyers on code.
_____- We need to get a Project team for inter-project communication. Understanding what a project is, who runs it, how it gets started, how vols find them. I also think it is key to the practical to making things work. All of this comes together with these projects. Leads on the projects are the leads on making these principles and processes work or not work. They are the ones that must accept what the uber-committees is saying.
END 12:20pm PST Jan 30, 2010
