Creating pathways for communities to share, learn, and collaborate helps us identify and develop enhancements that serve them all. This network effect is the core of 2i2c’s theory of impact.
We work with many community leaders 1-to-1. This lets us see both problems and wins that they share with other communities. However, these leaders only see each other if we make introductions between one community with a problem, and another community who has already come up with a solution.
Consortia give us a structure for collectively refining and prioritizing 2i2c roadmap work that multiple communities care about, working together to fund that work, and building many-to-many connections, so communities learn from each other.
What’s a consortium?¶
A consortium is:¶
A network of stakeholders organized around a shared challenge or goal.
A way to ensure that solutions work for many kinds of stakeholders.
A way to join forces in design, development, and funding.
And a consortium’s shared goals are to build better solutions for all communities 2i2c serves, while collaborating and learning from each other. Together, we’re able to fund and solve problems by sharing resources and expertise.
How a consortium operates¶
Getting started.¶
Each consortium starts with a shared problem or narrative, and a gathering of people.
Propose a shared problem. This can be proposed by a 2i2c team member, or one or more community members. It most often emerges through discussions of the 2i2c roadmap, where we recognize that several related initiatives serve a common narrative.
Initiatives: Units of work that deliver value to open source communities, technology that 2i2c builds, or infrastructure for our services. Designed around a problem statement and a proposed solution. Resolved in weeks->months. These are how we plan and share the 2i2c roadmap
Narratives: Stories of ongoing need for a large class of users or communities. Forms the basis of a consortium. Useful for funding pitches and grant-writing. Designed as a thread that ties multiple initiatives. Resolved in months->years.
Get critical mass. Find enough other people who agree with the problem statement and are willing to participate in meetings about it.
Meet to define goals. Have a meeting with coalition members to refine the problem, and decide if there’s enough interest in moving forward.
Running the consortium¶
Once a consortium has kicked off, each member community participates in our planning ceremonies and gets the same updates on our work together, although they may contribute in different ways.
Roles consortium members play¶
Each member community in a consortium is expected to contribute in at least one of the following:
React & prioritize - Tell us what did or did not resonate in our most recent demo, weigh in on priorities
Endorse - Sign a letter of support, tell a story that helps illustrate a problem, or consent to be named in a proposal
Test - Be early adopters of new features and provide feedback
Connect - Introduce us to a peer or funder
Co-propose - Invite or join 2i2c on proposals?
Co-invest / co-fund - Commit 3X
Consortium members choose how much they want to co-create and influence design, share credit in our media & outreach, and have an opportunity to be early adopters of new features. They also ensure that 2i2c keeps building open source solutions that work for all research and education users.
Prioritizing (quarterly meeting)¶
We use every consortium member’s input to set next priorities, and plan to host a meeting once a quarter to showcase what’s done, what’s possible and gather input on what’s next.
Once we have a first set of priorities and start work, we share updates over Slack and email. We aim to make our updates and requests low effort and high value.
Endorsing¶
When we bring a proposed piece of work that supports the consortium to a funder, we will ask for endorsements, which can include:
Signed letters of support or references
User stories of impact
Willingness to be listed as a collaborator on a proposal
Testing¶
While we’re developing new solutions, testers serve as early adopters, and commit to trying out new features (which can include things that break). Their feedback helps us build the best solution for everyone.
Connecting¶
Exactly what it sounds like: consortia members who connect us to other potential members, funders or collaborators directly create new sources of funding and ideas.
Co-proposing¶
Member communities seeking grant funding themselves can add 2i2c as a subawardee or collaborator. We encourage consortium members to include initiatives from our roadmap in their proposals, and we can support them with estimates and co-writing.
Co-funding¶
When a community (or several communities) has funds they can direct towards open source development - either specific initiatives/features they wish to “buy” or wider sustenance of the Jupyter ecosystem, they work with our Product and Business Development teams to describe and plan the work.
What’s the difference between membership with 2i2c and joining a consortium?¶
Membership focuses on the core support 2i2c provides a specific community:
Strategic guidance and advice around the Jupyter ecosystem
Direct support from 2i2c via support@2i2c.org
Infrastructure hosting for (not every member community uses our infrastructure, but most do)
Consortia-related development will still roll-out to any member communities
Becoming part of a consortium adds more connection between communities, a deeper focused on a particular area, and a vehicle for raising additional funds to do the work
We’ll explore engaging people as consortia so that we can hear multiple voices at once.
We hope this saves time in designing, validating, and developing solutions for shared problems
We’d like to see member communities build more connections with one another, and build collaborations out of this experience