Minutes, June 11, 2009

Minutes of the Plone Foundation Board of Directors

Jon called the meeting to order at 12:03p

Bookkeeping

Attendance

In Attendance: Jon Stahl, Nate Aune, Darci Hanning (taking minutes), Geir Bækholdt, Matt Hamilton, Alex Limi
Excused Absence: Steve McMahon

Minutes for May 28, 2009

Approval moved by: Jon Stahl
Seconded by Darci
Approved unanimously

Business Items

Plone.org management policies

Jon reviewed current agreement with Six Feet Up. Board just needs to formalize a policy regarding approval of additional work, re: Steve’s email.

Matt moved to approve the approach outlined in Steve’s email and Geir seconded.

Approved unanimously

Action item: Steve to finalize wording and place in the policy folder on plone.org

IP Committee (Geir)

Recommendation from Paul/Committee regarding ownership of plone.de.

Executive session to discuss; no immediate action.

Domain consolidation (Geir)

Planning to do a News Item on plone.org and something to plone-announce so that folks can communicate what “plone” domains exist and update the administrative and billing contacts to be the Plone Foundation. Long term plan to consolidate to common registrars may not be feasible (domain name ownership transfer is not always simple).

Nomination of Mark Corum to the Advisory Board (Jon)

Jon Moved to appoint Mark Corum to the Plone Foundation Advisory Board; Geir seconded

Unanimously approved

“Symposium” Definition for Content Publishing Purposes

Immersive Training by Six Feet Up – is this a “symposium”?

Reference: http://plone.org/documentation/how-to/publishing-content-on-plone.org (Policy Document) but doesn’t explicitly define “symposium”. Use historically started as symposium by Alan who just called that.

One approach would be to change to “regional conference from state / country”.

Limi proposes a light-weight process – request to the board via email. Board would evaluate timing, etc with respect to annual Conference and other potential regional conferences.

Alex to write up a policy for board to formally adopt regarding regional conference definition; then pages on plone.org will need to update.

  • Discussion of criteria around scale, number of attendees, sessions, etc as a way of defining the event
  • “Significant events” are different than general sprints, training, etc. that can be on the front page
  • Mark and Limi have been discussing some approaches; Mark is interested in doing a “monthly wrap-up / what’s coming up” communication. This could be a way to handle “advertising” of significant events.

In Summary:

  • Jon will follow-up with Six Feet Up
  • Remove term symposium, redefined as regional conference (Alex)
  • Specific case of Immersive Training – more of a super sprint in terms of plone.org publishing (Jon will communicate)
  • Mark Corum will start up a newsletter; will be a new PR channel for all sorts of things for everybody.

Marketing Plan (Nate)

  • Marketing plan around presence at conferences/events (from work done at Penn State Symposium)
    • Calendaring and tiers/priorities of events
    • A little US-centric at the moment (board comment)
    • For Europe, per country is important (board comment)
  • 3-4 month marketing plan

Ultimately, Board needs to approve a plan and sufficient funding to support.

Producing/printing materials – how will we handle that contracting work? Print materials should focus getting people to visit the more interesting stuff online.

Would it be better to focus on online materials / templates that people can download/print themselves? People can reproduce as needed – “build to order” – print on demand. Can be translated, etc

Foundation money should be spent on “first copy” / templates. Then yearly updates (pay copywriters?) Perhaps Mark would do this?

Feedback around:

1)      Reproducibles vs pre-printed materials

2)      Enticement approach for printed materials (and updated online case-studies, etc more)

3)      Conference list

4)      Board will need empower a committee to refine conference list

5)      Language / translation issues/approaches

Board should keep in mind the advantages of high-quality printed materials and have a plan to distribute, etc. (Could be distributed at the Plone Conference as well).

Board’s recommendations for starting/pilots:

  • Single first thing to produce? Case studies.
  • Second? Postcards (better than brochures?)
  • Screencasts (production values, standards, etc)

OSI Proposal for Conference Scholarships

First draft sent out via email (30,000EU) for students, Eastern Europe, Hungary, etc.

Guidelines with Foundation to administer and do the work; get volunteers from membership, one board member to participate, plus others from conference team.

Meeting adjourned at 1:15p