ESIP Partnership April Telecon (1PM EDT)
Telecon: Monday April 19 1:00 - 2:00PM EDT
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Agenda
- Update on Applications from Danie
- Procedure to announce to assembly.
- Brief discussion/feedback on the EarthCube application
- Finalize 2016 Strategic Plan
- Draft 2016 Strategic Plan
- Scott's Comments:
- Here are some additional thoughts on "How we will know we are on the right track?" You've covered the number of new members. You also mention targeted communities as a qualitative metrics, but could this also be made quantitative by categorizing existing members by targeted communities and then measure the change in membership?
- Would it also be possible to track membership involvement (e.g., meeting attendance; working group membership) and clean-up of the rolls? A rather negative metric, but one consistent with stated objectives.
- Both of above would be measures of closing gaps. If we're going to target audiences, we could also measure organizations contacted.
Meeting Minutes / Other Notes
Present: Danie Kinkade, Anne Wilson, Scott Hausman
Discussion on EarthCube application: The application seems to be listing roles with current members over specifically identified people. Perhaps we should check in with Erin on the precedent and implication of accepting an organization with a role as a member over a specified individual.
Danie- desire to request more information within some sections with the intent to provide assembly members reviewing the application more context for EC and its potential role within ESIP.
Anne- these applications may not be viewed after voting, so having it as a resource may not be so relevant.
Scott- Are any applications ever turned away? It seems the role of this committee is less about filtering applications versus educating the ESIP Fed as to the roles and niches incoming members might fill. With respect to the strategic plan, this information can lend to understanding gaps in ESIP membership, existing roles, etc.
Danie will discuss implications of roles on the membership application with Erin; double checking that this is acceptable. Also, to obtain a bit more information in some sections (e.g., section 6, 10, 11). Annie will add the EarthCube application once feedback is obtained.
Scott- Is there a membership committee within ESIP? Annie- no
Then it would seem appropriate for the Partnership to serve in a membership monitoring capacity. Do we have access to membership data? This information could be used for outreach, and/or advocating for ESIP, using membership stats. To do so, we may need more granularity in the ESIP member data. This also ties in to the first bullet/objective of the Partnership Strategic Plan. Segue into discussion on the Strategic Plan.
Annie indicated that consolidating and augmenting a database of membership information is a task she is currently working on, e.g., one database contains member name and voting rep, another contains more detailed data. She would like to include geolocation of members to visually see ESIP membership and provide information to those who are curious about members in close geographic location.
Perhaps now is a good time to engage with this activity to request more granularity and any additional membership data we would want to collect.
Caution was expressed regarding any membership tracking as an activity: it seems rather nebulous with no drivers or intent. In designing a database, a primary question is "what will the information be used for?" What are the use cases? E.g., are we trying to keep an even ratio of Type Members? If not, how do we identify gaps, if we don't know what end state we are looking for?
Annie- For ESIP, staff is not necessarily interested in tracking type members, but linking promotion of new products and services to their producers. This however doesn't seem to be impacted by membership stats., but in the most broad sense of being aware of members and their activities.
What about membership attendance at meetings?
Yes, attendance as a voting representative at meetings is tracked. This could lend to task of cleaning up inactive members.
Anne- This is a real concrete tasks that seems doable. Vote to undertake identifying and reporting on inactive members. Strategic plan looks incredibly large, is this the correct document?
Danie explained how strategic plan was drafted, starting point was objective from Constitution and Bylaws, in addition to information from Erin as it lends to expanding the role of this committee, and feedback from the first two committee calls. However, included in each committee/team strategic plan template (provided by esip staff), is a reference to the larger ESIP Fed strategic plan, that is obviously much more comprehensive.
Scott- There are several references to Partnership-like activities in the bigger ESIP plan that don't look like they are synched up with this plan. They may need revisiting, some activities look like they are from 2015.
Danie- I didn't explicitly try to synch our plan to the larger, but can go back and see if I can make the agreement tighter.
Annie- The Committee/Team plans were intended to support the bigger ESIP plan, but do not have to align exactly. The intent is that the proposed activities help advance the broader goals of the ESIP Fed.
Anne- Some of the activities seem vague- i.e., how to find gaps if there's no reference point for what's complete? Nebulous tasks often take a lot of time to make concrete. In addition, these added tasks seem to be expanding the scope of this committee beyond what's outlined in C&B. Concerned about time commitment beyond the application review purview.
Danie- will try to review the bigger plan and reconcile this committee's individual plan to have more agreement with the larger one. At the same time, I can discuss with Erin what she sees as priority tasks for this committee and where those seem to be vague, ask for drivers and more fleshed out objectives with either use cases or desired end-states.
Action Items
- Danie to contact Erin regarding precedent of applications listing roles rather than permanent individuals as members (as in the EarthCube application). In addition, Danie would request a bit more information in some of the EarthCube application sections.
- Annie to post EC application once issues are resolved
- Danie will review ESIP Strategic Plan for any places where tighter alignment with the Partnership Committee's Plan is possible.
- Danie will discuss with Erin priorities for the committee beyond the C&B objectives of application review.
- Request to flesh out any more nebulous tasks be made
March Action Items
- Danie to set up Google Doc of New Member Applications
- All review and comment
