"Webizen" task force re-convening - Please complete doodle poll

This past spring we used this mailing list and a small task force to 
define a Webizen proposal [1].  This was presented to the W3C Membership 
several weeks ago.  The short summary is that while they liked the 
concept of more individual affiliation with W3C, few people liked the 
specifics of the proposal.  However, they asked that we re-create the 
task force and come up with a better approach.

There are now many more people subscribed to public-webizen who want to 
work to make this successful, including over a dozen people that were at 
the meeting last month.

Coming up with a new proposal will require some art because different 
folks had different reasons for rejecting [1].  For example, some 
thought that [1] provided Webizens with too many benefits, others 
thought there were too few benefits of importance, others thought that 
the benefits were not that relevant.  The task force we have signed up 
for this second round will help us get all the issues on the table, and 
hopefully a consensus proposal.

I anticipate about 5-6 one hour calls and some work in between calls to 
build this new proposal.  The first call is important so we start on the 
same page.  Please complete the doodle poll [2].

The draft agenda for the first call is:

1. Goals for program
2. Success criteria for program
3. Target market and marketing study
4. Brainstorming

To have a more efficient call, let me say a bit in email about these 
agenda items.

*Goals for the program*:  I was challenged to articulate the goals of 
the program.  The questioner suggested 5 potential goals:

A. W3C wants to establish itself as the primary steward of the Web, and 
toward that goal wants to have individuals participate.

B. Countries grant citizenships -- W3C  wants to create Webizens a la 
Citizens

C. W3C  wants to involve the wider community -- rather than be seen as a 
place where only companies play

D. W3C wants to create an additional revenue stream

E. Degrading further: W3C  wants to sell t-shirts and coffee-mugs that 
are "branded".

My response was:

"It is closest to C.

In the wiki [1] we say 'The idea of the program is to allow individuals 
to affiliate with the Web standards community  ... we seek to make 
available a new means to congregate as a community.'"

We should see if that is the consensus, or if the consensus is one of 
the other points, or something else.

*Success criteria for the program*:  This is an area which needs some 
development.  My starting point (which is informal and not precise) is 
that people who sign up find it useful and we don't lose any money.  
Others have proposed more precise criteria, such as:

  * More than 500 webizens in 2 years.
  * Most of our Invited Experts become webizens in 2 years.

*Marketing study.*  At some point we will need to do a marketing study.  
It is probably too early in this effort to create the study - but I 
would like to discuss what we think is the minimum intensive study which 
qualifies as a marketing study.  I asked W3C Members to fund a marketing 
study (dollars or people to perform the study) but I received not 
volunteers.  The Team, with its meager resources volunteered to 
undertake a study.  I've asked task forcers whether the Team proposal is 
adequate, but I've gotten few responses.  So we'll resolve it on the call.

For your study, here is the Team proposal:

  * We have 87K twitter followers.
  * We could send them a survey monkey survey with a few questions, and
    offer anyone who completes the survey 10 vaildator coupons.
  * We estimate that we get 100 answers that way at relatively low cost.
  * The Webizen task force would design the survey and the Team would
    implement it.

Jeff

[1] https://www.w3.org/wiki/Webizen
[2] http://doodle.com/ihry7d6vhh8dr9p6