Dissent is Good

thanks to acousticdad@flickr

Nothing posted for a while.  There’s been a couple of times I’ve been meaning to update on Ebbsfleet/MyFC but lacked the time / energy.  I have no idea what’s going to happen there.  There are one group who are highly concerned that the Operator (the guy who started it up) has too much control over the Society and therefore the club.  The possibilities for this venture, in terms of using the skills and knowledge of thousands of members hasn’t been realised, and each time there is an “improvement” to the website, it becomes less useful.  Constructive criticism is regularly ignored, and more often ridiculed with accusations of making a big deal of nothing, or picking holes to have a pop.

The site isn’t engaging and useful in a way that so many other web 2.0 projects are, mainly because the website operators just don’t talk that language.  In the early days, (last August) there were so many ideas for what we could do, in terms of organising ourselves, disseminating information, conducting votes, all at a time when these kinds of ventures were common place.  Many members joined with this in mind, and offered their skills and services for free.

But this was never taken up by the Operator, despite the obvious lack of technical skills – the site was in “Phase 3.1beta” for many weeks after the club was taken over, there was no place to register feature requests and track bugs, and each new “feature” that they proudly announced was inferior to what was available either commercially, by open source or just by a bit of hacking.  In fact there were a number of instances where members had created their own resource (Wiki, Chatroom, Calendar, Twitter match updates) which was working fine, only to find the Operator allocating time to adding this functionality (again often inferior) to the site.

In recent months, as the technical side has become more difficult for the Operator to sustain, the site has become peppered with banner ads, adverts and betting applets, making doing the business of running the club more difficult.

This leads to a problem of engagement.  Existing members, including the board,  can’t easily work out what is going on from a top-level view, and communication back to the members from the club, board or operator is inconsistent and in one of several places.  It’s hard to get involved in debates as the same discussions keep cropping up in different forum areas.  So involvement has dropped off massively in recent months.  One elected board member has already quit, not surprising given his lack of interaction with the members of the Society he was supposed to represent.  A voting committee was put in place to help proposals from members be turned into functional votes, but this quickly got into trouble as it was perceived that they had too much control over what proposals were presented to the membership, allegedly under the “guidance” of the Operator.

There are still new members attracted by the concept of being involved in running a club, especially when the vote to sell John Akinde was put to the members, but I imagine it takes great dedication to wade through the site and work out what is going on.

Now this might seem like great news for the Ebbsfleet fans, who might be happy to see this mob of web geeks fail and get back control of their club.  But the club is still making a regular loss, and there’s a February deadline for the renewal of membership to the Society, ultimately the financial backers of the club.  If there aren’t enough renewals, then the cash could quite easily run out by September next year, so some of the “malcontents” have speculated.  Often these “malcontents” are the same ones who are critical of the operator – are they out to cause trouble or genuinely concerned for the Society and the Club and not afraid to tackle the issues head on?

Either way, several of the more vocal ones earned themselves a ban (though the legality of this according to the Society Rules is on the vague side) and so formed their own website where they invited MyFC members to discuss issues without fear of censorship.  This then got repackaged with a chatroom and wiki as FreeMyFC.co.uk in a couple of days, just as effective as the laboured efforts of the MyFC Operator.  Quite a few of the less controversial members joined in some of the discussions, taking their questions back the the MyFC site.

So there are a number of ways this could all go:

Things carry on as they are, the renewals don’t materialise and the club goes bust sometime between now and next christmas.

The Operator starts to open up to suggestions and criticism, the site becomes more democratic and open and useful, people get engaged, the project continues as it should have.

The FreeMyFC people produce an alternative to the Operator and come to the rescue of the Society.

The FreeMyFC people start a new venture without the baggage.

I could be wrong of course, there could be plenty of people renew in February and keep the club going into the future.  I’m just not sure I’ll be one of them at the moment.

Wembley wobbles

A long gap between posts, the result of too many other things going on, mainly the pre-Wembley exctiement.

Shortly after my last post it seemed that things were getting really out of hand:

• The board and web team were being constantly criticised, with one board member in particular being singled out for not communicating with the members they were supposed to represent.
• The web team found themselves bogged down with preparations for Wembley, rather than being able to concentrate on the site, society and board.
• Team Selection was as contentious as ever – members were criticised by the web team for not using the application, members responsded that the application was not particularly useful and that they lacked the information to be able to make those choices. For example the BBC had fitness and availability reports long before matchday whilst the selection application was still showing out of date information. There was also little feedback on how the members selections compared to the Coaches.
• In addition to this there was a row about the Authority of the Forum team, moans about financial information, perceived “rubber stamping” of votes, and many a storm in a teacup.

The whole venture is still based around a web forum, with only a minority of society members taking part, and discussions going on for ages without any real resolution or means to take action. I think there’s a sizeable portion of the main forum users that have never used an internet forum as extensively. At the same time (showing my age here) it feels like the generations below me just don’t know how to deal with people and opinions they disagree with.

This is not helped by confusion from the top: the lines of communication are still not established, with the roles and relationships between the Operator, Board, club management, forum team still not clearly defined or set out anywhere. For me, this has to be the priority.

There is hope

Member contributions are starting to produce improvements. Diffdude created a simple calendar of Club / Society acitivies which can be viewed on the site, or downloaded into your own email client. The Podcast has been brought into the main site, and the weekly newsletter has also led to a daily newsletter. Best of all has been the MyFC Scout site, which aims to collate member’s scouting reports from matches so that we’re more informed for team selection.

These resources will only thrive if they are integrated or affiliated with the main site. The MyFC Foreign committee, set up by a group of users with the aim of translating important articles or propositions, also seems to have been left out in the cold for now.

I’ve been told that there is going to be a shift in emphasis of the main page, and hopefully some restructuring of the forums sometime soon. What I would like to see is a roadmap for development, so that we can see what is coming, and frame any discussions about functionality and requirements around that.

So there’s still a long way to go, and I hope the web team crack on with improvments over the summer and open up to the talent that’s available from the members.

The Magnificent 7 ride in to town!

Well actually, one catches a train, one other hops on a bus, and the rest are already in the saloon: 5 out of the 7 newly elected board members have prior involvement with the Club or Supporters Trust. The numbers are made up by a charistmatic local, and one member who’s been heavily involved since early days by contributing the online community, forum administration, voting procedures etc.

This has angered some, and given rise to conspiracy theories, countered by accusations of sour grapes. It seems to have surprised everyone, not least the board members themselves. Most people voted for a “balanced board”; unfortunately with a vast choice of candidates (many of whom appeared to have no distinguishing characteristics or skills) they did not vote for the same people.
There’s some great statistical analysis on the forums, which seems to show that:

1) most people wanted 2 candidates who were local / already involved with MyFC. Because there were only a few of these candidates, their share of the vote was higher than a “random” candidate.

2) most people voted for at least one “international” candidate. But because no single candidate stood out as “the international choice”, these votes were spread between them all.

Hogswell suggests that proportional representation would have produced the balanced board that most people favoured, but of course this would require Kent/UK/International to be different “parties”. This could be something the Society considers in future, but until the board get to grips with the day to day running of the Society, there’s no real mandate for this. Those that argued that “there should be international representation” could never make a convincing argument for why this was so, whereas the argument for having local members, especially those already involved in the club, was more obvious to most.

Footy19′s analysis shows that higher turnout wouldn’t have changed either of these two factors, and therefore the result would have been the same.

So did the Wisdom of Crowds apply? Perhaps, but only within the context of the information they were provided. There was a lack of clarity about the duties of the board and the role they would play in communications between the Club, Members and Operator, so it’s no wonder that the “average” choice was to keep things in safe hands.

There’s also an assumption amongst the less geeky members that the Operator is qualified and able to nurture a unique online community, without realising that there’s no template for this. There are many examples of collaborative projects on the Internet, but those of us that understand the web need to explain to those that don’t. The Society isn’t going to appear overnight, we need to create the Republic of Football where we are.

Board stupid (1)

Ok, sorry about the cliched title.

MyFootballClub members are currently going through the process of electing their Society board, which means they are deciding how they want to the society to run, and therefore, how they will make decisions about Ebbsfleet United. Nominations close on Tuesday, as well as the vote to decide how many board members we actually want to represent society members.

I always believed that the biggest unknown about MyFC was not raising funds, or persuading directors to sell up, or even the due diligence negotiations and restructure. It’s the challenge of getting 28,000 people to reach a majority decision, or to provide enough information for them to be able to make their choices, and aggregate those individual choices into a collective decision.

Unfortunately, because the website is still hampered by the forum and lack of structure, the Wisdom of Crowds remains drowned out by the noise of the mob. Worse still, there’s a “silent majority” who either don’t have the time or the inclination to get into repetitive arguments about minor and major details. Who can blame them when there is so much replication – dozens of threads debating essentially the same thing?
I’ll say more about the technical side later, but for now I want to concentrate on the Society Board.

The role and ideal makeup of the board is like everything else at MyFC, up for the vote, although there doesn’t seem to be much thought into the job description. There have been contemplative articles and discussions going back to August about how the society will work, but as I’ve said above, these are lost in a swamp of forum posts. This means that there are over 120 candidates available at last look, for a board that would contain up to 11 members.

Some are confused about the role of Chairman or are putting more weight on parts of candidates’ CV’s that I don’t think bear any relevance to the role of the board. Some seem to think that the board will actually be making the decisions on behalf of members, and as such are voting for the maximum 11 board members (possibly paid, possibly not) so that there is no concentration of power.

But it’s also important for the society board to be a reasonable size so that those at the coal face at Stonebridge Road build up a trust relationship with the people who talk their language. It’s importanpolitics, democracy, socialnetworking, web2.t that the board members can quickly confer via Skype conference or chat room. It’s important that members can keep tabs on the activities and decisions that the board are making on their behalf.

This is the way I see it working:

The board choose one of their number to be Chair, and this person would attend EUFC board meetings, and represent the members and the board. Specific items that need to be raised, discussed and voted for are done so at such meetings.

Everyday decisions do not need to go through the EUFC board, instead the people on the ground at Ebbsfleet could consult with the individual society board members when there is an issue that requires members input. So it makes sense for the board members, especially the Chair, to be knowledgable in a wide variety of different fields.

So my ideal board would have 7 people – I like the number and Christoper Allens’s article linking Dunbar’s number with optimum group size.There would be two people who would be available to attend EUFC meetings without impact on their schedule. Ideally someone older (i.e. less family/work commitments) with a broad understanding of various issues, and living reasonably close to the ground. Above all a good communicator. I say two, because there would be a need to deputise / cover, and provide continuity after annual elections. These would be the Chair and deputy Chair.

Two members should be experienced in IT projects, including software development, in addition to other skills. This may drop down to one once the site and infrastructure improves. No reason for the IT literate board members not to be the Chair as well, providing those requirements are fulfilled.

The rest of the board members should have experience or expertise in legal, financial, political, managerial issues. This doesn’t mean that any one board member has more weight than any other. I don’t see them actually making many decisions, so above all they have to be able to interpret on our behalf and communicate.

I think that natural leaders will continue emerge from the membership, providing that the site strucute allows their views to be heard, discussed and acknowledged. There are already several board candidates who are favourites because of their interaction with members on the forums. I would expect these people to work closely with the board in gathering opinion and explaining situations, thus reducing the us/them perception of the board.

There are others who are clearly knowledgeable in specific areas, and I would expect them to also be used by the board members to provide opinion on a particular subject. There may be issues that require some further work or research, and again, we’ve seen members get together and produce fantastic things like the Fleet Wiki, the MyFC Podcast, SJ’s cartoon, The Transport Plan, the weekly newsletter. This isn’t just the Wisdom of Crowds, it’s the the Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations.

Great ballots of fire!

There’s been a couple of articles I’ve started writing over the last month but not had free time to finish. So I’d better keep this one short.

Negotiations between Ebbsfleet United and MyFootball Club have now been completed, as well as financial due diligence. A new structure for the organisation has been presented to the Ebbsfleet directors and agreed by 75% of the shareholders, so the deal is done, bar some paperwork and due process. All that remains is for MyFC members to vote 51% in favour of the deal.

Great stuff, and most people seem to be backing the deal and also the vote to allow Liam to go january sale shopping before the EGM (the final crossing of t’s and dotting of i’s). But there are still whingers about the location, who are actually voting no rather than abstaining. We knew in November that this was a one time only offer, and most reasonable members too the time to check out Ebbsfleet and agreed with the findings of Will and the other members on the negotiating team who were actually looking at the facts and the details, rather than uninformed and unqualified speculating on forums.

There is a lot of detail in the article, and I’d encourage all members to read through it and understand what this means for how MyFC and Ebbsfleet will operate. If you have questions, there are plenty of people discussing in the forums. You’ve got until Wednesday to vote, so why rush?

That being said, the No vote is somewhat pointless. There is no way that we would be able to find a suitable club before August, and we’ve already lost an unknown quantity in legal fees. Remember 2 other teams have been actively investigated and rejected in favour of Ebbsfleet, for good reasons.

I’ve said before that this model could work well at other clubs, and the reception should be easier now that we’ve blazed a trail. Listening to the recent MyFC podcast about the member voting at some Spanish teams made me realise how doable this is. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch of the imagination to see other teams around the country set up similar ventures.

I’m slightly disappointed that the Web team didn’t hold off for a couple of days to allow people to inwardly digest. I did see one poster who joined yesterday, and in his 2nd post told everyone that he’d voted know because he didn’t know enough about MyFC and Ebbsfleet! I had thought that they might have learned something from the November announcement and the deluge of new members.

All in all, great stuff. We should soon see further votes on board members and transfer approvals, before the long awaited team selected possibly in March.