OuiShare Talents - mapping the skills and interests of the OuiShare community
Juho Makkonen
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Dear OuiSharers,
On our monday open sessions (summit #8), we talked about OuiShare Talents, ie. how can we easily find someone from our community to do a specific job, join a project or learn something from them.
* “We” could be someone from OuiShare
* Or (later) also a potential “customer” having an opportunity to offer (--> helping to decentralize distribution of opportunities)
The main needs :
* Having a database of OuiShare Talents, where people skills and topics of expertise are listed, and where we can see which OuiShare projects (internal & external) people have been working in
* Ability to easily search and filter this database with specific criterias
* Ability to see the talents on a map (what are the talents close to me?)
We identified some initial search criterias, the first draft is in this spreadsheet; don’t hesitate to comment on it.
To implement that, we identified so far 2 options :
1) We add some more functionality to the OuiShare main website
* On the profile pages : create a specific taxonomy (so far an open one); add the new variables there ; add the links with the OuiShare projects
* The current search doesn't allow easy filtering based on multiple search criterias (for example, someone in Paris doing Facilitation, working with non profits and having expertise on collaborative finance). We should add this type of search.
on the search tool : so far, when we have 2 criteria in the search tools, it makes “or” not “and”, so it doesn’t allow to filter people
* Pros:
We can use existing profile data and user accounts
It's possible to add any new functionality by custom development
* Cons:
This project might take a while and cost quite a lot.
2) We create a new site for this purpose using a third party tool
* Here is a prototype created quickly with Sharetribe: https://ouishare-talent.sharetribe.com/
* It would mean that people need to create a new profile on the talent database (we could limit it to connectors to start, and then open to members) because it's not possible to pull the information from the OuiShare main website.
* we would need to add a page on the website to make the link with OuiShare Talents.
* Pros:
Quicker to create the site (basic prototype was created in one hour)
No development costs
A site made only for this purpose can be easier to use than a site that has lots of different functionality (especially for third parties)
* Cons:
There's no integration with the existing OuiShare website, so everyone who adds their skills would have to create a new user account, and there's one more online tool for everyone to learn.
(If using Sharetribe specifically): If custom features (beyond what Sharetribe offers out of the box) are needed at some point, we might need to install Sharetribe on our servers, which requires extra work.
What do you think ?
Elena Giroli Tue 8 Mar 2016 6:38PM
I agree with @juhomakkonen @esratat and @anamanli what would be nice to do is planning a proper Communication/marketing strategy and trying to understand where we want to go with all the tools we have: do we also want them integrated in the Website? personally, and I know that the Website is a Huge project and people working on it are spending lots of time and efforts in making it work, but i think as a first window for Ouishare, it can be improved especially on the Members and Communities profiles.
I agree on the proposal of trying to merge Sharetribe within Ouishare but before doing that, we could try to discuss on a 'where to go strategy with the whole Website' not just the Academy. So wider approach and focus on 2/3 priorities to be implemented and observed until the next summit. I didn't want to put 'abstain' because i'm happy to help you with this part if you want, but i also agree with @francesca in having a double thought toward a proper solution:)
Jocelyn Ibarra Tue 8 Mar 2016 8:50PM
Hey all,
@juhomakkonen thanks for keeping up. @francesca , thanks for helping us see beyond the decision of today.
Here's the question that hasn't come up as such today, but which as usual, impacts our decisions: "What does OuiShare do?"
We like to think that the OS narrative evolves by the projects we create or the activities we engage in, but that question is so fundamental that it requires its own space, and sometimes we forget.
Maybe it doesn't have a concrete answer because we're a network and we're supposed to change, maybe we don't care about defining ourselves, but the question certainly requires to be considered when proposing decisions.
The proof is that we see roadblocks in Identity recurringly (normal).
Important:
I am not attempting to go back to "What are we?"; I am pointing out that perhaps by acknowledging that this is where we are, we could be able to answer How & Where to proceed with this Proposal of a Solution to something we all consider a Need.
- If, in 2016, OuiShare is a giant connector, the website is an informer, and should be editable to inform.
- If OuiShare is a giant connector, who, in 2016 wants to facilitate the interaction between externals, members, and main actors (Connectors), the website is a platform that supports interactions, or the website is connected to a software platform which allows interactions.
Now my opinions:
1. OS website as an information hub: it hosts a directory of people (but it's a link to a platform, thus the curent directory disappears– now or later); it is a list, or map, of events, of communities, of whatever we become/grow into.
The site doesn't /do/ anything besides 1) informing, and 2) allowing to be edited in order to inform.
- I would like to be part of developing a //space of people// that allows two actions: 1) find others, 2) engage with others. The two are necessary.
This map/directory/DB/platform/whatever /does/ something: it allows for connections between people who are inside or outside OS.
- @juhomakkonen of course I can be part of taxonomy; it's excellent enjoyment :P
Thanks, everyone!
Jocelyn Ibarra Wed 9 Mar 2016 7:52AM
@juhomakkonen just to make sure: we're not keeping three directories live, correct?
I'm referring to: http://ouishare.net/en/about/members, http://ouishare.net/en/about/team, and the new Sharetribe.
Also, a note for communications: the members newsletter should probably have a note about this?
Francesca Wed 9 Mar 2016 5:19PM
thanks so much for all your comments and reactions guys, you can't believe how happy I am for your participation in this discussion, which I feel I have been having with mostly myself and one or two other people in the last years (which is very boring and does not get you to far ;)).
Just to clarify, I am 100 % open to any of the options, because what is most important is that we throughly think about the questions at hand.
Joss summarized the two basic directions for the website very well. To state very simply:
1) OuiShare.net as an information hub
2) OuiShare.net as an interaction / connection hub
Till now, the interaction part has been happening a lot in our FB groups, which has been slowly dying though and was also part of the reason why our long term aim was always to move the community interactions increasingly to OuiShare.net. However, after being part of this website project since the beginning and taking into account the complexity of what we would like to do and the resources we have to do it, I agree and am in favor of a strategy change to focus on OuiShare.net as an (regularly updated) information platform, that directs to places where the interaction takes place.
Based on the amount of effort it would take to get people to really interact through our platform with each other, I think it's unrealistic to focus on this. At least we can say we tried.
In moving forward, another point that was mentioned that I am happy came up is the question of the general positioning of OuiShare, the answer to the question "what are we" and how we communicate this externally. This is acutally something that I am personally quite interested in working on, which is why I was planning on raising a bucket in from the OuiShare Global budget to work on exactly this:
- working on the repositioning of OuiShare in terms of communications
- implementing the new communication on the website
- restructuring the website sections in accordance with this communication strategy (adding / deleting things)--> I already have a pretty clear idea of what this could look like, which I can share soon, and I don't think this should require much or barely any new web developement or design, because it's mainly about content restructuring.
I don't have a detailed proposal on this yet, but was going to get to this asap, now that we have decided on using cobudget cc @maud1. Part of my idea was to do a small phase of talking to Connectors to decide what we really need the website to do, so we make the right decision :).
It's important to clarify that I am not talking about making a strategy for OuiShare (because we know that is not really possible ;)), but find a new way of talking to others about who we are and what we do.
Next steps
Who's in for a call next week to discuss this project so we can refine a little more what we think is needed and plan concrete steps? I am happy is others would like me to join in raising the bucket to do this work.
@juhomakkonen @elenagiroli @berniejmitchell @esratat @albertcanigueral
Bernie J Mitchell Wed 9 Mar 2016 6:09PM
I'm in!!! @Fran I'd love to work on this in more detail with you and a gang. It took me a while to figure out but this area is what really gets me going. Also my head is in a much better place this year ;-)
Elena Giroli Wed 9 Mar 2016 6:16PM
@francesca happy to help..I'm leaving this weekend. we can have a chat tomorrow maybe? and when i'm back i'll jump on board:):)
Bernie J Mitchell Wed 9 Mar 2016 7:17PM
;-)
Francesca Wed 9 Mar 2016 9:35PM
Great guys! I think it would be good to do a call where at least @juhomakkonen and others that might want to join can be there, so since Elena is leaving for a while on Friday, I'll just catch up with her shortly tomorrow and we can plan a call the rest of us the week afterwards?
Jocelyn Ibarra Thu 10 Mar 2016 2:09AM
Hello!
@francesca you <3, thank you.
Regarding: "Based on the amount of effort it would take to get people to really interact through our platform with each other, I think it’s unrealistic to focus on this. At least we can say we tried." << This is another fun part of decentralizing: we step to another side of the hypercube and let our members interact as they wish. We have (or are about to) build the paths for them to connect; we do not need to intervene beyond that, but we can listen and support (if that's what's desired, of course) :)
I'm always interested in redefining narrative; keep sketching!
Artifact was born by allowing a phase of conceptualization around narrative, and it went fantastiskt.
I'm also in for a call next week, I hope you don't mind that I'll be in CST still (Mexico City).
Esra Tat · Tue 8 Mar 2016 1:45PM
Thank you @francesca for this update.
All the work done on the website is just impressive. But as @anamanli and @juhomakkonen pointed it out, it's a huge project to create a dynamic website for all our needs. Maybe as other mentioned as well, ouishare.net should stay a corporate website.
It's not an easy decision to give up or "put on stand-by" something in which we already invested a lot, but it shouldn't prevent us from taking that hard decision anyway.
So far, I realize that I don't really use the member part of the website. When I click on the member page, it's not motivating to see all these empty member profiles, some of them don't even have a picture.
On the other side, the member profiles allow to link to projects and events on the website. And this is something "precious". And if we move completely to sharetribe, we will lose that visibility. Unless we can "integrate" that information from sharetribe. Is something like this possible @juhomakkonen?
If not, I wouldn't say "let's give up for ever" the idea of having a dynamic use of the profiles on ouishare.net. But as @davidwe said, we can take the sharetribe opportunity to give try in a lean way to test what are the needs and uses of a database?