As part of doing some more public updates, here’s a check-in from me.
While writing blog posts takes more careful time and editing, I’m a little more comfortable just putting something down here (though I still want this to be clear, succinct, readable enough).
Things on my mind
Intro video
Excited to publish this soon! The process of putting all the pieces together and collaborating with a musician friend (who will get an @ mention here once he joins the forum) brought up some script changes that really improved things dramatically without changing the messages. One example: switching “Join Snowdrift.coop today and help clear the path to a free and open future” became “Coordinating this way, we can clear the path to a free and open future. Join in at Snowdrift.coop!” Reading this, it’s pretty interchangeable. But the flow in audio and fit with the video is really better with the improvement.
Music is mostly done, just need to add a few finishing touches and mix it. Then, I’ll be up for publishing it even though there remain some issues with the visuals that would be nice to fix. But a new edition can go up later.
Sysadmin issues
I have enough from @chreekat that I believe I can access anything essential and do things like deploy the site. I’m not comfortable with them and will be happy for him to do what he can, but if an action is a blocker and he’s not available, I can try to step in. I’ve discussed with @smichel17 about being another reserve sysadmin, but the real goal is to recruit someone who wants to be a more dedicated primary sysadmin.
Delegation
One struggle with delegating is in trusting others. There are many things I would love to trust that someone else will take care of adequately and in a timely fashion. So, to get there, this is what’s on my mind and in my task-list (which needs some grooming):
- figure out a better full structure for what roles / accountabilities are needed for a fully-working platform, define them clearly enough
- read some resources recommended to me about this stuff
- express clear expectations of what it means to accept a role (primarily that someone can truly be trusted to be on top of their accountabilities with the exception of communicating in advance when they will be unavailable).
- once complete, check with existing team and community about who is or isn’t going to hold a role at this level of reliability
- I want to write a blog post describing the fully working team and where there are openings to fill, then use that as part of outreach to fill out the team.
- I’m going to test more use of @ mentions and assignments here and GitLab and “invite” features here to find the best ways to delegate items to others. Instead of replying to a question, I want to think of who else could answer it and delegate to them.
Board recruitment
Skipping details, I’m getting together my list of people to recruit along with thinking through (and discussing with others) about getting the Board responsibilities and structure clear.
Other stuff
I have a long list of tasks assignment to me (took me a minute to create/find that link; note that it won’t show tasks that are in private repos unless someone with access is viewing the link while logged in, otherwise it’s just a partial list).
I have a bunch of open browser tabs related to Snowdrift stuff.
At least I’m at inbox-zero for my personal emails and just 2 inbox emails for snowdrift.
Looking ahead
- Meeting is tomorrow, still need to capture tasks from last meeting more fully.
- I have a few lessons and some family and personal appointments this week and a totally booked next two weekends. But I have time to push forward during the week.
I invite anyone to provide feedback on this check-in itself or the details or ask any questions…
I hope that with more foundations in place (like building a habit of posting check-ins), each new one can be shorter (or concise at least, I hope that so much progress will be happening that we’ll have more not less to report…)
Thanks for reading.