Sustainable Communities BA at Dominican University of California
Join the Green Solutions Revolution at Dominican U!
Sustainable Communities (SC) is a vibrant undergraduate major that addresses current issues by integrating environmental studies with cultural analysis, social action, public policy, and hands-on skill building. The course of study encourages a student’s capacity to think globally and systemically; to clarify value conflicts, motivations, and learning styles ...learn more
GROUP DETAILS
Created: Jan 14, 2009
Updated: Jan 31, 2009
Membership: Open
Semi-Private
Adding Projects
Problem: Projects are neither Organizations, nor Solutions, nor Events, but are generally a good way to link those together. They are more than simple Resources
Example : I wanted to add to WE the project Drynet, an EU-funded project gathering fourteen civil society organisations from all over the world who have started working together to combat land degradation.
There are a lot a projects of this type, singularly funded by the European Community, which could be added to the data base.
Suggestion: We need a "Projects" category.
Comments (1 - 12 of 12)
|
|
@ Roger and Angus -- Yes I agree that a project would best be managed as a group on WE!
|
|
The only question is where do you go to register a project that you don't want to 'do' on WiserEarth but just make people aware of it. I would say that the org directory under Network would remain the best place for that for now.
|
|
Seems to me that Angus has scoped it out best - that projects are most like WE groups. To create a project for Drynet, we would create a group called "Drynet Project" and then link all 14 organizations to the group, and invite project members from all 14 organizations to the new grioup. New tools could gradually be made available - a timeline first perhaps and then sub-groups.
|
|
|
@ Angus -- I actually think we agree.... I don't think there is an element in WE for project. I do think the closest to it is a resource since projects can be considered something that one or more organizations are making and working on together. But I would be in favor of a new entity for projects that one or more organizations can connect to. Make sense?
|
|
@ Angus
Longer answer tonight :) I did not suggest to introduce support for project management into WE. I agree this is a can of worms. I also agree that the growing complexity of human enterprises lately has been somehow blurring the category boarders between organizations, networks, initiatives, projects ... And multiplication of categories is often more confusing than anything for the user. So, at second thought, and agreeing with Jon and you on this, I can live with using the "network/coalition" subcategory as a suboptimal choice.
@ Bowo Not sure if adding "Project" as yet another subcategory of Organization is a good idea or not.
|
|
|
@ Jon: I don't think a project as you and I described it falls under any of the existing WE entities. It is a new entity all to itself. In many ways Groups are our closest thing to it - since WE Groups are often used by Projects. If we went further down the route of supporting project management we might have a specific Group type that was called this I suppose.
|
|
|
Here's my 2cents.
I think of a multi-stakeholder alliance as a network of organizations, like the 14 that Bernard describes, and we do have an organization type for that - network/coalition/collective. So I would add Drynet as an organization with the type as network/coalition/collective.
When I think of a project I do assume that it will last for some period of time and have some particular outcome. In the multi-sakeholder world this is sometimes called an initiative. If we wanted to describe the outcomes or objectives of Drynet then I would be at a loss for what to call it in WiserEarth.
Is a project a type of Resource? |
|
|
A 3-4 year project is pretty long lived in the social service sector. If it is a combination of orgs working together as a team - then network would probably work. Project for me better represents the activity streams that occur under a program at an organization. At least in the English / American context that is what people would imagine when using that word. There is much more fluidity about what constitutes a network, an organization, a project than there used to be because of the way we work these days....
|
|
|
Hi Angus and Bowo
I'm not very kin to dwelve into ontological debate on Xmas evening, but, in a nutshell : An organization, wahtever its type, is rarely by definition limited in time. A project generally is limited in time. Typically European projects are funded for a time span of 3 or 4 years. |
|
|
@ Bernard: Projects as described here sound more like networks - and could fit under the Org category as suggested by Bowo. Generally, we have kept away from Projects as a concept because it tends to ultimately lead to some form of project management capability on WiserEarth (more Group oriented) complex task lists, task allocation, task completion, complex event management etc. which we have not prioritized as of yet. Also there are very robust commercial options available already.
|
|
|
Thanks for this suggestion Bernard.
There's an option for organization type called "Network / Coalition / Collective", does this work for 'projects'?. If not, how about if we add 'Project' to the type list?
The Network section of organization pages can still list and connect organizations, solutions, resources and events related to a project.
How does this sound? |
Looks like we've reached a consensus here on listing projects as organizations with network/coalition/collective as type. As an addition, we can always provide information on how long the project is intended to run in the About section of the organization page.
If people decide to 'do' their project on WE, they can enlist it both as an organization and as a group. The organization page would be the passive, public-facing page, while the group page can be the active and private collaboration space (or can be made public too). Again, a mention of the existence of a group on the project can be written in the About section of the organization page, so people know where to go if they want to get more involved.
Some questions, sparked by Angus'es previous comment, which are beyond the scope of this suggestion page: