Action Plan for Loksatta Portal

After talking to Mr. Krishna Prasad we have agreed to go ahead with the project. So here is my action plan for now.

• Tools needed for the team
• Team members
• Make list of things to do
• Distribute the work

Tools needed for the team
There are many problems with such large distributed projects. Some of them are listed here...

1. People from different time zones participate. Communication is difficult.
2. Difficult to arrive at a decision. Due to lack of trust and information.
   
3. Meeting personally takes weeks, and very costly affair.
   
4. People come and go in unpredictable way.

From my experience in handling software projects, I believe we need to do the following to address these issues.

1. Use latest technology like Email, Skype Audio/Video chat, IM, online discussions instead of traditional way of meeting personally.
2. Use project management tools to track the progress and take quick decisions.
3. Split project into many modules and assign individual tasks to people or groups. It will increase the speed of work and reduce the requirement of trust.
4. Have a central place(online) to discuss, plan and work.

Team members
I consider myself as a facilitator. My responsibility is to create the team and create resources to make the project success. Once the team is formed, most of the decisions will be taken by the module leads. I will just co-ordinate between these modules leads and make sure that overall project is a success.

I don't think any single person can do all the things that I have planned. So we need your support. Any interested person can join us.

I will take making the list of people who can help and in what way. We will rank them based on how much they can do for the project. Based on our experience and possible contribution we can share the modules.

Make list of things to do
We need to make a list of things that we need to do and rank them based on importance. We will split them in to modules and each module will be done by one group of people.

Distribute the work
Once we know what to do and split into modules, it will be easy for us to do the work in parallel and from time to time we will discuss new issues and changes to plan.

So interested people, please express your interest as a reply.

469 Communities in Orkut with word 'loksatta'

After searching for word 'loksatta' I found

• 469 communities with word 'loksatta' in it.
• Number of people in official community is much less than other 3 major communities.

From this I get the following questions.

1. Why there are two communities with JP name?
2. Why there are two communities with "Loksatta - Peoples Power" name?
3. Are people more interested in JP rather than Loksatta?
4. Do we need to assume that those supporters of JP do not want to support Loksatta?
5. Do those community owners know that there is an official community?
6. Do official community owner talked with them and failed to mobilize them to official community?

Now, it is not just me who gets these questions. I think this kind of parallel 'reinvention of wheel' damages parties image among people. They will feel that there is no central co-ordination. No one is in control. And that idea is very frightening for me.

So can we do some thing about it? What do you think? I can take initiative in combining these communities. But should we do that?

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Why we need a new portal?

Note: Please read previous posts before reading it. Otherwise you will not get the point.

Till now I have tried to explain the positive points of using the new portal without commenting anything about the present system. But for to really understand the benefit of new portal we need to talk about the present problems also. And in this article I will talk about some of those things I came across.

• Lack of information
• Diluted communication channels
• Cost of organization
• No concentration on improving membership
  

Lack of Information

Here are some of the examples of information that is missing.

(When I said missing, they are missing from website. And when some thing is not in website, I believe that it is of no use to have it in some office some where in loksatta office)

• Who manages party website?
  
• Who has authorized those people? And till when they will be in command?
• When will party internal elections be conducted?
  
• What are different roles in the party? Who selection them?
  
• What is the status of my friends executive member application?
  
• I have talked to some people in Orkut Community. They are dedicated party members. And I respect them. But who are they? I mean what is their role in the party?
• Till now how many executive members joined in the party?
• What happened to all the money collected?
  
• How much we spent for advertisements till now?
• How many offices does the party have? And who is paying for the rent?
• What are the reasons for giving tickets to those specific people?
• I am a Doctor, I want to setup help Loksatta in Medical Camps. Whom should I contact?
• How do I get to know what you have decided in all your internal meetings? How do you prevent wastage of time and efforts?
• How many executive members are there in my area?
  
• What are the activities that we being done in a particular division/district?
• When will be next meeting regarding RTI?

Diluted communication channels

• Why we need to discuss party IT policy in Orcut Community?
• How will members in other Communities will get to know what we are talking in Orkut?
• Why party is not treating Website as a communication channel?
• How will you preserve the command in other communities?

Cost of organization

As I am not aware of the present costs(As they are not made public) I can not compare. But I am sure that the cost of Organization will greatly reduce if we have a centralized portal.

No concentration on improving membership

Other than creating a nice form to register, I really do not see any thing we are doing to make people register. I have been talking to more than 10 people since last one month. I am trying to make then join. Surprisingly half of them would have joined long back if their doubts are cleared.

Feature: Activity History

Every Member wants to do some thing for the party. It may be a small donation, or some help in activity or joining new people. And it is human nature to expect the recognition for the work we do.

So we think it very important for this portal to have a way to track the contributions of individuals and provide environment for better recognition and fair treatment.

Activity History feature we are planning will do this task. This history will be attached to every member in the party. Any one can see what other member did. Not only this. Every non-member can also see this activity history.

For members it helps them recognizing others, gives the ability to compare. For non-members it is a small point to create trust in the party. They will know that so many individuals are working for the better country. So they will be inclined to join.

Activities are classified into two types.

1. Measurable Activities
2. Non-Measurable Activities

These activities can be classified in to many categories. Quick summary of the activity history will consolidate all Measurable Activities and will show some of the Non-Measurable Activities.

Users can optionally click on full history and see every individual activity. We can show them using some Calendar control also.

For this module to achieve its objectives, every activity done by the party or individual behalf of the party should be entered into the system. These activities should be monitored and approved/asserted by some one.

Lets first start with making the list of possible activities that a party member can do..

1. Referring other members
2. Donating Funds
3. Participating in Discussions
4. Attending Meetings
5. Organizing Rallies
6. Participating in Medical Camps
7. Participating in Door To Door activities
8. Using Vote in party internal elections
9. Helping in Internet Activities

There will be many other activities which we can add here. Some are measured in numbers.
For example..

1. Number of people Referred/Joined
2. Amount of money donated
3. Number of questions/comments
4. Meetings Attended
5. Hours worked in other activities
6. Rating from the organizer of activity
7. Rating of discussions/comments

Please provide your ideas, comments and suggestions.

Loksatta Portal Features List

Registration Form

Present registration form is good, and working fine. But this is not generating any login information or giving any special privilege for the person who is registering. We believe that any action should result in some kind of benefit real or virtual.

1. Sending confirmation email with login information after this registration.
2. Sending SMS also.
3. Reducing of fields in registration form. It makes registration easy.
4. Ability to register through existing member by paying cash. Existing member should authenticate first.

On First Login

1. Taking GPS position in Google Map optionally. It will help us locating the member in future if required.
2. Notifying nearest existing members about this new member
3. Taking other optional fields as a part of profile

Features for Registered Users

1. Complete Profile
2. Activity History
3. Privacy Control
4. Finance History
5. Party Roles and Structure with complete contact information
6. Internal Party Email Service
7. Open Discussions
8. Opinion Polls
9. Party Financial Information
10. Ask/Donate for Fund Raising

Features for all Users

1. List of Events in Area/Division/District/State/Country
2. Budget
3. Party Roles and Structure and some contact information
4. Press Releases
5. Public Discussions
6. Opinion Polls
7. Videos
8. Donate for Fund Raising

These features will be planned in elaboration in coming days.