Global Network Strategy/DC Meeting
Date: Monday and Tuesday May 16 & 17, 2016
Location: The Loft at 600 F
600 F Street NW,4th floor
Washington, DC 20004
http://www.theloftat600f.com/meeting-and-event-space
Logistics: Mari Moreshead
Facilitators: Paul Stacey and Kamil Śliwowski
Participants: Paul Keller, Alek Tarkowski, Ryan Merkley, Carolina Botero, Claudio Ruiz, Delia Browne, Evelin Heidel (Scann), Kelsey Wiens, Naeema Zarif, Nic Suzor, Simeon Oriko, Soohyun Pae, Claudia Cristiani
Goals
- Engage in both evaluating the global network we have and imagining the network we could have.
- Explore views on what the shared goals, objectives, and values of CC’s global network are and could be.
- Generate answers to; Why do we need a network? What do we want to achieve together? What is that that we all agree on?
- Identify key themes, questions, and opportunities related to both the current network and the potential network that need consultation and input from the entire CC global affiliate network.
- Define a process and plan for doing research and consultation with the entire CC global affiliate network.
- Generate inputs and a plan for next strategy steering committee meeting in Berlin Nov 2016.
Agenda
A comprehensive agenda for the two days can be found on this Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1S2fkCodC7gpnYRoHOnaz6yzwlNojjbsiyD8a2KaegUw/edit?usp=sharing
Notes
All the notes that resulted from this meeting are documented here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u9tfTrnS_mPxNL0Kx-5RR0nzLSkuhnjwvM14ZsBZolc/edit?usp=sharing
Day One Summary
(courtesy of Paul Keller)
As you will (hopefully) know we are having the first CC global network strategy meeting in Washington D.C today and tomorrow. This is the first physical meeting of the network strategy group that was formed as a follow up od the discussions that we have had at the last day of last years summit in Seoul. The purpose of this meeting is to stake out a couple of options for the future of CC's global network that we can then investigate further within the strategy group and with the rest of the network. While there will be more comprehensive notes that will be circulated after the meeting we wanted to aslo give a quick informal update on what is being discussed here during he two days. This post is a quick little summary of what we have done today and hopefully someone else will follow up with a summary at the end of tomorrow.
We spend the first half of the day doing a post-it heavy exercise mapping the current state of the affiliate network. Paul S and Kamiel (who are facilitating the meeting) walked us through a series of exercises focussed on identifying things that we know about our network (data - white post its in the picture below). This was followed up by an exercise aimed at identifying frustrations/negative feelings that we have (the red post-its) and another one focussing on positive feelings (the yellow ones). As you can the negative feelings outweighed the positive ones, which is probably recognizable for a most of us (and the reason why we are undertaking this process). We concluded the morning session by two more exercises, the first one focussed on identifying elements of the networks that we want to get rid of, that we would like to improve and that we would like to add (the kill-it, fix-it, add-it on the door). The last exercise collected and contrasted historic goals of the network with future goals (the multi colored post its).
We kicked off the afternoon with a session in which we analyzed other network organisations to identify positive and negative traits of their organization models. This included the usual suspects (wikimedia, peer2peer foundation) organisations working on humanitarian en environmental issues and organisations advocating for entirely different causes that have interesting organizational models.
We concluded the afternoon session with a open discussion in which we tried to better understand why our network seems to be caught up in a "us vs. them dynamic'. This was quite an intense discussion that scratched a number of open wounds (paid vs unpaid work, the inadequacy of our structural instruments (such as MoU and roadmaps) and the role of regional and global coordinators.
While none of the discussion lead to anything very actionable yet (although if i was a betting man i would not bet on a long future life of either the MoU or the roadmaps) we hopefully laid the groundwork for some more results oriented discussions on day two. i think most if not all of us where very happy with the constructive and open nature of the discussions and to discover that there is more that unites us than that divides us (even though the red and the yellow post its might give another impression). so much for now....
Paul (on behalf of Alek, Carolina, Claudia ,Claudio, Delia, Scann, Kelsey, Kamil, Mari, Naeema , Paul S, Ryan, Simeon, Sohyuun)
Day Two Summary
(courtesy of Kelsey Wiens)
Roaming the streets of DC,debating in breakout groups, sitting at food trucks and over great dinners and wine we had many important conversations for our network. What distinguishes CC network from other open movements is our feelings of family, love and community. Even in the middle of difficult conversations we still manage always to remember that this love and respect for each other is what makes our network unique. As always our time together came to an end too soon, and now we move online and of course now expand our conversations with all of you.
Day two had fewer post-its (protip: if you want a post-demo ask Kamil) but more breakout groups and larger roundtable discussions. We started the day with Reimagining CC’s Global Network. Each of us sharing visuals depicting what the CC’s global network could be. Images ranged from [Internet Map], Solar system gif, The Shapely Supercluster, and Military structures and distributed node structures. Various organizational methodologies were brought to the table Chaord model, organizational nodes, and challenges with distributed power networks.
“Can we make CC exciting/creative again?”
We broke out and discussed the purpose, goals, values and to imagine a different world. After a morning of debates, it was clear we agree more than not about the major goals and purpose of CC's global network. in our organization. Across all breakout groups ideas around Access to knowledge, being inclusive or empowered participation and sharing and growing the Commons.
The framework that emerged out of the group sharing of ideas around reimagining CC's global network.
What do we want to achieve?
- Imagine a different world
- Purpose & Goals
- Values
- Scope of what we are working on - narrowly focused or broad
- Initial areas of work
- CC Strategy or something different - member defined
- Platforms/campaigns - individual and collective
Membership Model
- What is the network we need?
- What is the network we need?
- Want low barriers to entry
- Membership includes call to action
- Individual members
- Organizational members
- Geography of membership
- Build around goals & formation of teams
Structure/Infrastructure
- Organize network in multiple ways - by area of interest, regionally, by member expertise
- Technology needed
- Human resources needed
- Funding needed
- Norms and checklists - these are the ways we can work together
- Relationship among network - interaction & communication (structure - with a central org or not)
- Cultural norms
- Reward collaboration, sharing, mentoring, entrepreneurship
Both breakout groups struggled with questions around Membership vs. affiliate model and thinking about what how a new membership model might look. Ideas around a lower barrier to entry, or levels of participation, and the merits and challenges of thematic over country teams. Wikipedia came up often as an example of low barrier to participation and challenges and benefits of the wikimedia vs Mozilla models. Major pain points included the chicken and egg complexity of lack of engagement from affiliate to HQ and the tension of wanting the affiliates to have more investment in HQ strategy and projects, and defining active and inactive affiliates. We had a roundtable discussion on how to engage them or allow for a change and new participants.
Once we’ve collated and digested these busy days, we’ll come back to you with more of our plans for communication activities and discussion for involvement for the entire network. Some hints: think regional meetings, surveys and interviews and project groups around copyright reform, OER and Open Policy.
Many thanks to Paul Stacey and Kamil Śliwowski for their tremendous work facilitating and wrangling us and to Mari Moreshead for taking such excellent care of us.
