User:Akshay/FSCI Ideas

These are a set of thoughts about FSCI.

There's no denying that FSCI is an anarchic organization. The values of anarchy is embedded deep in its working.

But anarchy is not equal to leaderless. It is distributed leadership that makes anarchy thrive.

Distributed leadership requires disparate individuals to see themselves as leaders and act accordingly.

Here are some of the things that FSCI could be doing with good leadership:

• Weekly/monthly blog posts about what's happening in the FSCI spaces - event reports, learning opportunities, campaigns, new projects, new project ideas, etc could be documented in these.

• Create consistent streams of money to run infrastructure and organize events.

• Events (webinars, workshops, camps) that utilize the skills of community members and also makes the community visible.

• Running more services and/or making services better/stable.

• Be a launchpad/platform for freedom respecting software projects in the country.

• Interface with outside world as service provider

• Continuous source of inspiration for more leaders to emerge

What does it take to reach there?

To accomplish things in the real world, we have to organize efficiently.

Coordination and collaboration leads to creation of success.

Action trumps words.

Inspired action trumps uninspired action.

There are a few critical leadership roles that are necessary for a community like FSCI to succeed:

• Community managers - these are individuals who mediate the conversation between the active members of the community and the inactive members and non-members of the community. Their role is to catalyze engagement. They organize events, activities, etc and make things jolly.

• Finance strategists - these individuals have a keen eye for keeping expenses and income balanced. They figure out strategies how FSCI can raise donations or other streams of revenue to keep running the things that need payment, ie, servers, services.

• Thought leaders - these individuals think in abstract terms about the theory underlying software freedom and through the sharpness of their thought they break new ground in the field.

• Politicians - these are the individuals who can bring in powerful collaborations - eg with institutions, enterprises, governments, etc.

• ... - insert your leadership role here.

Such roles in a traditional hierarchic organization are usually managed by a single individual. But FSCI is not such an organization. It is confusing for our minds because we're not used to thinking about an organization where it doesn't matter whether you joined yesterday or 4 years back - you can still perform in leadership roles.

But that's also a weakness for FSCI. The members have to remind each other that everyone can lead FSCI. That ownership has to be self-assigned. And that motivation has to be internal.

This is one such reminder.

What leadership role are you?