mentioned in issue ops#4 (closed)

mentioned in issue ops#5 (closed)

Resuming Neo900 Operations?

Some months ago we all had great plans on how we were to push the Neo900 to new heights and make it loved and cherished by the unsuspecting crowds of communicators in need for actual solutions to uphold their freedom and privacy. But apart from the clock-regular behind-the-scenes hard work of Werner and Joerg, who finally ended up moving away from proprietary Eagle to open source Kicad [link to previous communication #5 (closed) ] (and are still on their way doing that), nothing much happened on stage.

There are a number of reasons for that:

• humans tend to be optimistic about their expectations, but lazy about their follow-ups, especially when leading hyperactive lives with strong time compression properties ;)
• we hardly share communication tools, and when we do, timezone scatter comes into play to defeat our flow; moreover there's a strong divergence in development tool preferences as well, both leading to the lack of coordination that we experienced
  • Integrate contents from next note
• we were still waiting for an upcoming server migration that was never formalized and completed (until recently [yep, this will be sent after Sunday :)])
• the question of payment and retribution has been problematic as well: with a team scattered around the world, some of us nomadic, and with the taxing Paypal Trouble half-a-year delay, difficulties hindered motivation. Also I suspect the mix of paid and voluntary work makes it difficult for all participants to match productivity, motivation, and expectations.
  • validate this point as it forms the basis for next paragraph

This is an often misunderstood and underestimated factor, but research shows that the mix of social and market norms can be devastating on the level of involvement of people. Adding to that my personal situation where most of my activity is voluntary work in non-profit contexts, and you see me running after basic income and struggling to reconcile the highest level of Maslow's pyramid with its base. I suspect, tell me if I'm wrong, that S. is working on a voluntary basis, and this might explain why we never reached the point of becoming a real team (I mean all of us who're reading this email).

• edit last sentence (if we keep the paragraph :P )

Since recently Werner and Joerg decided, as their "Eagle guy" also disappeared, to make the (quite huge) effort of migrating all schematics to Kicad, [link to previous comm] and that the demand for PR raised sharply in the last weeks, I think it's time we have a serious discussion on how to get out of this stagnating situation and get things done in a way that not only satisfies everyone, but contemplates stronger commitment in the long term.

• remove this paragraph entirely?

First I want to apologize for not having been as regular and diligent I could have been in helping untie these knots: I should have pushed all of us out of our procrastination and devised some solutions to accommodate our differences. In hindsight I understand that my role in this team is not so much public facing communication (as I'm technically unfit to recognize what really matters about Neo900 that would interest its public, a gang of highly-skilled hardware and telephony people from what I could gather) as it is to help with paving the way for the team to stabilize and become more productive in the first place--maybe I mean "efficient" there.

• remove?

The hard part I see in Neo900 team is that Werner and Joerg are workhorses, entirely devoted to the technical aspects of the project, and doing all the related work only out of necessity. Being who they are, they set quite a demanding pace for the rest of us, although I suspect their attention to detail sometimes comes at a loss for moving larger but more basic building blocks.

• waiting for replies :)

I'm thinking about the come&go pattern Joerg was mentioned yesterday in noticing that there are 9 human user accounts on the main server, but only 4 were active in the last months (mostly Werner and Joerg though, S. popping up from time to time to solve a nasty issue that nobody else would figure).

• not sure this is relevant at all
• replace yesterday to point to IRC log with the right date

[removed paragraph]

X, when you came up with the proposal to pay for revamping the website, you were very motivated and inspired with many ideas. Soon we both realized a divergence in our approaches, but we never really spent time together figuring out a way to collaborate in a satisfactory way. I wish I had let you more space to express yourself, and actually followed up with the first draft of the staging site which was a good first step, but nothing more (I got sidetracked and demotivated by the lack of feedback in general, and with my terrible income situation I didn't manage to find the strength to reconcile will and verb).

• remove?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it feels as though we'd all have shadows in our perspective that could shed light on a successful combo, but we're drawn to the light and prefer running away, without noticing we're on a treadmill and all our efforts go wasted.

• nicely said but irrelevant to the public

Even though the sourcing of N900 units is going pretty well and the Eagle-to-Kicad migration is great news, I have the intuition that the general focus is too much on polishing--early optimization (or maybe sweeping, while the window is open to a sand storm :). Joerg's recent rants on git seems to denote a frustration with the lack of conviviality in the working situation. Again please stand me corrected, maybe all this is a vision of the mind as we never really had a deep strategic and situational discussion.

• probably irrelevant

[removed paragraph]

Follow the source, find the well, bring the echo of depth and quiet to the light!

Thank you for your attention,

Neo900 Team

A 15 minute meeting on slack everyday; all of us must be present. It doesn't matter if there are no topics, we will make some on the first meeting. Though, the server migration issue could be a start. This should be a \xe2\x80\x9cI have nothing to do but attend the meeting\xe2\x80\x9d kind of meeting. It differs from what we usually have, where we discuss things randomly and not all of us are present(especially me). Due to our time differences, something in between our work and free time will do. Up for discussion.

• Turn this into a description of an affordance we put in place to ease coordination work.

commented in #general https://neo900.slack.com/archives/general/p1469794513000738 , for a hint I checkmarked the paragraphs I think may get erased or compressed to 1 short sentence of quintessence

Resuming Neo900 Operations?

Some months ago we all had great plans on how we were to push the Neo900 to new heights and make it loved and cherished by the unsuspecting crowds of communicators in need for actual solutions to uphold their freedom and privacy. But apart from the clock-regular behind-the-scenes hard work of Werner and Joerg, who finally ended up moving away from proprietary Eagle to open source Kicad [link to previous communication #5 (closed) ] (and are still on their way doing that), nothing much happened on stage.

There are a number of reasons for that:

• humans tend to be optimistic about their expectations, but lazy about their follow-ups, especially when leading hyperactive lives with strong time compression properties ;)
• we hardly share communication tools, and when we do, timezone scatter comes into play to defeat our flow; moreover there's a strong divergence in development tool preferences as well, both leading to the lack of coordination that we experienced
  • Integrate contents from next note
• we were still waiting for an upcoming server migration that was never formalized and completed (until recently.)
• much work in Neo900 is voluntary work: with a team scattered around the world, some of us nomadic, and with the taxing PayPal Trouble half-a-year delay, many difficulties hindered motivation, and made it difficult for all participants to match productivity, motivation, and expectations.

Since recently Werner and Joerg decided, as their "Eagle guy" also disappeared, to make the (quite huge) effort of migrating all schematics to Kicad, [link to previous comm] and that the demand for PR raised sharply in the last weeks, I think it's time we have a serious discussion on how to get out of this stagnating situation and get things done in a way that not only satisfies everyone, but contemplates stronger commitment in the long term.

The hard part I see in Neo900 team is that Werner and Joerg are workhorses, entirely devoted to the technical aspects of the project, and doing all the related work only out of necessity. Joerg: "At times 100% of my duties been stuff that I'm not only little interested in but also not an expert and even allergic to 50% of them. However \xe2\x80\x8bsomebody\xe2\x80\x8b has to do them since they came bundled with the migration of project ownership from GDC to Neo900 UG and the reassignment of tasks that resulted from that." Being who they are, they set quite a demanding pace for the rest of us, although I suspect their attention to detail sometimes comes at a loss for moving larger but more basic building blocks.

I'm thinking about the come&go pattern Joerg was mentioned yesterday in noticing that there are 9 human user accounts on the main server, but only 4 were active in the last months (mostly Werner and Joerg though, S. popping up from time to time to solve a nasty issue that nobody else would figure).

• not sure this is relevant at all
• replace yesterday to point to IRC log with the right date

Follow the source, find the well, bring the echo of depth and quiet to the light!

Thank you for your attention,

Neo900 Team

#6 (comment 7539) can serve as draft...