[acquisitions-wg] [report-card] Getting Started

[John M. Pugh]

On 12/01/2009 09:59 AM, Andy Oram wrote:
> We seem to have skipped some steps in the traditional development of a working group: although OSA as a whole has a mission statement, the acquisitions working group could benefit from its own mission statement. These activities seem time-consuming and bureaucratic, but they do help to get people excited about the group and help everyone focus on what is really important. I'm willing to go along, whether we focus on open source software or on the larger openness goal in government.
> 
> Andy

I strongly believe that we must align to what we want to accomplish in 
any task. You must have an end result in mind  - like climbing a 
mountain or driving to a destination - there is an end result to are 
striving to accomplish.

For starters the end result for the "report card" working group is to 
show the target audience how they are performing when it comes to the 
adoption of open source software. The path to that end result is through 
changing how open government occurs to the target audience. This is 
accomplished by using generative language to suggest or enroll them in 
new possibilities. I agree with Andy that the conversation is sided a 
bit too strongly on the side of open government without the proper 
correlation to generate the possibility mentioned earlier.

Having not dug deeply into the acquisitions working group's role, I am 
not prepared to bring a message forward, but having read what Gunnar is 
attempting to accomplish I can intelligently describe a route I believe 
is appropriate.

JP