[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Minutes of the resource allocator summit

[Ben Hyman]

Hi Dan, good to see you in Cambridge.

> Hi, I unfortunately wasn't able to attend the Resource Allocator
> Summit but wanted to reply to a few of the points in the minutes;
> hopefully Ben & Kathy's report out to the community will be able to
> address some of these questions.
> 
Happy to clarify / respond to questions. Also happy if other attendees care to speak up if my recollections don't jive with theirs.
 
> On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 9:44 AM, Galen Charlton <gmc at esilibrary.com> wrote:
> 
> <heavily snipped>
> 
>> Equinox's idea lab a potential model?
> 
> Could more context be provided for this question? If the discussion
> was about adopting the Equinox Idea Lab as-is, it quite bluntly seems
> like a way of centralizing funding, communications, and control of
> development within a single company, and I'm fundamentally wary of any
> such centralization.

The context for this part of the discussion revolved around procurement departments and processes. We discussed that traditional maintenance or support models are prevalent within the Evergreen community, while pooling funds for software development can be challenging from the perspective of institutional and/or jurisdictional approvals. In this context, IdeaLab might appeal to an individual system or jurisdiction as an add-on to an existing maintenance or support contract. 

So, this was a bit tangential from the overall cost-sharing strategy discussion, but the overall spirit of the discussion was one of options and choice, IIRC. As you'll see elsewhere in the minutes, we discussed various existing and potential cost sharing approaches, and have work to do to continue the discussion.

>> - If there were "pre-conference" events added to the annual
>> conference, should there be an additional charge for an added day
>> - Tutorials--ways to use these to raise community funds?
> 
> The PostgreSQL project successfully uses this model for several of
> their conferences; there are one or two days of pre-conferences, with
> half-day or full-day tutorial sessions, and the funds from the
> tutorials are split between the presenter(s) and the conference, with
> the fund split ranging from 30/70 to 50/50. Per
> http://www.pgcon.org/2014/registration.php the per-tutorial rate is
> $60/half-day. (And if you want to learn more about PostgreSQL, I would
> highly recommend attending PGCon!)

Excellent example - many thanks, Dan!
> 
>> Needs identified:
>> 
>> -Volunteers
>> -Time
>> -Predictable Resourcing
> 
> What aspects of predictable resourcing were discussed? Financial
> contributions to pooled funding? Sweat equity, such as organizations
> pledging to devote 1 person-day of their own
> developer/documentation/graphic design/other skilled resources per
> week for a year to a common effort?

By predictable resourcing, its just that consistency and availability can be a challenge. Sweat equity and contributions in kind were not discussed per se, though are core, and human and resource sweat equity make demonstrable contributions across the community every day. Your ideas are on the same page as those around the table at the summit.

>> -Projects meeting needs of members (control meme)
> 
> More info / examples of projects not meeting members' needs would be
> appreciated so we can analyze the mistakes that were made and improve
> our efforts in the future.

So for this piece, we didn't discuss projects that didn't meet expectations as much as we explored the desire for funding bodies to attach their contributions to explicit / specific outcomes, and how that may or may not be a challenge in a pooled funding model. 
>> 
>> Brilliant ideas identified:
>> 
>> -coffee fund for developers (incentive)
> 
> Huh. Did the developers in the room confirm this would be more of an
> incentive than recognition?
IIRC the idea was pitched as being about recognition, but it was noted that caffeine can also be an enabler. 
> 
> Thanks,
Thank you, Dan. Looking forward to continuing the conversation and working through some of the action list.
Cheers!
Ben

Ben Hyman 
Executive Director | BC Libraries Cooperative
ben.hyman at bc.libraries.coop | 1.855.383.5761 ext 1001 | cell: 250.889.2738
bc.libraries.coop | Twitter: @BCLibrariesCoop