[maemo-community] Moblin + Maemo = MeeGo. Impact on Council?

[From: Stephen Gadsby]

On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 1:29 PM, Tim Samoff <tim at samoff.com> wrote:
> In any case, it's on the list somewhere.

Yes, it is:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tim <tim at samoff.com>
Date: Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 12:33 PM
Subject: Discussion about Maemo community management...
To: List for community development <maemo-community at maemo.org>


Hi,

There's been a private conversation going on between the Maemo
Community Council, some maemo.org employees, and some Nokia employees
about the notion of openness/transparency, communication between the
Maemo community and Nokia, and general community management.

Currently, we have four subsets of community management withing our community:

1. Nokia Maemo SW (and this is mostly Quim Gil and a handful of other
*dedicated* Nokia/Maemo employees)
2. maemo.org staff (Dave Neary, Niels Breet, and others -- including
some people from Nemein, like Henri Bergius and Andre Klapper)
3. The Maemo Community Council (Ryan, Andrew, Simon, Eduardo, and myself)
4. Other kind folks from the greater Maemo community

This is actually quite an amazing conglomeration of people who are
willing to lend their time to help out within our community. But,
concerning the points I outlined above, there is no single paid person
whose job it is to oversee the community and facilitate the
community's needs to and from Nokia. My concern is that while there
are a lot of people who are willing to volunteer time to the
community, there are a lot of things that either become someone's
_extra_ responsibility, or get neglected and/or forgotten. (I.e., Did
you know that most of us -- even Nokia and maemo.org employees --
volunteer our time completely out of the scope of our regular day
jobs?)

For these reasons, I would like to propose that Nokia (at some point)
think about allocating a budget for an official "Community Manager"
(either technical or non-technical, although the addition of our new
debmaster may fulfill much of the technical side of this) who can
monitor and assist the Maemo community full-time.

Here is an initial job description for who the Community Manager might be:

===
Community Managers will work closely with Nokia Maemo SW's development and
marketing teams who strive to create a world class open source Maemo user &
developer community. Community Managers can be remotely located. Ideally,
Maemo Community Managers will come from within the Maemo community, from
our diverse and talented members.

Maemo Community Manager responsibilities include:

* Engaging and communicating with the Maemo community within groups,
forums, and via blogging to communicate news, help solve problems, and help
ensure that every member has the experience they want.
* Developing and hosting programs and opportunities for Maemo members to
meet and collaborate online and in the real world.
* Working with the [Customer Care] team to navigate the occasional
interpersonal conflict.

Ideal candidates should have:

* (Technical & Non-technical) Perfect understanding of the English language
(bonus: ability to translate/navigate other major international languages).
* (Technical & Non-technical) Exemplary communication skills in all online
environments, blogs, and as a moderator/facilitator of online forums.
* (Technical & Non-technical) Experience working with a team who develops
and actively uses online communities and social networks.
* (Technical) An understanding of Maemo application development and the
Maemo SDK: should be able to explain processes to developers/users and...
* (Technical & Non-technical) ...understand bug reports.
* A passion for and skill with open source software, Linux, and Debian
(bonus: FLOSS software licensing)
* Maemo member highly preferred.
===

The main reason that I'm sending this to the List is to generate some
discussion about what and who this person might be for the Maemo
community. I understand that the consensus might be that a Community
Manager is unnecessary. That is fine, of course, but I felt that the
community should have a say. I also want to point out that this isn't
necessarily something that needs to happen right away -- or maybe it
does... That is what I'd like us to discuss.

Currently, with the recent discussion about the next Maemo Summit, I
see an even greater need for this position. While I think it's great
that there are plenty of people who can help out with the planning and
logistics of this event, it would be even more accessible (as many
people are saying already) if there were a single person who could
handle these things -- and not on a volunteer basis.

What are your thoughts?

Tim

---
http://tim.samoff.com

_______________________________________________
maemo-community mailing list
maemo-community at maemo.org
https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-community