YWAMKnowledgeBase:Sprint2012

Our online meeting space (NOW) is: http://wiki.ywambrussels.be:9001/p/SprintJune2012 (The Sprint pre-planing page was http://wiki.ywambrussels.be:9001/ro/r.4jLNaTdyHpErUKfQ)

Friday Agenda

 * 12:30 Eat
 * 13:30-14:30 Some more work or chat
 * 14:30 pack up so PP can go to station...?

Sprint in Progress update

 * 1) Wednesday evening
 * 2) * PitPat arrived. Welcomed. Survey quickly anonymised and sent to participants
 * 3) Thursday morning:
 * 4) * met for simple church experiment in park!
 * 5) * arrived chez kevin
 * 6) * looked at survey and analyzed it. some chat and general discussion.
 * 7) * Made Ice Tea
 * 8) * patterns emerging from survey
 * 9) * Lunch (Brie, Honey, Walnut and Rocket sandwiches!)
 * 10) * Survey results summarised. Initial working time on plan of attack
 * 11) * Sketching and discussing MainPage
 * 12) * Main page mockup zone: YWAMKnowledgeBase:Sprint2012/MainPage
 * 13) * Test plan for MediaWiki upgrades
 * 14) * had a meal
 * 15) * upgraded mediawiki to 1.9. Massive breakage etc. PitPat worked hard to fix it.
 * 16) * Skyped with steve
 * 17) * tidied survey results from etherpad and added to KB sprint log
 * 18) * email to kb team and survey folks with results.
 * 19) Friday
 * 20) * Talked about WYSIWYG Editor!
 * 21) ** Problem: the existing WYSIWYG editor has broken following the upgrade to MW 1.19. This is a shame as the survey highlighted the desirability of a WW tool.
 * 22) ** However the new basic editor is VERY good. This is useful.
 * 23) ** Kevin spent an hour viewing the WW solutions for editing. There is a great solution that works for MW 1.18 but is broken under MW 1.19 (drat) the new CKeditor. This looks a great improvement on the previous FCKeditor and is based on it. There is a prototype realtime editor in the works but this looks like 6-9 months off.
 * 24) ** We came to the reluctant conclusion that we will have no WW editor. However we will check every three months and re-enable the option for then. In the meantime we will also implement the DropZone idea so that we can offer help to those wanting to contribute quickly.
 * 25) * We realised we are now in the project at a Tipping Point stage. There are several people who are relying on the KB as a tool in their work and refer to it sporadically or in bursts for projects. This is wonderful, but also opens the chance that those who rely on it will be open to start using the KB as a platform for their voice in the mission and a training tool they can use.
 * 26) ** We should take opportunity to identify areas of contribution for these folks and coach them into editing.
 * 27) * Kevin declares he really likes the new editor (non-wysiwyg)
 * 28) * Kevin wrote to WELT to ask them to put the YWAM KB in their sigs. And will ask other groups to do so too!
 * 29) ** ToDo: KB mailing list, Belgium team.
 * 30) * PP and KC checked extensions and tests for upgrades of future MW.
 * 31) * decided to remove rating bar - not enough value added and clutters up pages otherwise...

Survey analysis

 * Few in 20's replied - but that might be because of who I sent it too.
 * 3 female base leaders in 27-46 ages find it very helpful and consult it
 * Female to male ratio good in responses.
 * All good english speakers (no surprise, but no big/apparent need for translation either)
 * International mix 50/50 Europe. 50/50 english speaking cultures.

Learning style

 * most people self taught /learning on the job/self learI ners. This is perhaps why most of us don't know much!!!!! Or but STILL know more than most others?
 * good correlation with "found kb when looking on internet"

Discovery

 * 3rds each
 * 1) told personally (kevin scores 3 and wins!)
 * 2) told in a conference
 * 3) found by chance.

Promotion

 * Existing? Links on sites: ywamconnect is new. Updates.ywam.org resource section
 * New Links on all websites! KB link in all leaders signatures! Facebook pages.
 * Spamming everyone occasionally!

How KB can support your ministry?

 * Password-some ministries need this (but conflict with our open policy)
 * Confusing/initial choices are too bewilderings/ ???
 * content too general, too specific, or absent! But yes - useful!

more of

 * specific articles
 * general articles
 * space for projects (for other people)
 * more examples of practice
 * flesh more articles out.
 * How could a project feeddata in - data driven maps? (Africom)

finding things

 * Site search is used a lot [implement "did you mean?"]
 * Categories less
 * MainPage is only for discovering at first visit?

Improve experience of contributing

 * WYSIWYG improvements
 * easy converter from word to wiki
 * better step by step help (not easy to see - general help is complex)
 * mediawiki is time consuminig to learn
 * interactive and obvious that you are looking for information
 * Leaders lack time
 * unawareness expressed of collaborative writing opportunities on the KB

What do people need?

 * Love and God :-)
 * a Q and A database
 * hear from mature leaders and deeper study -> maybe category "Speaker's Corner" for journalistic/inspiring articles
 * ask online questions to specialists

other remarks
"Kevin, you do a great job in running this database and I wonder how many people are working with you?!"
 * some encouraging quotes:

(Quite a few: Steve, PitPat, Arnoud and Neo, who are all pleased to hear that comment!)

Conclusions
conclusions and some discussion...

todo (specific)
b - turn on wysiwyg arfricom - maps and collab Search Engine Lucene Bug: multiple upload silently fails if file is > 2mb (currently limit)

in general

 * people are starting to rely on the KB as a tool in their work - this is leading to a tipping point of acceptance.
 * Keep content growing
 * present and arrange better
 * -- I would like to see the categories pages much more condensed. (+1) As much as possible I'd like to see general pages like portals and categories able to display all the information in one screen. (All Main Categories in the top bar?) I often search by looking at a category page. It gives me a quick idea of everything in that area. And yes, all main categories at the top. And one of them could be a link to Other/All categories. I know there is the link at top left but having it with the other major categories may help searching.
 * I like the idea of asking a question. Can the search bar be alongside the other three main options so it is not overlooked or reduced in importance.
 * > I think we need to balance the visual detials with the other aspects of promotion at conferences/content/getting contributers etc. It is not one thing that is the problem but a balance. Actually the survey indicated that many contributors have so little time anyway that learning wiki is a hurdle (perhaps any system would be a hurdle but ours is a little tricky)
 * promote better - in conferences and also blitzing and getting leaders to promote it for us
 * More hand holding into contribution (still question of is it more a matter of self-confidence unresolved - on contributor said: "Don't know if I have enough correct information to make a useful contribution")
 * problems of contribution: leaders lack time to write well. Learning wiki is an extra hurdle when this time pressure is on.

ideas flowing out of discussion or direct from survey
Will make this into a todo list and action plan...
 * Webmasters: To get links on YWAM websites perhaps we need to gather the webmasters - what about a YWAM web masters portal?
 * > http://ywamit.net/content/how-secure-your-webspace
 * helping people to find their voice (e and J for example) asking for their ways of contributing and drawing them in.
 * E-books - why not take the best articles of a gateway and make an ebook of it for people to download and read on kindle etc.?
 * Drop zone - a box to drop your one or two docs in to send to core team to wikify. Aim is to draw in contributors and as they see work in lights they are coached into doing it themselves with out our help
 * Q and A page - add a question and wait for answers...
 * Frontpage redesign - people, q&A, send your docs, what contibutions needed, what's hot!
 * YWAMKB link in signatures of leaders emails for a season!
 * Making a todo list....