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Grex > Coop13 > #376: The problems with Grex, e-mail and spam | |
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| 25 new of 480 responses total. |
tod
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response 338 of 480:
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Dec 15 18:45 UTC 2006 |
Which one of those on staff is the newbie? That's the same staff from 10
years ago if I'm not mistaken.
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nharmon
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response 339 of 480:
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Dec 15 19:00 UTC 2006 |
Newbie (n): 1. Someone new 2. In the case of Grex staff, the person who
wasn't an original founding member.
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cmcgee
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response 340 of 480:
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Dec 15 20:36 UTC 2006 |
I'm not sure I see how staff reaches consensus, given that they don't seem
to have a communication mechanism that includes all staff members.
How do "meetings" occur. By "meetings" I mean whatever group process was used
to reach decisions that were then conveyed to cross and mcnally as decisions
reached "at a meeting last night"?
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mcnally
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response 341 of 480:
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Dec 15 20:41 UTC 2006 |
In my (limited) experience most of the time staff act unilaterally,
generally in reaction to a crisis. There's some group communication
in the staff conference and on the staff mailing list but there's
not a lot of planning discussion that takes place in those forums.
Such discussion, when it occurred, usually took place in agora or
coop.
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tod
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response 342 of 480:
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Dec 15 20:46 UTC 2006 |
We are Devo
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cmcgee
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response 343 of 480:
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Dec 15 20:52 UTC 2006 |
re:Mary's response in 283
" In terms of helping out our present staff I'd proabably not go the white
board and interview route quite yet. Mostly, I think they need to simply
meet more often. "
Mary, do you still feel that a staff that has not met in more than 18 months
does not need to make any changes other than more frequent meetings?
It seems to me that a staff that acts unilaterally, and is crisis-driven needs
some input from the board. Someone needs to begin a process of bringing new
staff onboard, and it does not sound like current staff have the energy or
time to do so.
What is the role of the board and the membership in this regard?
I'd like to hear from current staff and board, and from candidates as well.
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slynne
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response 344 of 480:
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Dec 15 21:34 UTC 2006 |
I have been given the strong impression that the current staff would
not take kindly to having the board take too much control over how
staff chooses to run things. It is a delicate situation to be sure
since anyone can easily quit and walk away at any time because they
dont like the politics.
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spooked
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response 345 of 480:
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Dec 15 21:39 UTC 2006 |
re 344: *giggle* Yeah, if you were a dictatorship, would you take kindly
to an offer of a more fair, transparent, and useful direction?
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mary
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response 346 of 480:
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Dec 15 21:45 UTC 2006 |
I would start by encouraging staff to meet more often, maybe monthly on
some set date. Then I'd evaluate and go from there. I have the feeling
meetings don't happen because they are tricky to organize.
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tod
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response 347 of 480:
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Dec 15 21:46 UTC 2006 |
re #344
I've had the same constraints in similar organizations. Its all fun and games
really til you're down for a month and lose the majority of your userbase,
though. If you don't have at least a few reliable staff people that you can
reach in a timely manner then you put the whole organization at risk. M-Net
never really recovered from the crash in 2000. Prior to that, we had hundreds
who relied on that system for email and within a couple weeks it became
apparent we weren't ever going to fully recover even though we had a few folks
willing to put in full time to replace the system. Even worse, we had a
disconnect where the board itself didn't have an official communication
liaison to deal with the media so alot of mixed messages were sent out.
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cmcgee
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response 348 of 480:
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Dec 15 22:19 UTC 2006 |
What kind of help can I provide to get those tricky-to-organize meetings to
happen. People who haven't been able to organize a meeting in more than 18
months may need something more than "encouragement" to overcome inertia.
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mary
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response 349 of 480:
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Dec 15 22:55 UTC 2006 |
I'm sharing my opinion here but, who really should be giving you advice,
are the staff themselves. I'm not sure of the best way to reach them
though. Maybe email? Or attend the next board meeting? There are almost
always staff at the board meetings and you'll get a different kind of
conversation going there than you will here.
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tod
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response 350 of 480:
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Dec 15 23:09 UTC 2006 |
Once again, its the "be in Ann Arbor" response.
I don't think its on purpose but it seems to be the trend for interfacing with
"staff"
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cyklone
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response 351 of 480:
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Dec 15 23:12 UTC 2006 |
This suggests that perhaps the board should start considering how to foster
working relationships that do not require face-to-face meetings.
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slynne
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response 352 of 480:
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Dec 15 23:49 UTC 2006 |
I would love to do that but I am not entirely sure how to go about it.
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tod
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response 353 of 480:
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Dec 16 00:20 UTC 2006 |
I sorta like the ol conferencing call technique. If you can find someone
willing to donate their conference call trunk so you can have an "all hands"
staff meeting with board members via teleconference then you'd be golden so
long as its productive and re-occurring.
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nharmon
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response 354 of 480:
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Dec 16 00:28 UTC 2006 |
> I'm not sure of the best way to reach them though. Maybe email? Or
> attend the next board meeting?
There in lies the problem. Not all of the current staffers are reachable
or even monitor the Grex community. Could you imagine if Grex's finances
were managed by a lolly-gaggle of treasurers who each were able to write
checks and process payments among which none were "in charge" and all
decisions were made through "consensus" or "democratically"? We'd be in
financial turmoil just as we are in technical turmoil. Instead we have
Aruba who is in charge of finances and as a result Grex is fiscally
strong and very well organized (kudos to Aruba who doesn't get thanked
enough for the work he does).
> I would love to do that but I am not entirely sure how to go about it.
Put one person in charge of staff. Make her or him an officer in the
company and clearly define what the authority and responsibility of the
position requires. If it were me putting it together, I would say that
this person has the authority to add or remove people from staff (with
knowledge of the root password requiring BoD approval), approve all
changes, and make security decisions when necessary. This person would
also be required to submit staff reports to the BoD before each meeting.
These reports could be submitted through e-mail, or better yet made
public on coop similar to aruba's.
Such a person wouldn't even need to be technically savy or even located
in Ann Arbor. He/she would simply need to have plenty of personal time
to devote to keeping things organized.
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nharmon
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response 355 of 480:
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Dec 16 00:32 UTC 2006 |
> I sorta like the ol conferencing call technique.
Actually, I like the idea of using VoIP. Perhaps Grex could put together
a voice conference system using some OSS. Heck, I'd even suggest using
teamspeak because it would be simple to set up and the clients are
available for Mac, Windows and Linux.
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tod
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response 356 of 480:
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Dec 16 01:41 UTC 2006 |
re #355
You might like VoIP but I doubt everyone on staff is as enthused about setting
something like that up just so they can "touch base".
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gelinas
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response 357 of 480:
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Dec 16 02:41 UTC 2006 |
Kip, Cross and I were added to staff at the same time. McNally was added
just before, or at the same time, Glenda was added. Glenda is the most recent
addition.
If we have a Lord High SysAdmin, I expect most everything to be left to that
poor sod to do.
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rcurl
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response 358 of 480:
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Dec 16 06:40 UTC 2006 |
It is not unusual for the chief executive officer of an organization to be
"in charge" of staff. That's "staff" generically, of course. But there
would be some point to assign this duty to the Grex president/chairperson.
His/her only duty assigned in the bylaws is calling BOD meetings and
organizing the agenda: that's hardly "executive" responsibility.
(Incidentally, there is no provision in the bylaws for choosing the
president, treasurer and secretary, not even stating that the BOD does
this. In fact, as far as the bylaws go, the members have as much right to
choose the officers as does the BOD itself - it is a *member* based
organization.)
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nharmon
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response 359 of 480:
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Dec 16 14:22 UTC 2006 |
That is a possibility also Rane. The chief of staff (*grin*) could be a
BoD member or even the president of the board. Or he/she could be a
non-board member, or even elected by the membership. Or the current
staffers could themselves elect a chief and rotate the position around.
I would recommend that this person not be part of the BoD however
because he/she should be responsible to the BoD, adding a layer of
oversight.
> If we have a Lord High SysAdmin, I expect most everything to be left to
> that poor sod to do.
It would be a time consuming job, no doubt.
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mary
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response 360 of 480:
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Dec 16 14:25 UTC 2006 |
Are we having fun yet?
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cmcgee
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response 361 of 480:
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Dec 16 15:06 UTC 2006 |
I think there might be a way to structure the job so that it was primarily
a peer relationship instead of a hierarchical relationship. The included task
would have the person help each staff member (or teams of staff members) find
resources, track progress, and identify when a project was getting bogged
down. Staff would need to shift thinking a little bit as well.
When the person pointed out that it had been X weeks since the staff member
had had time to move the project forward, the staff involved would have to
practice saying Yes, I need some help, rather than defending the downtime with
the shield of personal priorities above this task.
The person could help find and integrate new staff, acting as a mentor, and
keeping an eye on progress.
All staff would have to relinquish total ownership of any particular piece
of Grex. But there is no reason that staff wouldn't be able to choose a
domain of expertise, and become the initial go-to-person with problems in that
area. The difference is that the process observer saw no progress, the staff
person would have to be willing to let someone else step up and begin working
on the problem as well.
This might require more frequent "meetings" of staff, but I don't think so.
The "cat-herder" might have to initiate conversations, and be willing to spend
time keeping a thread going.
I nominate Remmers as our first cat-herder.
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rcurl
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response 362 of 480:
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Dec 16 20:14 UTC 2006 |
I don't think of it as either a "peer" or "hierarchical" function, but rather
as a coordinating function, to keep the members of the orchestra in tune.
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