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Help improve the Open Leadership Framework.
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We should emphasize the importance of the user. #22

Closed chadsansing closed 6 years ago

chadsansing commented 6 years ago

We should unpack more of how open leaders pay attention to users and their needs to drive a project.

chadsansing commented 6 years ago

Wondering if we can resolve this issue by equating or replacing "user" with "community member" and "users" with "community" and "communities."

Another potential solution: add a "user" focus to Design for Understanding that talks about users being able to see their needs and identities in the way the work is designed and then later built.

chadsansing commented 6 years ago

What do you think of this potential copy for a new section?

How does open leadership benefit the user?

Just as the structure of an open project or community is meant to empower its contributors, the outcome or product of an open project is meant to empower its users. Users should be able to use, study, share, and adapt an open project just as contributors do. Users should have agency and ownership over the deliverable of an open project for their own uses. This ability to interact with the outcome of an open project helps invite users to become contributors, leaders, and innovators in their own rights as they adapt and localize products for their own needs and the needs of their communities.

Everything an open leader does is meant to help contributors understand their users' needs and take them into account during each step of a project. From this perspective, leaders and contributors work together to design and build projects that empower users and create social good.

The ultimate goal of open leadership isn't just to create more leaders; it's to develop communities of practice full of leaders and contributors who educate and empower users with open alternatives to black-box products and products, services, and technologies that exploit them. It's not that an open project can't be profitable or collect data, it's that open projects have clear and equitable value exchanges between their creators and users. Open leaders hold themselves accountable for transparency in the relationships between projects, their contributors, and their users in ways that closed, strictly for-profit organizations and leaders do not.

That commitment to making sure that users understand and benefit from a clear and balanced value exchange differentiates open leadership from other forms of good or effective leadership.

chadsansing commented 6 years ago

Added to white paper on 2/16/18. Will close this issue on 2/19/18 pending further discussion.