[advocacy-discuss] Advocacy Facilitator Position Open

[Jim Grisanzio]

Jim Grisanzio wrote:
> hey ...
>
> I've been Advocacy Facilitator for many years now. Anyone interested 
> in taking over the roll?

I am getting some responses off list about what is involved in being 
Advocacy Facilitator. Basically, the Facilitator is a Core Contributor 
who is the main communications link between the Advocacy Community Group 
and the OGB. That`s the most important thing, and it`s specified in the 
Constitution.

So you`d maintain the Advocacy governance records -- Contributor and 
Core Contributor status, basically, which is taken care of automatically 
in the database but it needs someone to follow up on who requested what 
status and if things were voted on properly and sent to the OGB for 
processing, etc. You`d facilitate governance discussions related to 
Advocacy, too (elections). You`d update web pages (and there is a lot of 
that work that needs doing here). Advocacy endorses a few projects and 
over 120 OSUG projects, so you`d have to be on all those lists so you 
can properly communicate with everyone. UGs and projects go dormant from 
time to time, so there is a lot of work to help find new leaders and 
maintain the leaders grid. Updates to the news page are badly needed, too.

Regarding new projects: I have been setting up UG projects here but the 
proper place for that is project-setup, so you`ll have to interact with 
people who are proposing projects and UGs and manage the threads and 
then when final voting is done send the approved request in the right 
format to project-setup. I currently staff project-setup for the 
creation of all projects on the site, and I will continue to do this.

Another issue that comes up from time to time is when Sun sponsors 
programs to distribute items to the community -- OSUG kits, basically. 
There is actually a lot of communications work to implement these 
programs, and the Facilitator can help a great deal (since you will know 
everyone around the place).

Advocacy is home to about 5,000 people, so it`s potentially a pretty big 
deal if someone wants to take it and run with it. You have to be serious 
and see it as an opportunity, though. I`ve certainly taken it as far as 
I can go given my circumstances and goals and plans, so it`s time for 
someone new. Now, there is no process for making a transition like this, 
so if multiple people are interested we`d have to figure out a simple 
and fair process to manage that so we can choose.

One last thing: when we start migrating to the new site this summer, 
there will be a lot of issues to consider for Advocacy since it has so 
any spaces on the site (primarily OSUGs), so you`ll have to like 
communicating. :)  Facilitation = Communication.

That`s all I can think of at the moment. More here:

http://opensolaris.org/os/project/facilitation/
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/entry/the_return_of_the_opensolaris

Jim