TIME, In-World Meetings, Poll Taking, Using Forum

[Ohn Lang]

... However forum or blog discussion can never replace the innate spontaneity of town hall meetings. Or the free flow of ideas round table discussion inspires.

I completely agree, no reservations whatsoever! Those in-person meetings are invaluable. Spontaneity and free flow of ideas, and just getting to know your neighbors

Before most people click submit, they first reason out an appropriate response. Then proofread the language, punctuation and spell check several times. Finally one last read through to ensure that everything is coherent, as well as inclusive. In active topics quite often when the post is ready to submit, the conversation has moved on, and the time for that input is past.

I would never suggest that our in-person meetings be converted into a forum posting session. I do know that I would provide better, more informed, and more concise feedback within the in-world meetings if I had the benefit of thinking in advance about the topics and questions planned for the upcoming meeting.

And, LOL, having the luxury of proofread, punctuation, spell check, relevance check can be a good thing. Mostly, my desire is for productivity and representative feedback.

When something as seemingly simple as whether Black, Blue, Brown, Grey, Green, Orange, Pink, Purple, Red, White, Yellow, Other are sufficient color options takes big chunks out of multiple meetings with just a handful of people, perhaps then it is time to move it to a forum discussion to get perhaps more representative input (for a defined duration), then either Ilan just makes the executive decision, or could put it to a vote, with majority rule. For me, if I had known it was going to be a topic for discussion again, and since I don't actually feel all that strongly about it, I would have taken some time to look at how this is handled in other retail web sites, given some actual thought to what makes logical sense.

Polling is always a viable option for many things. Though in my opinion most of the discussions we have are not necessarily easily replaced with polls. Surveys tend to be most effective, for simple ideas. Census questions of a type which can easily be returned yes, no or rated on some type of scale. While today’s subjects might readily lend themselves to these simplified answers, many do not. What could have been settled in a short duration, of an hour or two, can easily turn into a three day forum affair.

Polls are useful (or show of hands, whatever) to get a sense of the trend of how a group of people feel. They are useful before in-depth discussion, and after, but not as a replacement. The polls can lend valuable information to the discussion. Simple Yes/No Polls, Multiple-choice Polls (which of these 5 things do you like best) or Rating Polls (rate these 5 options 1 - 5 in order of preference) just provide useful high-level statistics.

The one thing a forum poll can do, that an inworld meeting can't (so far) is get the statistics for member preference on a particular thing from a much larger percentage of the members. The usefulness of even 30 votes of a simple yes/no question is preferable to just 10 votes, or 5 votes, or 3 (if it is late in the in world meeting). An added benefit of forum polls is that voters can also post comments. Those comments are useful too for the future in world discussion, or as a follow up to it.

That being said, I just want to emphasize that I agree that inworld meetings are irreplaceable and valuable for community spirit and spontaneity, and that free flow of ideas. My desire is only to take advantage of a couple of tools like agendas, forums and polls to add to the value produced in in world meetings, when needed, to keep meetings at a bearable length, to increase usefulness of in world discussion, and keep me focused.

... psssst I didn't know what magenta is either

LOL. The interesting thing is that we gave different answers about which color we would choose to represent magenta, and none of our answers matched the actual definition of magenta! LOL.

[Ilan Tochner]

Most Kitely Mentors Group meetings have 10-15 people in attendance, most of which are/have been long time SL residents. My goal is to get the gut reactions of people who are used to the SL way of doing things as that is how many other people coming to Kitely from SL will likely feel about various Kitely features as well. I don't want the well articulated thought out answers to be the first thing people say. I want to hear how they react and see what arguments work or don't work in explaining features to them. Then, when I have that raw information it becomes useful to hear well thought out arguments as well (which can be done in the forums so a lot more people can participate).

Part of not having an agenda is being able to get this type of natural reactions that are hard to get from people who come to meetings with a preconceived well thought out notion of what they think about a particular subject.

It's not jut about getting to the "right answer" it's also about understanding what makes that answer be the right one for people.

[Ohn Lang]

Thanks Ilan. It's great to see into the minds of Kitely creators now and then.

[Ilan Tochner]

Thank you Ohn. We believe in acting transparently whenever possible.

[Ohn Lang]

Thank you Ohn. We believe in acting transparently whenever possible.

And we love Kitely for it!

[Dinero Outlander]

Ilan Tochner "It's not just about getting to the "right answer" it's also about understanding what makes that answer be the right one for people."

Yup i always liked that about Kitely. (Said like an old timer instead of someone who has just been here a few weeks).

It takes some getting used to not getting the tin can form letter Linden Lab responses like "Thanks for the suggestion we will take it under consideration." or "We have investigated the problem and determined the issue is your cheap computer, or using an unsupported viewer" and never hearing anything else about it again. Any one that has had very many dealings with LL support at all knows what I am talking about.

Here it is always something like, why do you think that, or give me more details, or I did not fully understand the question. Sometimes it is let us discuss, it then we will get back to you. Then a well thought out response, giving reasons why a request is impossible, difficult, approved, or denied. Or some times Ilan says, it is an important issue and we have put it on the, to do list after the more important priorities are dealt with.

Even without all of the other good things there is to say about Kitely, that alone is enough for me.
I am SOLD on Kitely.

[Ilan Tochner]

Thank you Dinero

[Bladyblue Bommerang]

I. Read highlights from last meeting. (10 minutes total)
a. Volunteer follow-up reports. (4 Minutes)
b. Further suggestions on last week's subjects. (3 minutes)
c. Dates for next steps (3 minutes)

II. This week's agenda Items.
a. The development of the Marketplace (10 minutes)
1. Launch of Merchant Dashboard
2. Content Security
3. Events planned to celebrate April Marketplace launch

b. Hypergrid (10 minutes)
1. Development Notes
2. Q&A

c. Other Business (10 minutes)
1. Meeting facilitator introduces new focus.
a) feedback

III. Open floor for new ideas (15 Minutes)
a. Ideas accepted will receive volunteers (if needed), follow-up plan and date.
b. Some ideas floored for next meeting for further development

IV. Create agenda for next meeting
a. Choose who will present what idea
b. Choose who will take meeting minutes next week.
_________________________________________

We also set-up a wiki page that anyone (that logged in) could edit and add ideas that could make it onto the next agenda. People could add things for 4 days and then he complete new agenda (with Items Ilan accepts) will be posted.

BUMP

Can we change how the weekly meeting goes down for the summer please? I would like to add agenda items also.

[Ilan Tochner]

Hi Blady,

The mentors group meetings have the following goals:

1) To enable Kitely to hear the opinions of its active users regarding what it needs to focus on and how to it should implement various features that affect them.

2) To enable people to meet other active Kitely users in order to promote cooperation on projects that can help Kitely grow.

3) To create a sense of community between active Kitely users.

You are free to raise issues / feature requests in the forums at any time prior to the scheduled meeting time or during several "is there anything else you wish to discuss" periods during the meeting itself. If the issue is important to Kitely's development and/or interests other people enough to merit a continued discussion during the meeting then we'll likely discuss it in the meeting. If it isn't, it can continue to be discussed in the forums.

While creating a fixed agenda can help answer questions we've already defined it will prevent us from pursuing questions that arise during the meeting and are sometimes more important than what we had planned. This less structured format has the shortcoming of allowing people to potentially hijack meetings and running out of time to cover all the issues we had planned. However, it also creates an atmosphere where people feel more free to make suggestions which they may not feel comfortable making when there is a tight schedule that needs to be adhered to. I rather get more insights and cover less ground than discuss more things but do so with a lot less depth.

[Bladyblue Bommerang]

Hi Blady,

The mentors group meetings have the following goals:

1) To enable Kitely to hear the opinions of its active users regarding what it needs to focus on and how to it should implement various features that affect them.

But you are the only one that chooses what is discussed at every meeting. That leaves no place for anyone's opinions.

There is really no method in place for anyone to create agenda items and know in advance what the agenda is before attending.

2) To enable people to meet other active Kitely users in order to promote cooperation on projects that can help Kitely grow.

3) To create a sense of community between active Kitely users.

The meetings are structured like a CEO talking to his workgroup. That is not a community model.

You are free to raise issues / feature requests in the forums at any time prior to the scheduled meeting time or during several "is there anything else you wish to discuss" periods during the meeting itself.

After two hours of talking about the subject you started the meeting with, no one wants to start a new discussion.

If the issue is important to Kitely's development and/or interests other people enough to merit a continued discussion during the meeting then we'll likely discuss it in the meeting. If it isn't, it can continue to be discussed in the forums.

I believe anything a resident wants to discuss at a weekly meeting merits discussion. I do not think people should be 'shouted down' and ignored at the meeting when they have concerns.

The reason I do not go to those meetings is because what I wanted to discuss was never anything acceptable for the meeting time.

While creating a fixed agenda can help answer questions we've already defined it will prevent us from pursuing questions that arise during the meeting and are sometimes more important than what we had planned.

This never happens, It is always the agenda items that you want to discuss only.

If people see something they want to discuss on a pre-determined agenda that is publicized, then they are more likely to attend and participate. I would never spend four weeks and 10 hours discussing transfer stations exclusively.

This less structured format has the shortcoming of allowing people to potentially hijack meetings and running out of time to cover all the issues we had planned.

As it stands now, there is no format. It is just you and your agenda you have determined by yourself.

However, it also creates an atmosphere where people feel more free to make suggestions which they may not feel comfortable making when there is a tight schedule that needs to be adhered to.

Absolutely not true. Every suggestion I ever made at those meetings were brushed aside and never discussed again. The only things I have seen discussed at those meetings are the categories for the Marketplace and Transfer Stations. Those are the things that you are working on at the moment and want feedback on.

I rather get more insights and cover less ground than discuss more things but do so with a lot less depth.

Well then, that is not a community meeting.

Perhaps we can actually start community meetings while you go ahead with your Wednesday infrastructure discussions. I would like to be heard in a community setting. Maybe Community Meetings can take place twice a month on the weekend so working people can attend.

There is a 30-seat conference area in the Mentor Hang-out in Kitely Plaza that can be used for community meetings (a free region)


Or we can switch it up and meeting in the Blogger's Cafe in Kitely Plaza also.