[MG] Alpha users

[Michael Allan]

Matteo Martini wrote:
> Hi all,I have read some discussions few days ago about the need of
> "alpha users" for the system.?May I ask you if there is the need to
> hire or contact someone to start test the system as alpha user?Or is
> it too early?

It's not too early for alpha users but it might be too expensive to
hire them.  They need experience in a particular domain of practice -
such as environmental activism or shareholder activism, barn raising
or fund raising.  They need good communication skills too, because
they'll be helping to guide the design of the tools into beta.  OTOH,
we only need two or three of them.

We've been debating the general question in offlist discussions.  What
to do?  C floated the idea of approaching the "open source ecology"
movement.  He and Thomas are especially keen on enabling forms of
collaboration that involve resources other than consensus, such as
labour or materials.  I was initially dismissive because I still think
the crucial resource is crossforum extent.  However this morning I
realized that I'm probably wrong in at least one instance.


          C's         Ed's        Mike's   
         +--------+  +--------+  +--------+
    A    | Plan A |  | Plan A |  | Plan A |
         | ------ |  | ------ |  | ------ |
         | 1. --- |  | 1. --- |  | 1. --- |
         | 2. --- |  | 2. --- |  | 2. --- |
         | 3. --- |  | 3. --- |  | 3. --- |
         +--------+  +--------+  +--------+

                      Ed's                    Thomas's 
                     +--------+              +--------+
    B                | Plan B |              | Plan B |
                     | ------ |              | ------ |
                     | 1. --- |              | 1. --- |
                     | 2. --- |              | 2. --- |
                     | 3. --- |              | 3. --- |
                     +--------+              +--------+

          C's                     Mike's      Thomas's 
         +--------+              +--------+  +--------+
    C    | Plan C |              | Plan C |  | Plan C |
         | ------ |              | ------ |  | ------ |
         | 1. --- |              | 1. --- |  | 1. --- |
         | 2. --- |              | 2. --- |  | 2. --- |
         | 3. --- |              | 3. --- |  | 3. --- |
         +--------+              +--------+  +--------+


    Fig 1.  Three different plans (A, B, C) for getting alpha users.


Figure 1 shows three different plans.  We don't all agree yet how to
get alpha users, so I guess we'll have different plans (A, B, C) and
our own positions on each (C's, Ed's, etc.).  Each plan will be
drafted in the wiki, discussed in the list, and pledged with
resources.  The crucial resources at this stage are not likely to be
crossforum extent or agreement (or even money), but rather labour.  To
get the kind of users we're after, we probably need at least enough
people to stage a technical demonstration for them. *

Anyone who happens to read our discussions about a particular plan and
follows one of the embedded URLs will arrive at a layout that looks
roughly like this (once we finish coding it):


  +----------------+-------------------------------------------------+
  |                |               Resources toolbar                 |
  |                +-------------------------------------------------+
  |  Resources  -> |-------------------------------------------------|
  |  slice stack   +-------------------------------------------------+
  |                |           Resources heads up display            |
  |                |                                                 |
  |                |                                                 |
  |     Diff       |                                                 |
  |     feed       |               Votespace view                    |
  |                |                                                 |
  |                |                                                 |
  |                |                                                 |
  |                |                                                 |
  |                |                                                 |
  |                |           Votespace heads up display            |
  |                +-------------------------------------------------+
  |                |               Votespace toolbar                 |
  +----------------+-------------------------------------------------+

    Fig. 2.  The proposed votespace layout for Crossforum Theatre.  A
             mockup of the old layout (no resources or toolbars) is
    here: http://zelea.com/project/votorola/a/crossforum/vote/_/3.xht
    A running example of the old layout (only partly coded) is here:
    http://metagovernment.tuxfamily.org/crossforum/#c=DV&s=G!p!sandbox%289


The resource view (top) shows the accumulation of needed resources for
the plan.  The first plan to accumulate the necessary amount of labour
and other resources will go ahead and execute.  To be sure, it will
probably fail; nobody's ever done this before so it'll be a process of
trial and error.  But the failure of any plan will release valuable
resources in the form of people, who'll then be free to attach
themselves to another plan. **

What do you think?  Will it work?


 * Each plan is formalized in a poll.  The content of the plan details
   a particular method of getting alpha users, which may itself entail
   opening a *separate* poll on some domain-specific issue of interest
   to the would be alpha users.  In *that* poll, the crucial resource
   could easily be something other than labour.

** Learning will be facilitated if the plans have clear steps.  For
   each step, we list the expected accomplishments and the resources
   required to achieve them, including calendar time.

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, +1 416-699-9528
http://zelea.com/



Originally posted to the mailing list of the Metagovernment Project:
http://metagovernment.org/mailman/listinfo/start_metagovernment.org