Now that that dust has settled on the election I think it's a good time to look forward to the next six months, decide what we would like to achieve as a community, and plan accordingly. You could see this proposal as somewhat complementary to Salzie's call for the use of strategic planning tools to aid our community in achieving its mission and goals. This is a proposal and request for comments.
One problem I see at the moment is that we are really great at generating great ideas for things we'd like to achieve but not that great at actually delivering them. I think this is for a number of reasons - our ambitions often outstrip our resources; we have a lot of 'ideas people' but fewer 'getting things done people'; we have often failed to capitalise on newcomers' enthusiasm by focussing it in productive directions; we have no clear 'leadership' as executive power is distributed among the governmental institutions.
Here are just a few of the ideas that I've seen floated on these forums recently:
[list:26w5brgv]Integrating lessons learned from the election into the City voting system and procedures
Offering City bonds on the Metaverse Stock Exchange
Interpreting the UDHR to take into account the realities (!) of life in virtual worlds
Developing a Civil Service
Developing RA procedures to deal with, for example, faction dissolution, absent RA members
Initiating a Finance Committee to advise the Guildmaster
Plans for redeveloping Neufreistadt
Establishing 'franchulates' on the mainland
Holding a 'Land Planning Festival'[/list:u:26w5brgv]
There are more, not least in the parties' election manifestos.
Here's my proposal: the RA should develop a programme for the next six months saying what they would like us to focus on as a community, fortnight by fortnight. It could look something like this:
[list:26w5brgv]August 1-15: Lessons Learned from the Election (Voting System & Procedures)
August 16-31: Developing a Civil Service
Sept 1-15: City Redevelopment and Planning Festival
Sept 16-30: Guild Reform
Oct 1-15: Reevaluating the Founding Documents (including UDHR)
etc[/list:u:26w5brgv]
That way we could focus all of the community on an issue at one time rather than splitting our efforts four or five ways depending on what people are exercised about at any one time. People who have particular hobby horses would know they were going to be addressed, we could get everyone's input on really important issues and we would be saying clearly what we hope to achieve (and, by ommission, what we don't plan to achieve) making our plans clearer and more transparent.
Some activities will have to take place in the background, I don't think expansion to a second sim can be slotted into a fortnight block! But even here we should set ourselves targets and deadlines for the completion of key stages of work so that we know what we are aiming to achieve and when we hope to achieve it.
What do others think?
