Further study

[Phil Bull]

Hi Murray,

On Wed, 2010-02-17 at 18:34 +1100, Anthro Pologist wrote:
> Over the next couple of years I need to a more in-depth study of...
> well, any culture.  I will give what time I can to the Ubuntu doc team
> anyway, but if I were to continue to use this team for my research,
> does anyone have any ideas of topics that would be useful?  My studies
> are meant to be helpful to the group I'm studying and this could be
> looking at the benefits of the meritocratic structure or of meeting at
> conventions.  It has been suggested that the best way to get the most
> out of (corporate) virtual teams is to treat the members as volunteers
> so I'm also looking at the idea of finding a corporate team to study
> and comparing their culture to a team like this one.

Sorry for taking a while to get back to you. Something that I'd be
interested in learning about is what variables affect the volume of
contribution to the team. When one or two people start working on a new
project, momentum usually builds and more people start joining in.
Otherwise there tends to be a low level of activity and not much gets
done.

Another topic I'm interested in is how the team is effectively
segregated into several different sub-teams (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu,
server guide etc.). Is this an effective or necessary way of working,
and is there value in keeping everyone under the same umbrella? How much
crossover is there between groups?

I hope these are useful suggestions. Don't worry if not, I won't be
disappointed! At the end of the day, it's much more important that you
research topics that interest you.

Thanks,

Phil

-- 
Phil Bull
https://launchpad.net/~philbull