FKI talk:Strategy

This is the discussion space about Strategy in the current working draft of the FKI Strategy.
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Liberating Knowledge

FKI:Strategy Implementation: Community Revenue models Partner development Communication Domains Work Programme Documents

Related Peeragogy grant MediaWiki proposal

Dear FKI Educators: We're advancing an Individual Engagement Grant here. If this is something you and our students might like to be involved with, please add an endorsement. Comments or questions in advance of the September 30th deadline would be most welcome on the proposal's talk page. In particular, our project involves Training and Expertise which we hope might be interesting to students.

--FTG:003 12:43, 29 September 2013 (CEST)

Overarching goal

• Maybe we should choose one phrase for the overarching goal and vision instead of two different ones. -wouter 15:34, 29 May 2012 (CEST)
  • yes, could be. In fact, I think right now the vision ("Enabling a culture of free knowledge") is closer to a high level goal, while the overarching goal ("Knowledge and Technology for a Free Knowledge Society") is more a vision. ^dj 10:52, 6 June 2012 (CEST)

The "overarching goal", Knowledge and Technology for a Free Knowledge Society, and the "vision", Enabling a culture of free knowledge, describe what the FKI is about in broad terms in the context of broader complimentary movements such as the free/libre knowledge, culture and software movements. The purpose of these two statements is to help align the participants in this strategic discussion. I agree that we do not need both in our final strategy and should try to come up with a single vision statement which matches our "Top-level goal" (The FKI is a hub connecting networks and communities in multiple domains facilitating and enabling the study, sharing and collaborative development of free knowledge and free technologies for a socially just, free knowledge society) and mission (The mission of the FKI is to educate people about free knowledge and free technology to a level at which they become effective participants in their domains of interest thereby enriching the broader free knowledge society). - Kim 01:14, 9 June 2012 (CEST)

Kim: looks good to me, but what about the vision? (see next section on Vision) -wouter 14:04, 19 November 2012 (CET)

I have also suggested a new tagline for the FKI: liberating knowledge (with "liberating" as a verb and an adjective). This would indicate what we do (liberate knowledge) and the type of knowledge we are most interested in (liberating knowledge such as knowledge of free culture, free software, ...). - Kim 01:14, 9 June 2012 (CEST)

I like liberating knowledge as a tagline, being it very short and to the point. I also quickly takes away any doubts about what "free" refers to in "free knowledge". -wouter 14:04, 19 November 2012 (CET)

What is missing for me (a conservation biologist at heart) is a deeper connection to sustainability in the vision/mission statement(s). In our values diagram, Sustainability is one of the foundations. This would also guide us in prioritising knowledge domains such as sustainable energy, biodiversity, environmental studies, ... - Kim 01:14, 9 June 2012 (CEST)

Vision

I personally think that "enabling" belongs to the Mission while the Vision should be an scenario the Foundation would like to see achieved, e.g. All scientists in the world have a website running with a personal repository where they upload, with green access, all their scientific production. Ictlogist 19:17, 10 June 2012 (CEST)

I agree with Ictlogist in that "enabling" is more adequate for a mission. See above Kim's suggestions for top-level goal and mission. Our vision should be better defined as you say. Knowledge and Technology for a Free Knowledge Society contain some important elements for the vision, though of course it could be described more widely. -wouter 14:04, 19 November 2012 (CET)

Values

Kim 16:51, 8 June 2012 (CEST)

Thanks for taking the time to respond in such detail. Values are not something to "achieve" via specific actions. We embrace values. They shine through everything we do. They guide us in our words, actions, the direcions we choose and the goals we set for ourselves. Values are integral to our modus operandi. Your list "To realise our value of V, X will do Y." is more relevant to implementation of the strategy - achieving intermediate objectives (IOs). i.e. To achieve IO i, x will do y, .... At this stage, we are discussing the strategic direction. In the coming weeks the conversation will shift towards implementation. It would be good to expand on the meaning of the values, or rather the meaning behind the way we have structured them. We hoped that the words would be self-explanatory and that people would easily identify with them as a pattern of values which will lead to a better world. If anyone has some artistic ability, a better graphic representation will be welcome :-). There is one value which requires expansion as it is often misunderstood: sustainability. Here, at this strategic level, we are using the broad sense (i.e. not simply financial viability). Joe Fri Jun 8 21:57:20 BST 2012 Hi Kim, Wouter, and others. Here I'm just wondering how the values connect to the objectives specifically -- and I agree that this may not be totally clear at this stage in the conversation! But it seems a fine time to start looking at that. I copied my "table" to this page about "values as agenda", where I hope others can help me understand better the answers to these questions! Joe Thu Jun 14 13:48:21 BST 2012 BTW note similarity to "Management by objectives, "a process of defining objectives within an organization so that management and employees agree to the objectives and understand what they need to do in the organization."

See also: ValuesAsAgenda for further discussion.

This graphic is for me the heart of the current strategy proposal. I like it a lot. But I also feel that in order to be a full "strategy" the documents here must expand on the values in a simple way: What will be done, line by line, to realise these values, and BY WHOM? It seems especially essential to know who is working on what, otherwise the strategy documents seem devoid of "human" aspects. Is there 1 person here or 100? Are these sentiments, or goals?

So we have almost a "Mad Lib" to fill out, and I would ask this table (below) to be expanded with suitable definitions for X and Y (which ultimately resolve to real people or real working groups, real tasks, possibly with deadlines, etc.).

I co-wrote a book chapter that might help get at the spirit of this exercise. There, I discussed how each role in education resolves into constituent actions like this:

"I do ..., We do ..., the objects of concern are ..., and in the end, the point is ...".

The list of values gives us a good start on this, because it helps us see "the point". However, these points are not yet connected in a clear way to the roles that were suggested for participants in this project, and I do not yet have a clear sense about who is taking on those roles, or where precisely we forsee 'change' happening in this regard (new roles? new people?), or what the decisions are that have to be made about which of several possible changes to make (paths to take).

So, without clarity on these points I have trouble understanding the strategic aspects of this document. However, I have not had a chance to absorb it fully, so if I have missed the answers to some of my questions, I'd appreciate if you point that out. For the moment, I will just say that these points are not yet clear to me:

• To realise our value of FREEDOM, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of SUSTAINABILITY, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of HUMAN DIGNITY, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of COLLABORATION, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of INCLUSIVITY, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of PARTICIPATION, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of SHARING, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of SOLIDARITY, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of COOPERATION, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of EMPOWERMENT, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of EQUITY, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of PERSONAL AUTONOMY, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of PRIVACY, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of TRANSPARENCY, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of MERITOCRACY, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of PLURALITY, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of INNOVATION, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of RESPECT, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of COMMUNITY SPIRIT, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of WELLBEING, X will do Y.
• To realise our value of DIVERSITY OF PERSPECTIVES, CULTURE AND LIFE, X will do Y.

Holtzermann17 19:37, 7 June 2012 (CEST)

Hi Joe, thanks for your comments. Indeed the values are the heart: we could do anything that matches those values. Now you are very right that we need to make a concrete implementation plan. On purpose we have first published the main Strategy document, so we can work out concrete actions together. We didn't want to do this behind closed doors. And as already so many concrete ideas are being proposed in the FTG, we couldn't wait much longer either ;-)

So how could we best start defining the concrete actions? On the one hand we have the IO map, that helps us see which Intermediate Objectives we need to reach. We can do this by defining a work programme, in which we can have various action lines. On the other hand we'll want to think of sustainability and revenue - to cover costs, when there are (of course there are). The Revenue models page gives us already some indications of what kind of income streams we should focus on. If we agree on the main work programme (say organise courses, keep the FTA platform running and improve it, realise the FTG to provide development services, participate in and initiate campaigns, ...), then we can get into a more detailed level and define the concrete actions.

wouter 13:17, 8 June 2012 (CEST)

To facilitate the process of coming to a concrete Work Programme, we have prepared an outline here. wouter 16:11, 8 June 2012 (CEST)

General Context

"Our societies are facing unprecedented challenges in terms of sustainability" What sustainability? Economic? Of the environment? Cultural? Ictlogist 19:19, 10 June 2012 (CEST)

See above in the box on the right. - Kim 21:30, 10 June 2012 (CEST)

Intellectual monopolies

regarding the phrase "the artificial scarcity of immaterial goods (including software and other digital resources, ideas and knowledge), that have been privatised by intellectual monopolies using patents and copyright", Richard Stallman remarks the following:

It is a fundamental error to lump together patents and copyright in this way. It is also a confusion to lump together "ideas", "knowledge" and works of authorship. Ideas and knowledge are abstractions.

Replacing "intellectual property" with "intellectual monopolies" doesn't avoid the confusion problem. Knowledge and specific works are totally different areas. Copyright and patents are totally different legal issues.

I agree with his criticism on the term "Intellectual Property", and many of use make clear distinctions between copyright, patent and trademark legislation. Nevertheless I find the term "Intellectual Monopolies" an interesting one, as it a) avoids the claim of "property", b) clearly states the nature of monopoly and c) clearly distances itself from the "IPR" terms used by industry lobbyists and copyright maximalists.

The least we could do is to add some references here to RMS's words to avoid page. And maybe to the book "Against Intellectual Monopoly". --wouter 14:18, 21 June 2012 (CEST)

The "three main barriers" are from the FKI perspective - i.e. the ones we are interested in and intend to address. There are other barriers (e.g. lack of facilities to access the Internet at all, health and nutrition, motivation to participate, ...). Perhaps we should consider putting it a different way? For example:

1. Access to knowledge with the freedom to participate in its development and application.
2. Lack of awareness of the issues which threaten this process [i.e. the process of developing the collective wisdom for sustainability]
3. Lack of guidance on what available knowledge is most relevant to moving the global knowledge society towards a path of sustainability.

Kim 00:15, 22 June 2012 (CEST)

Kim, I like the first point, as it is very clear as an objective. OTOH it doesn't present as well the problem of the current context as does the "the artificial scarcity of immaterial goods (including software and other digital resources, ideas and knowledge), that have been privatised by intellectual monopolies using patents and copyright" phrase. The latter shows very much the problem.

Lack of access to the Internet is indeed a point that we didn't make yet. Maybe we can articulate that in Amartya Sen's terms of "economic facilities", one of the 5 freedoms he names in Development as Freedom. (Political freedom, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees and protective security) and which in some form or another have been laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Lack of awareness is a very good point we could add.

The lack of guidance for me could go with the lack of awareness. After all both call for education.

In the current draft we have two more points that I think are also very relevant:

• the false conception that there is an abundance of material goods (environmental resources) - this false conception is seen by many as one of the core reasons for our current unsustainable economies
• belief in continual growth as a requirement for a functioning economy. - this requirement is part and parcel of the current capitalist production model. A commons-based peer production model doesn't need profits to pay for elite shareholders, nor infinite growth.

Maybe we could combine the last two points into one. Like "the current unsustainable economic production model based in the need for infinite growth and the false conception of abundant material resources". "negative externalities" could be mentioned, but I fear not every reader would be familiar with the term.

wouter 10:51, 22 June 2012 (CEST)

Specific Context

Having carefully read and understood the work done by you all, let me first of all start by thanking each and everyone who made it possible for the level at which we have found ourselves today. Indeed, this is a clear indication of the Free Knowledge this organization is talking about and for an Activist like me in the African Continent specifically Liberia in West Africa, this work and ideas are definitely welcoming news.

Honestly, if I am to add my comment on the subject of discussions, I will say I am all right with the structures of the strategies which include; Vision, Mission, Top level Goal, Objectives etc. The only other addition I will suggest to this initiative is for us to look at the means or possibilities of adding issues on Disability Issues especially with the abailability of the current implementations strategies of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) which is a global Framework for Disability developments around the world.

Sorry if I am missing the point as I stand to be corrected but the issues I have seen so far in your draft document will definitely be of great interest and welcoming news for us because the issue of knowledge sharing on key developmenal processes will be of interrest to us. for example, Computer illiteracy rate amongst persons with Disabilities in Africa is high because we lack the access to computer knowledge particularly as we depend on Assistive Technologies which include Sound Screen Reader (JAES AND ORCA) working either on Windows or Linux. JAWs is not a Free Sorfware which is so expensive while the ORCA working with Linux is a Free Sorfware. So one can now see the link about what I am saying. The use of Adaptive Technology is so key in our development and I would like as of this stage to reassure you all of my coperations and contributions in moving this organization and its ideas forward for the betterment of our global family. Please feel free to contact me on any thing necessary in this directions.

Sincerely Yours

Sahr Yillia Disability Advocate MOBILE; +231 880813453.

I added a few comments about how accessibility relates to the FKI values, here: ValuesAsAgenda. More work on that is needed, however, to state just what will be done about these points. Thanks! Holtzermann17 16:46, 15 June 2012 (CEST)

Mission

I think the Mission is pretty well put! :) Ictlogist 19:23, 10 June 2012 (CEST)

Map of Intermediate Objectives

It's been on my mind that this is called an "Intermediate Objectives" diagram, or IO diagram for short. But a more typical usage of the phrase "IO diagram" (in the technology field) is as an abbrevation for "Input/Output Diagram". I wonder if it would be useful to redraw the IO diagram listing inputs and outputs for each block? Holtzermann17 00:29, 21 June 2012 (CEST)