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

On 7/10/2014 3:29 AM, Charles McCathie Nevile wrote:
> On Wed, 02 Jul 2014 23:56:03 +0400, Jeff Jaffe <jeff@w3.org> wrote:
>
>> The draft agenda for the first call is:
>
> Regrets: chaals
>
>> 1. Goals for program
>
> This is the most important question.
>
>> 2. Success criteria for program
>
> I think we have a few rough ones.
> - If it costs a lot of money to deal with, it failed.
> - If "nobody" joins, it failed.
>
>> 3. Target market and marketing study
>
> I think the target market boils down to people who don't have a community
> around them, and need W3C to make them one. People who can build their 
> own
> communities just join as an organisation - which is probably cheaper than
> the 200x $100 proposed to qualify for an AC rep.
>
>> 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.
>
> I think this is actually a useful goal. However, I think our Invited
> Expert mechanism, the fact that most groups work in public, and the fact
> that all specs are required to go through a Public Last Call and "should"
> be published for review at intermediate stages is adequate for this
> purpose.
>
> (Not to say that there are no problems, but that I don't think "Webizens"
> is the right approach to a solution to them.)
>
>> B. Countries grant citizenships -- W3C wants to create Webizens a la
>> Citizens
>
> I don't think this is a good thing, so I am glad it wasn't the option you
> chose :)
>
>> C. W3C  wants to involve the wider community -- rather than be seen as a
>> place where only companies play
>
> This is important.
>
>> D. W3C wants to create an additional revenue stream
>
> While this should not be the goal, I agree that a Webizens program should
> be both self-funding (at minimum) and highly scalable. Which means if we
> had the happy problem that it was bringing in a lot of revenue to W3C we
> would need to address it. Ideally, we would have our goals sufficiently
> clear that it would be obvious what we should and should not do in
> response to this hypothetical.
>
>> E. Degrading further: W3C  wants to sell t-shirts and coffee-mugs that
>> are "branded".
>
> I doubt this is anyone's goal. Not because it is a bad idea, but 
> because a
> webizen program is a terribly inefficient way to do it, and since it is
> primarily a distraction from W3C's mission, it should only happen in some
> very efficient and highly scalable way.
>
> But there is a flip side. If we think that Webizens' goal includes
> 'getting W3C-branded stuff', we should say so, and think carefully about
> the cost of production, handling and shipping, and what stuff we give 
> them
> after a couple of 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.
>
> IMHO: One that identifies at least 100 individuals with their money
> committed, and provides a clear explanation of where the next 900 will
> come from.
>
>>  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.
>
> Why are the validator coupons necessary or useful? It looks likely to 
> bias the responses to be from people who want something free from W3C, 
> if it isn't a waste of time making the offer.
>
> What I think we are really looking for is pledges of commitment. Which 
> I guess should be discounted at about 50%, although this area isn't my 
> specialty (in various events I am involved in running, 2/3 of 
> registered people turning up is a pretty common figure. In any event, 
> there is likely a difference between answering a survey and actually 
> shelling out cash).

It is up to our task force to design the survey.  So we can certainly 
have a question: "Would you sign up for the proposed program?" (assuming 
we have a proposal).  If your goal is 100 committed people and your 
discuount rate is 50%, then we would have a goal of 200 positive answers 
from the 87K tweeters.

I'll guess that the validator coupons are merely to get more of the 
tweeters to respond at all.

>
>>   * 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.
>
> If we're using survey monkey (or even WBS) it should be feasible for 
> the TF to implement a survey.
>
> But I think we first need to understand what the question is…
>
> cheers
>

Received on Thursday, 10 July 2014 13:38:25 UTC