Leadership Meeting - October 30, 2007
November 10th, 2007[Back to Meetings]
Meeting Notes
During our h+ Leadership Meeting on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at 4:00 PM we discussed recent opportunities and the direction of h+. The following outline lists these opportunities in order of priority based on the votes of those in attendance:
- Futurepedia.org and Technical Roadmaps (first vote count is for Futurepedia and second vote count is for Roadmap, but we decided to combine both into a single opportunity.)
- 1 - 2 people | 0 people
- 2 - 1 person | 2 people
- 3 - 0 people | 2 person
- 4 - 1 person | 0 people
- 6 - 0 people | 1 person
- h+ Chapters
- 1 - 2 people
- 3 - 1 person
- 7 - 1 person
- Dues and Money
- 2 - 2 people
- Video, audio, outreach
- 1 - 1 person
- 3 - 1 person
- Roaming Transhumanist Conference
- Singularity Summit 2008
- Website development team
- Terasem link on h+ site
Image credit: h+ club member. We listed the opportunities and activities h+ currently has and then we voted on our favorites. This determined our club priorities.
Action Items
Some of these were not assigned during the meeting, but seem to make sense now that I have completed these notes. Please let me know if you cannot take on this action item, have comments about them, or have suggestions for new action items.
- Richard - Send request to UA students to register on UA h+ website - COMPLETED
- Matt - $500 club funding
- Richard (and Matt?) - Meet with John Smart about Futurepedia.org
- Matt - Compare wiki options and explore what needs to be done to customize available software to fit our requirements
- Fyodor Trestoyevsky - Put me in contact with the person who wants to start an h+ chapter
- Everyone - think about the top three opportunities (or any of the rest) and how you might be able to help out.
Reminder: please do not commit to something if you are not able to support the effort. This should be fun and we should ride this momentum, but make sure you pay attention to your own priorities.
Futurepedia.org and Technical Roadmaps
Basically this is a wiki (Matt might be able to improve the wiki format with Digg-style participation.) John Smart suggested that we join him in this effort, while coming up with a business plan to seek funding from Peter Thiel. I will be meeting with John Smart on November 15 in Phoenix to discuss this in more detail.
Eon suggested we use the wiki format to develop technical roadmaps (for example, a roadmap to uploading,) similar to what John Smart and others did while creating the Metaverse Roadmap. These roadmaps not only provide a technical road forward, but also help weed out bad ideas, provide outreach opportunities, and create a baseline for comparing later successes or failures. We decided to merge the wiki and roadmap opportunities into one, as they are closely related and will be based on the same software.
h+ Chapters
We can spread our h+ brand to other schools through chapters, based on the original idea by Fyodor Trestoyevsky. The idea is to create a network of clubs based around our hplusclub.com domain, perhaps using WordPress MU which allows easier management of multiple WordPress installations. I would provide initial setup support, and chapter leaders would be given administrative privileges to modify their own WordPress blog for their own club. Some oversight would remain with us.
We would provide h+ branded flyers and materials, presentations (for example, an "Introduction to Transhumanism" presentation or video,) and other content for use by other chapters. We would also like to share content they create.
Ultimately, h+ and its chapters could serve as competition with TSN, which is currently in a transition phase. Competition might not be a bad idea, because it could spur both of us to greater heights. We have a particular approach to transhumanism that so far has been very successful in Tucson, and could serve as a platform for spreading across the globe.
Dues and Money
Matt will take care of applying for the minimum level of funding provided by the university, to be used for things like printing costs, equipment rental and reimbursement, catering, website hosting, travel, conference expenses, etc.
We discussed dues ($5 a semester?) without a firm idea how we would use these funds. However, I think we leaned toward dues as a way to fill up our coffers to pursue future opportunities.
Other Opportunities
Other opportunities of lower priority still might be accomplished with the right tiger teams and appropriate delegation of responsibilities. I touched on the difficulty of getting people to commit their time and effort. I am willing to do a lot, but cannot currently support all of these opportunities without assistance from others.
Next Leadership Meeting
Tuesday, November 13, 2007 from 4 PM - 5 PM.