Final washup meeting report
Mark Harris
The End
Well, no, while I did make that suggestion we did not make that decision.
A small group showed up for the final meeting (Courtney Johnston, Rowan
Smith, Daniel Spector, Kelly Buehler, Nicole Tiefensee and me)
After all expenses are paid (and there are a couple of late bills, but
we know what they are) we seem to have a surplus of $1600. Shock,
horror, this was all supposed to be financially neutral! But the best
laid plans of mice and men etc. Fact is, we didn't count on having such
ratshit weather on Sunday which I know kept about a third of the planned
attendees away. So we spent less on refreshments than we had
anticipated. Kudos to Southern Cross for not forcing us to pay for food
they had bought (and prepared) in anticipation and kudos to Kelly and
Daniel for managing the catering process so that I seem to have put on a
kilo over the weekend.
So, what to do with the surplus? We had a bit of a discussion and a
number of alternatives were offered. The final result will be:
$500 paid forward to the LCA2010 miniconf that Daniel and Nat are
organising around open data in January
$500 paid forward to Software Freedom Day later this month
$250 Paid forward to SuperHappyDevHouse to enable it to increase the
stock of plug-boxes and power cables that made the Hackfest possible
$??? Whatever is left, about $300-350 we believe, will be passed to Open
New Zealand to cover the domain and hosting arrangements that have been
coming out of Nat's pocket and the setup for whatever Dave Lane, Nat and
Glen decide is the best way forward.
The ongoing costs for this adventure, as well as governance etc, is a
discussion that needs to be had. New Zealand doesn't generally have the
endowment/foundation/institute culture that America has, so we will need
to find other ways to fund ongoing activities. I don't have answers and
this email is not the place for the discussion. I just want people to
think about it. We're not a charity, we are a part of Civil Society -
let's find a civilized way to do this stuff.
Anyway, we will be publishing the budget/actuals once annotations have
been made to explain discrepancies, surpluses and - um-
anti-surpluses(?) in the line items. This is both for transparency (a
key theme of the weekend - who knew?) and for lessons learned for the
next time.
The key lessons are:
* We did it! We set up and ran a successful 2 day event without a large
amount of seed funding, without a formal corporate organisation, without
a conference-organising company and without screwing it up! Yay us! Much
credit goes to the project management skills of Kelly (she's available
for hire if you get in quick!) but thanks to everyone who pitched in.
* 160 people was a good call for the BarCamp. We had a few no-shows but
not nearly as many as I had thought we might.
* 60 max for the HackFest is probably right, but we didn't get to put
that to the test. I think we topped at 40 individuals, but I suspect we
peaked at 35 at any one time.
* DON'T ASSUME ANYTHING, especially about wireless connectivity. When in
doubt, plug it into a Mac (#OSSFail)
As I said before, misquoting Winston Churchill, this is not the end. We
have projects running, and more to come. Let us hope this is the
beginning of the Beginning!
Cheers
Mark Harris
BarCamp Wrangler (ret.)
Mark Harris
bursting! And you should be too. It was truly awesome, in the fullest
sense of that word, to find so many people who cared enough to give away
a weekend in the pursuit of better government. Wow!
Take that, Publicsphere! ;-)
Kia kaha, kiwis and ka kite ano!
~mark
Peter D
Cheers, Peter
Dan Randow
organised and participated.
You Should be Proud of NZ OpenGovtBarCamp
I was deeply impressed by the event. The organisation was flawless,
right down to the decisions about what to do with the surplus. But more
than that, the way that everyone responded to the call and came together
to create a spirit that I have only experienced rarely before. People
worked their butts off for the common cause, without diversions into
ideology. The practical focus, and the pace with which things moved
forward were fantastic.
Julie summed it up really well, comparing the OpenGovtBarCamp to a
community school-building effort.
It also reminded me of a quote of Eric S Raymond's about acting on the
principle of common understanding. At the risk of sentimentality, I
include this below.
I think that the time was right, and the response to the time being
right was right. My thanks and respect to all involved.
Dan
--
Dan Randow
Chief Wrangler
OnlineGroups.Net
ph +64-3-377-5377 +64-27-431-4928
Kenton Chmbrs, 190 Hereford St
PO Box 739, Christchurch, 8140
Aotearoa (New Zealand)
http://onlinegroups.net
http://groupserver.org
http://twitter.com/danrandow
skype: vonrandow
. . .
From the Cathedral and the Bazaar
about the Linux model…
But what is this leadership style and what are these customs? They
cannot be based on power relationships—and even if they could be,
leadership by coercion would not produce the results we see. Weinberg
quotes the autobiography of the 19th-century Russian anarchist Pyotr
Alexeyvich Kropotkin’s Memoirs of a Revolutionist to good effect on this
subject:
Having been brought
up in a serf-owner's
family, I entered
active life, like all
young men of my
time, with a great
deal of confidence
in the necessity
of commanding,
ordering, scolding,
punishing and the
like. But when, at
an early stage, I had
to manage serious
enterprises and to deal
with [free] men, and
when each mistake
would lead at once to
heavy consequences,
I began to appreciate
the difference between
acting on the principle
of command and
discipline and
acting on the
principle of common
understanding.
The former works
admirably in a military
parade, but it is worth
nothing where real life
is concerned, and the
aim can be achieved
only through the
severe effort of many
converging wills.
Mike Riversdale
Getting the same sense of coalescing excitement and opportunity at Gov 2.0 Summit as I got at the first Web 2.0 conference in 2004. #g2s
Cheers, Mike Riversdale
tel: +64 (0)21-169 1359
Skype: mike.riversdale
email: mike.ri...@miramarmike.co.nz
web: http://www.miramarmike.co.nz
---------
MiramarMike.co.nz - Connecting people to people via information
Laurence Millar
I entirely agree with the need to strengthen the civil society/not-for-
profit community in NZ. Having spent the last couple of days at Gov2
Summit, and seen the ways that NFP orgs in the US act as a powerful
¨pull¨ force, I am convinced that they are a necessary part of the
ecosystem of opengovtdata. Similar pattern in the UK.
Although the headline names are Sunlight Foundation (US) and MySociety
(UK), there is a richness and depth in the civil society that is
absent in NZ.
The community at the barcamp is vibrant and healthy. Lets think
laterally about how to maintain and strengthen it.
Well done everybody
Gordon Anderson
$250 Paid forward to SuperHappyDevHouse to enable it to increase the
stock of plug-boxes and power cables that made the Hackfest possible
Nathan Torkington
> The community at the barcamp is vibrant and healthy. Lets think
> laterally about how to maintain and strengthen it.
When I get back to NZ, I have "Incorporate Open NZ" on the todo list.
Expect discussion around this in a week or so on the ninja-talk
mailing list.
Cheers;
Nat
Zoomzoom
civic society and technology. This group is 1 of them. Others are
20/20, community central and SI Camp.
NZ does not have the deep pockets of the US or UK philanthropic
donors. Similarly we don't have the numbers of volunteers.
I think a new way of community working is emerging, but it needs the
benefits of organisation (such as continuity) too.
Sent from my iPhone
On 11/09/2009, at 12:57 AM, Laurence Millar