I just finished my first read through of this document. Here are my general thoughts/feedback/suggestions/observations:
This is incredibly value information and a really great collection of resources. I love that it puts all the information I need in one place and I can reference it as needed. I'm excited to have this framework to guide work across the team and network!
It took me about 3 hours to read through and digest (and I'll need to come back several times to solidify the knowledge, I'm sure). I believe most audiences will not take that long to read this document, which means a lot of the great content will be missed. With this in mind, my biggest piece of feedback is that the information needs to be broken up via methods of how people learn. Not everyone can sit and read straight text for 3 hours straight and remember what they read. Adding visuals (infographics, images, etc.), video, and interactive elements will make this much more digestible.
Some examples/ideas:
Can we turn the entire "What leadership is not..." section into an infographic? That's all you would need for that section, eliminating all the text.
Instead of normal paragraphs, can we have a video with someone talking through the "How is open leadership different" section, with closed captioning as an option for those with accessibility needs?
The Design section sub-sections "Design for Understanding, Sharing, Participation & Inclusion" seem redundant to the graphic. For the information that is expanded, is it critical? Can the graphic be modified to include only the most important detail to get rid of these three long bullet lists?
Same for the Build and Empower sections. There has to be a clearer, easier-to-digest way to relay this information instead of long bullet lists. I'm guessing most people will stop reading here (or will skip these sections)
What would be really cool is if we could create an interactive element that had the extra tid-bits of info shown when you scroll over a certain area of the graphic. Even if it's just drop down menus or something.
Is this meant to reach far-and-wide once it's launched? If so, we should consider non-native english speakers as we read this document. The language and words used throughout are very academic and very advanced. Many concepts may be lost because of the use of big words and complex phrases. As a native english speaker, I even had trouble with some sections and had to re-read several times before it clicked (and in some sections I'm not sure it did).
For example:
This sentence is under the chart in the "what is open leadership" section: "Across contexts, open leadership is facilitative and service-oriented in that it helps communities of contributors and users create relevant, functional solutions to personally and collectively meaningful problems through shared accountability, agency, decision-making, ownership, and responsibility." This sentence is really long, really wordy and really hard to understand. I had to read it 5 times and I still don't think I understand every part of it. Also notice here how many lists are used. This is a common structural method throughout the document, which I believe adds more complexity than clarity.
A couple of other notes, with editing for clarity/removing the wordy-ness in mind...
In the same section, in the next to last paragraph, I have no idea what this part of the sentence means..." or you might be working on a project that practices a kind of constant, “shout it from the rooftops” kind of open (Thompson, 2011)" Can we just get rid of this reference since the reader will have to look up the original source to get it?
I think this entire closing sentence of that same section can be removed: "Shortly, we’ll take a closer look at how designing, building, and empowering for understanding, sharing, and participation & inclusion break down into specific skills and competencies below." It's not adding value to the content and is wordy/hard to read/understand.
I hope this is helpful and am looking forward to seeing this evolve!
I just finished my first read through of this document. Here are my general thoughts/feedback/suggestions/observations:
This is incredibly value information and a really great collection of resources. I love that it puts all the information I need in one place and I can reference it as needed. I'm excited to have this framework to guide work across the team and network!
It took me about 3 hours to read through and digest (and I'll need to come back several times to solidify the knowledge, I'm sure). I believe most audiences will not take that long to read this document, which means a lot of the great content will be missed. With this in mind, my biggest piece of feedback is that the information needs to be broken up via methods of how people learn. Not everyone can sit and read straight text for 3 hours straight and remember what they read. Adding visuals (infographics, images, etc.), video, and interactive elements will make this much more digestible.
Some examples/ideas:
What would be really cool is if we could create an interactive element that had the extra tid-bits of info shown when you scroll over a certain area of the graphic. Even if it's just drop down menus or something.
Is this meant to reach far-and-wide once it's launched? If so, we should consider non-native english speakers as we read this document. The language and words used throughout are very academic and very advanced. Many concepts may be lost because of the use of big words and complex phrases. As a native english speaker, I even had trouble with some sections and had to re-read several times before it clicked (and in some sections I'm not sure it did).
For example:
This sentence is under the chart in the "what is open leadership" section: "Across contexts, open leadership is facilitative and service-oriented in that it helps communities of contributors and users create relevant, functional solutions to personally and collectively meaningful problems through shared accountability, agency, decision-making, ownership, and responsibility." This sentence is really long, really wordy and really hard to understand. I had to read it 5 times and I still don't think I understand every part of it. Also notice here how many lists are used. This is a common structural method throughout the document, which I believe adds more complexity than clarity.
A couple of other notes, with editing for clarity/removing the wordy-ness in mind... In the same section, in the next to last paragraph, I have no idea what this part of the sentence means..." or you might be working on a project that practices a kind of constant, “shout it from the rooftops” kind of open (Thompson, 2011)" Can we just get rid of this reference since the reader will have to look up the original source to get it?
I think this entire closing sentence of that same section can be removed: "Shortly, we’ll take a closer look at how designing, building, and empowering for understanding, sharing, and participation & inclusion break down into specific skills and competencies below." It's not adding value to the content and is wordy/hard to read/understand.
I hope this is helpful and am looking forward to seeing this evolve!