[Wylug-discuss] 'Pathetic' FLOSS Advocacy - Put it to the test?

[Dave Fisher]

On Thu, Jan 25, 2007 at 02:21:25PM +0000, David Holden wrote:
> Personally although I have done in the past I tend to feel pretty 
> uncomfortable lobbying people in power/positions of influence unless I have a 
> fair understanding or overview of the the technical details and can construct 
> a (ok reasonably) well thought out if not entirely personal response. So I 
> think my point about the short notification and this not being a great test 
> case for the LUGs ability to mobilise around an issue is fair.

I agree, but at the risk of getting a sore bottom from too much
fence-sitting, I'd say that the short notice can be used to support, as
well as to refute, the test's validity.

In the real world, interest groups are frequently required to respond at
short notice and without the information or tools that they would
ideally have 'to hand'.

As Mark Comny points out, my real purpose in starting this thread was to
stimulate a debate (about how to campaign more effectively).

As I indicated, in my response to John Leach, I think that
well-established WYLUG precedent allows me to assume that WYLUG is (at
least in part) a campaigning group, i.e. that a desire to campaign may
be treated as axiomatic.

A common feature of many of the most effective campaign groups, is that
they have mechanisms in place to quickly respond to unpredicted (not
necessarily unpredictable) circumstances, e.g. 'telephone/fax/email
trees'.

For those who may not be familiar with the concept of a
'telephone/fax/email tree', it consists of a network of individuals who
make themselves available to contact (and activate) short lists of other
group members, in response to an urgent campaign need.  

Typically, one member of the network spots the need and alerts someone
at the 'top' of the tree. The person at the top of the tree, urges the
half-dozen or so people on their personal list to act. That action will
usually include a commitment on the part of those half-dozen or so
individuals to each call on half a dozen other individuals ... and so
on, until a very high proportion of the membership of the tree has been
mobilised.

Putting aside (for the sake of argument) the obvious limitations of this
technique, it has some important strengths which are worthy of
consideration.

  1. It puts little burden on each individual.

  2. It spreads the burden evenly across the group.

  3. It is initimate and sociable, e.g. individuals don't have to
     address themselves to the entire (anonymous) mass of the group's
     membership.

  4. It typically allows direct and short feedback loops, e.g. if I find
     that 5 out of 6 of the individuals that I've contacted can't or
     won't participate, I'll probably report it to the person who called
     me.  So ill-considered knee-jerk reactions are dampened.

  5. It encourages accountability, e.g. if I find that I can't or won't
     participate in most of the activities that I am asked to, I'll
     quickly excuse myself from the tree.  If there is no other useful
     means of participating in the group, I'll leave it and stop
     complaining that 'something must be done' about the issues
     involved. 


> I better test case may be the LUGs response to the open source in education 
> issue.

Well, it's certainly a more interesting issue for me, but far more
complex and, thus, harder to test.

The first, and overwhelming question that springs to mind is: "what *is*
the open source in education issue?".

From where I sit, there are dozens of separate, and often contradictory
issues surrounding the deployment (or non-deployment) of FLOSS in
schools, colleges, universities and a plethora of non-institutional
educational domains.

Merely debating what topics to campaign on could consume all of our
available time and resources ... preventing us from actually getting
around to doing anything about any of them.

By contrast, our ability to submit requests by Friday, for proper
scrutiny of the proposed OOXML standard sounds infinitely more 'do-able'
and testable.

Dave