What I am trying to say is that right now we have a chance to become a market leader in the area of volunteer and group websites.

There are at the moment so many great ideas and so much experience with this kind of work that we can take a great leap ahead.

We can produce a plan for the next six month that will create a really great website. But we need to do the plans and create the framework so that we can incorporate all these ideas on a fundamental level.

We have to stay away from settling for cosmetic changes and be more ambitious. If we produce an iterative development plan where the benefits will start showing straight away.

Please let us do the work we are good at and stop flapping around with your 10.000 they will come to good use later but now they just muddy the waters and get in the way of a good project.

Niels

Siegfried you are the one not listening...

I am trying to tell you as an IT Project manager through 15 years of IT projects that you are just asking for cosmetic changes.

I am asking for a full set of plans to show how the new website is going to address the requirements from your users.

The new pages are just a small aspect of this and they cannot be done until the rest have been decided and addressed.

We need to see these wireframes you are talking about, there need to be a database schema that can deal with the relations between areas. There needs to be a release and test schedule that can get the site going and get further input from users.

Just pushing on with the pages is so wrong and is going to be a waste of resources at this moment in time. Please let us get this right.

Niels

from Mary: "as well as paying developers to create the site, will any money be made available to make it possible for a small group of LRs to get involved n some proper testing to see if this version of the site really meets their needs? "

Yes,I agree with this. Will Testing come out of the 10K budget?

Dear Siegfried

I think will give you a lists of reasons why in his 15 years of IT development for fortune 500 companies professional opinions why the current lack of strategy and plan to develop the new website (ie. the ones put together with ideas by the nabuur camp contributions). The fundamental descriptions, database descriptions etc.. is missing in Rolf's joblists.

There is an opportunity to have a more than amateur development site (meaning we all want to be professional and are professional even in our volunteer work about this) without having to pay 10K on the spot, right here right now. And I dont think you are listening to why people are saying this clearly enough.

You wrote: As for the decision process. Like it or not, at the moment there is no interim board of peers who can decide democratically, only one volunteer director. So I put out the question for ideas how to spend a 10K budget, listened to the reactions, noticed that there were very different views, and made a decision.

I am saying: WE talked about interim board. Others have talked with you about advisory board in the past. There is no reason why we cannot Convene an interim board today if the will is there to do it. right now, it does not look like you want to happen....you are a volunteer director and you have at least 25 people who have signed onto taks-forces.....of that, there are people interested in forming an interim board or advisory or whatever....so why not "just do it"?

So I have to ask myself, what am i working for with everything I do with nabuur.com,when you can just over-ride everything in one single decision? A lot of users have been asking this and would like some resolutions about this.....

Further: We have to ask ourselves this:

Some who have "vested interest" would say to you "do it the fastest way" because money is still involved. But I and others have nothing to gain from saying "unpleasant things to oppose the Speed" other than because we would like it to actually work well.

At least get your value for money for 10,000 Euros by making sure that there is actually an IT-strategy to deal with the Overall picture and relying on the "mushroom effect" to create the new nabuur.com website.

I think more than me or Niels or Raul is saying, "if you just keep going this way, what you get for your 10,000 euros will be a cosmetic change but not a fundamental upgrade."

Promising a 5 page group that will look different is not the same as planning a deep informational organisational upgrade. They are different things. We would like to see this planning before you commit to a 10K expenditure.

Is that possible to give it 1 month and let the professional IT teams from all sides produce this plan?

Cecilia

Hi Mary

This is exactly what I am trying to do, but Siegfried is constantly pushing his money. I don't care about the money one way or another but at the moment nobody knows what you are going to get and then you will have to live with another piece of rubbish for 2 years more.

Niels

Hi guys

I am not going to join the whole 'pay/not pay' debate again as I said what I think a while ago.

Siegfried, one question as we have not seen the detailed proposal doc written by Pelle and Frans: as well as paying developers to create the site, will any money be made available to make it possible for a small group of LRs to get involved n some proper testing to see if this version of the site really meets their needs? Many only have very limited internet access as they have to go to an internet cafe and this costs them money which they are more likely to need to spend on their own projects not on checking out a new site. Just a thought, have no idea what others think!

Mary

Hi Cecilia,

You're not listening. It is clear what the developers need to start working on, namely the pages we jointly outlined in Amsterdam. Any developer anywhere in the world is very welcome to help building that, now. There is a lot of work to do and it won't be done tomorrow. Ideas to develop these pages for less money, better or quicker, are very welcome when and if they arise during the coming weeks, beginning with the conversations with Niels and the results that Raul will bring. So I hope that the developers, joined by Niels, Raul and lots more will start showing the local reps and the online volunteers testable pages soon.

As for the decision process. Like it or not, at the moment there is no interim board of peers who can decide democratically, only one volunteer director. So I put out the question for ideas how to spend a 10K budget, listened to the reactions, noticed that there were very different views, and made a decision.

Yes, we need a different structure and that is what we need to draft in the governance team. Let's do that and give the developers a chance do their job.

Dear Siegfried

Why does it feel like you are rejecting an IT proposal that would actually help you meet these projected targets from your 2007 report?
http://www.nabuur.com/files/NABUU_Ann_Accts_2007_d.pdf

I mean if Raul & Niels ideas can merge with Rolf and Pelle's you have Business to Business collaborative partnership. You also have more rapid growth and " allowing people to cooperate directly, thus increasing their sense of self esteem."

Why not give it a month and see what your Business to business partnership comes up with?

Why not put the decision to an "open bid" , if nothing else it would "Embedded in a network of partner organizations which make increase the effectivity of the solution process."

:) N'est-ce pas?

Cecilia

NABUUR 2008 – 2010 : thé place for global neighbour help

NABUUR wants to be thé place for global neighbour help. To allow the ambitious annual growth of
several hundred new Local Communities, the NABUUR staff members need to play a minimum but
effective support role (rather ‘host’ than ‘waiter’). There are no textbooks how to do this; the way
forward will be by trial and error, but the experience gathered so far provides a good starting platform.
In 2010 NABUUR strives to be:
- Able to serve 600 local communities with a network of Neighbours and 50 % of those
communities with effective solutions for the issues they have raised.
- A unique instrument to engage 100.000 registered volunteers worldwide (Neighbours).
- Ready for a more rapid growth in the years beyond 2010.
- Embedded in a network of partner organizations which make increase the effectivity of the
solution process.
- An ever improving instrument that gives a human scale to global developments by allowing
people to cooperate directly, thus increasing their sense of self esteem.
- A vehicle for low cost solutions in Local Communities: less than € 2.000 per finished project.
- An organization with a small staff, of which 35 % locally in the programme countries.
- Able to generate 35 % of the budget.
Cooperation
NABUUR does not strive to do it all alone. On the contrary, the ambition to create Neighbour
assistance at the global level can only be realized in cooperation with others. With organizations who
manage projects in developing countries; organizations and companies that want to stimulate the use
of the internet in developing countries; organizations that are expert in certain elements of the solution
process (transport, knowledge management, building, volunteer training, microcredit, international
money transfer, etc). Concrete talks are underway with such organizations to enter into partnerships.
Cooperation with businesses
NABUUR offers the opportunity to companies to become Business Neighbour, as a way to distinguish
themselves in the competitive market for new employees. It gives them the opportunity to give a
concrete new content to their Corporate Social Responsibility policy. It leads to the influx of a group of
professional Neighbours, experts who can help create solutions by provide material, contacts and
ideas. Business Neighbours pay an annual fee to NABUUR. The first meetings with potential Business
Neighbours were held by the end of 2007.

Siegfried.

Hahhahaa. Dont be so melodramatic! :) I dont use big words. I hope. I use basic human feedbacks. dont fight me, fight the "flawed process" that has gotten you so much negative user feedbacks in the past 2 years! I am fighting your corner to make sure that it doesnt go down the same route and repeat the same mistakes again.

BTW I didnt start any "shouting bout".....I think that is very "emotive language" that has been used to not discuss the real IT proposal budget issues. By deciding I was being "rude" then suddenly all other issues can be set aside?

You KNEW the group was "STORMING" and people need to Storm to work in a team! Stopping some of that will stop the process of team building.

***:) You are better than that and so am I. The IT team had a good go of telling me I am rude and I responded ...nothing wrong with that! People shout all the time in Parliament! :) Somehow decisions get made democratically (sorta!)

So, back to the actual issue:

May I ask:

1) In what organisations good practice in governance, would you have a 10K IT budget that does not involve some kind of "open contract bid" process to look for what is the best, most cost effective way of doing it? In what democratic NGO does this issue turn into, 1 single director making the decisions for all without some sort of ACTIVE board of peers voting on this?

This decision being made are in fact going to have long repercussions after 1 June where the elected board will have to deal with the mess or the success.....why not let a "interim board" of your fellow peer volunteers do this democratically?

you may be surprised. In the end, when people are given the information, they might totally agree with your decision 100% or they may come up with ideas that improves on it.

What is there to lose in that?

2) At the moment, this is what proposals you have. Rolf & Pelle's team doing it for 10,000 Euros following the past methods with improvements, no doubt.

Or you have this proposal: Niels and Users input working with some of Raul's 30 Drupal developers input in Australia (For Free), in conjuncation with Rolk and Pelle's teams past experience (For some money since they wont do it volunteer style as they were paid staff, that is fair enough) and RISKS having 1 month where Users getting some of what they might like on the new site???

C'mon. This is a no brainer. But if there is some other reasons why the budget need to be committed right now....please just tell us and we can factor that into the decision.

But dont set it up so that we all feel like we have been wasting our time talking to you only to have this thing go down the same way in Nabuur.com everytime.

BTW I am not refusing any Paid proposal. I am saying why is it impossible to give everyone a chance for 1 month to see what New things is possible? Why this urgency that it must be done right now?

I am straight talker...so please dont get too delicate with my use of language. Sometimes a cigar is a cigar and a spade has to be called a spade.

Please explain why we cannot have 1 month see explore new ways before committing 10K to the same 6 professional people that have been working on this for the last 2 years?

Cecilia

Hi Cecilia,

You use big words. Please read my posting more carefully. It is not a matter of waiting one month.
I asked for ideas to speed things up because NABUUR needs to get its new site up and running. Different ideas were put forward and I have listened as well as I could. There are those in favour of waiting for more input and those in favour of starting now. At this moment it is still my responsibility to come to a conclusion. Some will agree and some don’t, that I understand.

These earmarked funds are not taken away from anyone and as I wrote: I am certain that the developers will actively seek and embrace new opportunities to develop these pages for less money, better or quicker, when and if they arise during the coming months.

I resent the accusations of not listening, not trusting, throwing money away, etc. Please don’t start another shouting bout. It turns people off.

Siegfried

Dear Siegfried.

This is not listening to what your nabuur users are asking for and suggesting and basically just doing what you wanted to do from the beginning. This is just impatience and staying with old methods of "the known solutions" which has gotten you to the same end every time.

This is also not trusting that volunteers can get the work done, nor is it listening to Niels recommendations at all nor letting Raul's team do his input. Nor is this giving Raul and Niels and Rolf and Pelle a chance to go ahead with what they can do best.

So you are going to spend 10K on now on development for sure? But you dont want to give the charity legal insurance to make sure that no one of your staff and volunteers gets sued in the future to protect it as an organisation?

I am going giving this a "no confidence" feedback to this latest Decision making from you about spending the 10K right now.

I will put this response also in the Governance thread.

I am deeply disappointed that you do not want to slow down enough for 1 month to give new volunteer ideas a chance to go forward. 1 month is what people needed and now you have taken that away from them by deciding "throw money at it". That is what it feels like.

Why this urgency to spend the 10K right now?

Cecilia

From: siegfried@nabuur.com
To: nabuurcamp@lists.nabuur.org
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2010 18:06:11 +0100
Subject: [Nabuurcamp] speeding up website development

Dear all,

At the NABUUR Camp we jointly made a pretty concise list of the pages that need to be done and how they should be done. Wednesday the development team put a lot of the outcomes online on the developer site (http://svn.nabuurtest.com/trac/) to make it easier easier/possible for others to get involved. The estimate is that it requires 18-20 days work to finish these pages. We would then have a platform is ready to the point where the all those present in Amsterdam and other interested users can test it and decide whether it is ready to migrate.

The current 6 developers (Kester, Rolf, Hapee, Frans, Pelle, Willem) have limited time to volunteer, and certainly design and theming skills are in short supply, so it will likely take many months before all is ready for testing by the users.

This long, undetermined development period worries me. The villages and the online volunteers need something more effective than the present site and they need it soon. So I pointed out at the NABUUR Camp that within this year’s small budget Eur 10.000, earmarked for website development, can be freed and I asked if that would help to speed things up. It is after all not uncommon in volunteer situations to accelerate developments by paying for work that also might get done if one waited longer.

Rolf and Pelle then drafted a proposal which basically develops the pages as identified during the NABUUR Camp and makes the site testable and migratable. Their conclusion is that, pending on finding extra themers and designers, the job can be done in 2 months, partly paid, partly on a voluntary basis. Progress would be shown on a biweekly basis, for all to see and discuss.

During the ensuing discussion several potentially money saving opportunities were pointed out: Niels Morten Nielsen established contact (will probably meet with Pelle and Rolf at the end of the month in London) and Raul is managing a social innovation camp. These could indeed be important opportunities to benefit from stuff already built elsewhere, from insights about other useful features or approaches, etc. It will however take several weeks to find out what can be delivered by who and how that fits the work already identified and shown in the issue tracker. I really appreciate the concern about NABUUR’s limited means. And while it definitely makes sense that these opportunities are explored, it doesn’t mean that we must in the mean time stop developing what needs to be developed anyway as discussed in the NABUUR Camp.

My conclusion is that the priority should be to have a good, testable site asap. The best way to do that is to accept Rolf and Pelle’s proposal and allocate this earmarked funding. Given the dedication of the developer team to a more effective site, I am certain that they will actively seek and embrace new opportunities to develop these pages for less money, better or quicker, when and if they arise during the coming months.
In

Thanks for all the input and let’s make sure that we actually may have the pages/site as identified in Amsterdam ready for testing in May!

Warm regards,

Siegfried

Dear all,

At the NABUUR Camp we jointly made a pretty concise list of the pages that need to be done and how they should be done. Wednesday the development team put a lot of the outcomes online on the developer site (http://svn.nabuurtest.com/trac/) to make it easier easier/possible for others to get involved. The estimate is that it requires 18-20 days work to finish these pages. We would then have a platform is ready to the point where the all those present in Amsterdam and other interested users can test it and decide whether it is ready to migrate.

The current 6 developers (Kester, Rolf, Hapee, Frans, Pelle, Willem) have limited time to volunteer, and certainly design and theming skills are in short supply, so it will likely take many months before all is ready for testing by the users.

This long, undetermined development period worries me. The villages and the online volunteers need something more effective than the present site and they need it soon. So I pointed out at the NABUUR Camp that within this year’s small budget Eur 10.000, earmarked for website development, can be freed and I asked if that would help to speed things up. It is after all not uncommon in volunteer situations to accelerate developments by paying for work that also might get done if one waited longer.

Rolf and Pelle then drafted a proposal which basically develops the pages as identified during the NABUUR Camp and makes the site testable and migratable. Their conclusion is that, pending on finding extra themers and designers, the job can be done in 2 months, partly paid, partly on a voluntary basis. Progress would be shown on a biweekly basis, for all to see and discuss.

During the ensuing discussion several potentially money saving opportunities were pointed out: Niels Morten Nielsen established contact (will probably meet with Pelle and Rolf at the end of the month in London) and Raul is managing a social innovation camp. These could indeed be important opportunities to benefit from stuff already built elsewhere, from insights about other useful features or approaches, etc. It will however take several weeks to find out what can be delivered by who and how that fits the work already identified and shown in the issue tracker. I really appreciate the concern about NABUUR’s limited means. And while it definitely makes sense that these opportunities are explored, it doesn’t mean that we must in the mean time stop developing what needs to be developed anyway as discussed in the NABUUR Camp.

My conclusion is that the priority should be to have a good, testable site asap. The best way to do that is to accept Rolf and Pelle’s proposal and allocate this earmarked funding. Given the dedication of the developer team to a more effective site, I am certain that they will actively seek and embrace new opportunities to develop these pages for less money, better or quicker, when and if they arise during the coming months.
In

Thanks for all the input and let’s make sure that we actually may have the pages/site as identified in Amsterdam ready for testing in May!

Dear Siegfried

It is wonderful that suddenly from Raul's generous suggestion you might be able to access 30 Drupal developer.

If this works, then isnt it possible that some of the money spent on IT development for paying 8 Developers can be spent on getting Charity insurance for Nabuur and "looking after the volunteers like they are staff and deserves to be protected by proper work insurance"?

Dear Raul,

I have forwarded your message to Niels who is doing Quality Assurance ( as professional IT person who worked on BskyB James Murdoch's thing in England). He will try to link with you on Facebook.

My facebook is down because I have a facebook stalker that abuse team is tracking and trying to "contain".

So Niels M Nielsen from Denmark will try to Friend you.

He has collated a lot of what many users on Nabuur truly truly wish for for the website and will be meeting Pelle and Rolf in London or Oxford some time this month.

**** All this synergy is really wonderful. Thank you so much. Its very generous of you.

Cecilia

_______________________________________________________________________

Rauls' message

A proposition before money is spent
Hi All,

Just a quick note.

I am managing a Social Innovation Camp this weekend where we will have about 70 people working on 8 different ideas including about 30 developers. One of the ideas is a micro-volunteering site that in essence is not so different from Nabuur. It will be built on Drupal and we are going to open source what ever it's developed this weekend.

My proposition is to wait at least for a couple of weeks to see what happens with this project. I could volunteer to do the connections required to make this happen and see how we can build from what is developed.

There will be at the camp some of the best Drupal developers in Australia so I have a feeling that some very good things could come from it.

Hopefully people will like the idea and saving some money is always great.

Anyway, I might not be looking back at Nabuur much until March 15 so feel free to email me if you decide this is a good idea. Most people know my email here

Thanks,

Raul

Hi All,

Just a quick note.

I am managing a Social Innovation Camp this weekend where we will have about 70 people working on 8 different ideas including about 30 developers. One of the ideas is a micro-volunteering site that in essence is not so different from Nabuur. It will be built on Drupal and we are going to open source what ever it's developed this weekend.

My proposition is to wait at least for a couple of weeks to see what happens with this project. I could volunteer to do the connections required to make this happen and see how we can build from what is developed.

There will be at the camp some of the best Drupal developers in Australia so I have a feeling that some very good things could come from it.

Hopefully people will like the idea and saving some money is always great.

Anyway, I might not be looking back at Nabuur much until March 15 so feel free to email me if you decide this is a good idea. Most people know my email here

Thanks,

Raul

can local representative join