Difference between revisions of "FKI:Strategy/Adoption process"

Latest revision as of 08:52, 10 October 2014

The FKI core team has prepared an updated general strategy for the foundation. This work we want to share with the broader community. Therefore we present here a summary of the process and its results and invite interested people to comment. You can see this as a Request For Comments. We envision the following process to get to a stable version of this strategy.

1. Online presentation of FKI:Strategy (RFC) and the process how we got here.
2. Establish mechanisms for feedback and involvement
3. Discussion on comments and updating of FKI:Strategy documents if consensus is reached. Discussions will take place in each page's discussion page and in the FKI discussion list.

Note that in the text below links are still to the Board wiki; they should be updated to the public wiki once copied there.

Presentation of the Strategy

The FKI core members have felt the need to update the Strategy of the organisation for a long time. The FKI was founded in 2007 with the mission of applying the principles of Free Software and copyleft to other domains of knowledge. However, our core activities have remained focused on Free Software and education. Moreover, we felt a need to be more effective in the engagement of other people with the Institute. So far we have been a rather closed team, despite the number of people willing to volunteer. We simply didn't have effective structures and processes in place that would make participation a self-organised activity.

Furthermore, the economic context has changed. Until 2011 the FKI team has been rather successful in securing public funding through EC projects, but this context is becoming quickly more challenging. Therefore different funding and business models need to be explored. With the FTA this road has already been entered, to seek a combination of donations, service & tuition fees and public/private funding where possible.

Free Technology Academy (FTA)

The FTA has already entered a new phase of bottom-up self-organisation. And now that the FKI has turned into its only host organisation, the relation between FKI and FTA needs some reflection as well. As you will see in the Strategy documents, we have considered the FTA part and parcel of the FKI Strategy and we'll make an exception to that only when necessary. In short, we'd like to see the FTA as the main space where future FKI activities take place. Therefore we appreciate in particular feedback from any of the FTA participants. But don't let that keep you from giving feedback if you're not an active FTA member (yet) :)

Strategy Workshop

To redefine the FKI Strategy a specific workshop was organised starting in December 2011. Kim Tucker designed and facilitated this workshop, in which we participated with the core team. Each of us from its own location - according the true spirit of a distributed team. Using phone conferences, wikis, IRC channels etc.

Over the last months we have been working to finetune and work out the details. We are keen to present these to you. With it comes a request for comments. We would be pleased to receive your feedback, suggestions for improvement, additions etc. Below we'll give pointers to the main sections of the strategy documents. And then a few indications on how we'd like to go about the process of adopting the new Strategy as FKI's Strategy for the coming years.

What are we asking from you?

We would be very thankful for any comments or suggestions that you may have on this Strategy. Furthermore, you're welcome to participate with us in this new phase and help us put it into practice!

Why?

We're reaching out to our friends and peers in the Free Knowledge community to help us improve the FKI and continue working for a Free Knowledge society.

Public RFC

We have published the Strategy documents in the public FKI Wiki (this one). In FKI:Strategy you'll find the core Strategy document. New FKI:Strategy/Domains are defined in which the FKI wants to open activities. Revenue models are defined along which we intend to assure financial viability. A particular instance of that is Services, a line of activities that we can explore directly through the Institute and as well through the emerging Free Technology Guild. Relations with partners should be further developed along these lines. Our Community vision should help encourage the participation of interested peers and empower anyone to take an interest in the common project. A "Code of Conduct" has been drafted to help guide new participants.

Feedback mechanisms

All Strategy documents are published in the public wiki and are therefore accessible to anyone. If you want to make comments, please create an account in the wiki and make any comment in the Discussion page of the corresponding text. Please add your username and a timestamp at the end of each comment (just add ~~~~ after your comment). These are the main pages of the Strategy process and the corresponding discussion pages:

• Strategy - discussion page
• Strategy/Revenue models - discussion page
• Community - discussion page
• Partner development - discussion page
• Code of Conduct - discussion page
• Domains - [[talk:FKI:Strategy/Domains|discussion page]]
  • Education - discussion page
  • Software - discussion page
  • Hardware - discussion page
  • Standards - discussion page
  • Energy - discussion page
  • Culture - discussion page
  • Science - discussion page

For further discussion you're invited to use the FKI discussion list.

Adoption process and timeline

Now that we've published the draft, we want to give some time to our friends and community peers to review and give feedback. We expect to discuss and improve iteratively during June and July and then by the end of July publish version 1.0. Then we'll ask the FKI Board to approve this version and make it official.

Contributors

These Strategy documents have been prepared by David Jacovkis, Hinde ten Berge, Kim Tucker and Wouter Tebbens. Inputs from other participants can be seen in the wiki and their names will be listed in the contributors section of the final version.