Very excited about the potential here and what we can learn from this. Arnalie, what types of things do you think will be prioritized as “resources”. Is it documents, training materials, certain websites like LearnOSM or localizing the front-end UI of our tech tools (adding more languages to Tasking Manager), or is it external communications? (As one example do we foresee English continuing to be used in regional social media https://twitter.com/openmapping_ap?lang=en or is this a lesser priority for now?)

One of the most unique and incredible things about our organization is that our board leadership is made up of individuals deeply committed to the mission. Board members almost always have lived experience directly contributing to advancing the mission in regions we work before joining the board. Personally I am proud to serve an organization whose President is a woman and whose board in the past year has had representation from every major HOT priority region (LAC, West and Eastern Africa, Asia).

Yes, I think we can be happy about this while also evaluating ways to make it even better. There are some big governance questions for the membership to grapple with. HOT now has regional offices. How will those boards and the global board interact? How do we shorten the pipeline for critical skills required of a board and should some board officers (eg Treasurer) be appointed if no elected Board member has the expertise? Our bylaws allow for that possibility already and there are models to look at such as Wikimedia Foundation (part elected part appointed).

My take is this: let’s not lose what’s great about our current structure but yes let’s reimagine what the ideal could look like. We should start with our values, using the opportunity to consider regional structures, autonomy, devolving power and authority, etc. Should a portion of global board seats be allocated so there is one rep per region? Another part of this should be figuring out what skills and experience we have in our membership base already and making sure we have ways to identify, develop, and or attract those with badly needed skills to Board seats. Tyler

Hi Andy I’ll let the mystery live on :-)

Great to see the candidate nominations so far!

Also +1 to OpenDataHub / OpenMapHub too

It was mentioned that using OpenStreetMap in the name is not provided for in the current HOT-OSMF MoU draft. That is true - it’s not in the current draft, but, hypothetically, if this were an option, is it one that people want? (is it worth us talking across the HOT and OSMF boards to see whether it could make sense?)

A primary goal of the hub is to facilitate growth of OpenStreetMap / OpenStreetMap ecosystems in each region. Something both HOT and OSMF can likely get behind. Using OpenStreetMap as part of the name would seemingly be a benefit to all parties and would make things clear that OSM is a primary focus. Worth exploring this option some more before we discount it?

Hi Frederik thank you for writing this, Tyler

Love the heartwarming story and the HOT outfits, Arnalie!

Hi Felix thanks a lot for your statement! It might help to clarify in your last paragraph are you referring to elected Board Directors or those on the staff team in senior positions (also referred to as Directors)? Thanks Tyler

Hi Mikel,

Thanks for writing this up. With you being core to the founding of HOT, it is useful to get this kind of perspective, and I’ve always liked your concept of HOT’s 5-year cycles (For another look at HOT’s major milestones see this post on the Missing Maps blog.

Well, there’s certainly nervous excitement throughout HOT as we’re about to start on our next cycle. And you make some great points.

Looking at my own performance from a critical lens: In the past 5 years we’ve been laser-focused on execution, aiming to exceed expectations from our project donors (e.g. World Bank, USAID funded projects, etc). The plus side of this: We’ve been able to deliver much-needed data for major humanitarian / development challenges and positively impact many thousands of people. Internally, we’ve been able to build processes and systems (finance, field ops, training, reporting) that will now provide a foundation for us to scale impact to “Audacious” proportions. But this has sometimes come at the expense of supporting OSM communities to grow and flourish in a sustainable way. In certain cases one could argue that HOT contributed to under-development of OSM contributor communities by operating in a country for too long.

I’d argue the project-based model we built up from 2015-20 is both good and bad: Without it, we would absolutely not have been able to demonstrate success and build trust with Audacious donors. Put simply: No Audacious Project award. But, the project-based funding model constrained our own thinking. ~70% of our annual budget was for training and data collection for humanitarian/development partners (get paid a fee, deliver a service). Only around 8% was for investment in the community. Simply put, this mix doesn’t afford staff any time nor headspace to make our fair share of contributions to “make OSM better”. One thing Audacious donors are helping us to do is break free from this cycle of project dependence. And more than double our investment in Community to 20% of our annual budget - see slide 35 in our FAQ. This means more intentional time spent on some of the things you mention.

Last year you suggested something like a Chief Data Officer for HOT. We are now building a team specifically dedicated to responsible creation and use of data. Responsible data includes a focus on high quality of data and we’ll create a Data Quality Lead position for this. I’m happy about this development as well.

Point #4 on the HOT Board: I wholeheartedly agree. One of the most important changes in our governance in the past year has been the Board’s organization into Committees that can dig into detailed issues between Board meetings. One is the Strategy Committee. In my opinion, the single thing this Committee should do is figure out the touchpoints in the Audacious Project plan where particular oversight, community input or advice is needed. Then - work out simple, fun, and engaging ways to help our members contribute their expertise at those critical touchpoints. Board meetings should not be only report-outs from the Committees, either. I’d encourage our Board members to get our biggest challenges onto the agenda (maybe one per meeting?), facilitate discussion around them and hold us all to account. Including holding my feet to the fire. I would appreciate board candidates who want raise this big challenges, but then also pose solutions, and stay involved to see those solutions through to completion.

HOT is very uniquely positioned among INGOs in that we are governed by people who deeply care about, and are directly involved in our mission. We should use that to our advantage to mold HOT into the type of entity that we want over the next 5 years. This is a chance to think big and re-imagine!

Tyler

@mikelmaron great summary. HOT would love to help/lead some of these initiatives. One starting point this year is that we’re working with 9 OSM communities to provide financial support for basic needs e.g. equipment, internet access, etc. We are also helping several OSM communities to form local associations/become legally registered in their countries. Through donor support we plan to offer the program again in 2018.

@PlaneMad a few of us in the OSM community have been presenting at UN events including World Data Forum and working to integrate open geospatial data / OSM into thinking around Sustainable Development Goals. We’re also participating in the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (Data4SDGs.org) and published a guide on open mapping for the SDGs available at http://www.data4sdgs.org/toolbox

Happy to chat more on either of those if interested. Tyler (tyler.radford@hotosm.org)

Martin, as always, a very interesting study with some important lessons for us to consider as a community. I for one am looking forward to more, better, and more timely feedback loops (and other forms of interaction among mappers-validators) in the next version of the Tasking Manager.

Martin, would love to hear your ideas. Perhaps there are some low-cost quick wins we can make happen in the long term and think about what resources we need to solve big picture retention challenges in the long term.

Hi Martin this is an amazing and welcome analysis! We’ll include this as part of a keynote at FOSDEM 2016 in Brussels.

Mikel a big thanks to you and Mapbox both for your support and commitment over the year. Looking forward to working with you in 2016! Tyler

Blake, I couldn’t agree more that we are fortunate to be able to work with such a wide variety of people; from local residents working to make improvements in their communities, to enthusiastic student mappers, humanitarian professionals, government officials, leading technologists and many more. Look forward to your continued support and leadership for HOT in 2016. Tyler

Russ, your support both as a paid staffer and volunteer has been invaluable for me and for HOT this year. Look forward to working with you in 2016. Tyler