2024-03-07 Tri-Council Meeting notes

 Date

Mar 7, 2024

10-11 AM Eastern Time

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 Participants

  • @Kristin Martin

  • @Alexis Manheim

  • @Jennifer Eustis

  • @Brooks Travis

  • @Jenn Colt

  • @Paul Moeller

  • @Simeon Warner

  • @Tod Olson

  • @Craig McNally

  • @Charlotte Whitt

  • @Martina Schildt

  • @Gang Zhou

  • @Ingolf Kuss

  • @Laura Daniels

  • @Aaron Neslin

  • @Thomas Trutt

  • @Christopher Spalding

  • @Owen Stephens

  • @Marc Johnson

  • @Peter Murray

  • @Mike Gorrell

  • @Ian Walls

  • @Martina Tumulla

  • @Maccabee Levine

  • @Jana Freytag

  • @Maura Byrne

  • @Maike Osters

  • @Kathleen Berry

  • @Lisa McColl

  • @Scott Perry

  • @Mark Veksler

  • @Kirstin Kemner-Heek

 Discussion topics

Time

Item

Presenter

Notes

Time

Item

Presenter

Notes

10 min.

Announcements/Updates from the Councils

Council Chairs

10 min

Updates on the Application Formalization Process

@Craig McNally

@Jenn Colt

Looking at questions from the council. Jenn is posting weekly updates on the tri-council channel. Aim to create proposals for work in different areas.

Craig/EBSCO update - working on POC environment that includes a number of ideas and ways to collect feedback and respond in an orderly way. Will be announced today.

Jenn/Craig happy for more engagement or to discuss.

40 min

How do we encourage more active participation in the FOLIO project and make the FOLIO project attractive to new member organizations?

Meeting prework: each council member should list at least 1 barrier to participation and 1 idea to increase participation. Ideas and barriers can go in this spreadsheet

Facilitator: @Kristin Martin

Discussion topics based on the spreadsheet (new ideas added directly to spreadsheet).

  • Comments about how hard to understand the FOLIO community is

  • Lots of comment on “pure customers” (solution from vendor) vs those engaged with community. We note positive of vendors allowing pure customer institutions to use OSS without all the engagement it might require – still a benefit to have them

  • Have been earlier efforts to reach out to institutions, but not currently. Interest both in understanding the position/motivation of institutions using FOLIO and possible outreach to encourage participation

  • Long term requests for more POs have not been very successful

  • How can those who are engaged help mentor those who are not?

  • Should be careful to use existing survey information

  • Marketing could use case studies/examples of where contributions (e.g. developer or other) have been helpful

  • We (SIGs) could also have some more low level introduction meetings - e.g how to navigate the wiki, councils, bugfest etc.

  • Need better shared understanding on what we mean by participation and what was want to accomplish

  • Do we need clearer expectations for what SIGs do? And what is already happening.

  • Don’t really have a good list of needs. Think not only about organizations becoming funding members but also about contribution of help.

  • While it would be great if institutions and individuals were in a position to be purely altruistic and contribute for the net good of all, we do really need to show how an contribution leads to a meaningful change for the contributor. open source is about empowerment, after all

  • How do we handle both institutions that just want to use FOLIO (perhaps still with wish lists), and those who want to engage in community process? What is the right feedback mechanism?

  • We’re making decisions without a strategic plan, probably making some decisions that are contrary to what we really want

  • Discussion of degree of control by the community and the councils. The councils do hold some resources: membership dues which, for example, empower them to fund the developer advocate. But the dev resources overall are not under council control.

    • the major resource held by FOLIO SMLLC would be the trademark. What FOLIO "is" or "isn't"

    • comments that current development investments by EBSCO not sustainable forever, where will future dev come from

    • move forward with the resources and control we have. And by all means let's try to grow that membership / resources.

  • How are we onboarding and engaging community members and preparing new council members? There is some burn-out of highly engaged community members

  • Was an earlier (2020) effort on strategic directions:

ACTION - @Simeon Warner & @Mike Gorrell to share results with community council and discuss ways forward - DONE, see

 Action items

 Decisions