On Boston Summit organization and delegation [was Re: A question to candidates]

[Behdad Esfahbod <behdad behdad org>]

On Mon, 2007-11-26 at 12:46 -0500, John (J5) Palmieri wrote:
> Even if not elected I am an available Boston resident and would
> be more than happy to help out.

I'm sure you do, and you alredy showed that by organizing the poub night
this year.  Thanks for that.  But if you look, I asked for help about
Boston Summit on the boston-social list as early as June:

  http://mail.gnome.org/archives/boston-social/2007-June/msg00000.html

and got no reply.  I mailed at least three Boston residents directly and
got no reply either.  And I gave up and Jeff ended up doing it all the
way from Australia.  It was going well until the *reserved venue* got
canceled...

The point being, while most of our community is willing to help, more
often than not the very people that can help most are already overbusy
with their own schedules and rightfully don't volunteer for new work.
Many of them do accept it though when asked directly.  That's what we've
started doing on the board: pick someone we know can do the job and ask
just him/her.

That has an inherent limitation though, that we end up getting help from
those people we know closely.  This is where the main problem with
delegation in the board is.  Asking on mailing list has its own problems
too.  Sometimes the cost of delegation ends up exceeding the cost of
Just Doing It!


Cheers,

-- 
behdad
http://behdad.org/

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little
 Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
        -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759