So The Man Cave has suffered with the entire bear market of people complaining about the DHF, and if it's getting complained about in my room, I expect it's being complained about elsewhere, and if they can't elsewhere then it's certainly being complained about in private amongst each other.
It wouldn't feel right for me if I didn't say something and represent the community I have, because a lot of what's being said also mirrors my sentiments too.
Here's why:
Before I continue I'll tell you a little story about me.
Before I worked full time on hive, and before I was some big read blogger I used to work as a Project Manager in a Charity. Yeah, it wasn't a big charity, it was more so a medium sized one that only covered a part of the region I lived in. So basically I covered a piece of land that was about as big as a city, perhaps, I'm not too sure. Anyway..
Part of my job there was to make funding bids to people giving away money. It could be for anything. If I thought I had the skills to do what they were asking for then I'd write up a bid and ask for some hard cash.
It's like say there was money available for homeless people in Yarmouth, I'd put in a bid that represents my skills where I can offer access to free Ipads so homeless people can access (and be guided to) support they wouldn't necessarily get offline.
An example, so I'd ask for say [x] amount of Ipads, maybe a coffee and food allowance for the room so we could feed the homeless too, and my wage so I could co-ordinate it all - doesn't happen without me, I'm the key element in this scenario.
Anyway, I secured us Millions in money and I managed to keep myself employed for 5 years before all the funding dried up.
What did I have to do for it? Well, jump through hoops. I basically had to record everything -- and because my area was Mental Health I had to make up interesting ways to record progress and development of people that accessed our services. I had to record everything, right down to when I had to piss. Well, maybe not that far,
But you get the idea.
If the funders weren't happy? They'd pull out their funding quicker than you could say my funding's gone. I had to meet with them bi-monthly to give them progress reports and show them I was doing what I said I was doing. I never had any funding pulled, but I fell behind on some targets once and had to give them an action plan on how I was going to get back on track.
You must see where I'm going with this right?
The main issue most people that come into the cave and talk about is that there are no checks, people get their money and if it turns out great, but if it doesn't, then "ah well, better luck next time"
Now this isn't a slant at the way we run things here because I still love hive, but I know I for one would definitely like to see some sort of better revised proposal system where we can actually see what's happening, some recording, some progress reports, where the money is going, what their achievement record looks like.
I mean it's all very well and good saying we are building, but the reality of the matter is that people are starting to get really disenfranchised with how much we are spending with not a lot to show for it.
I mean I absolutely have no doubt that most of the proposals that are winning right now are going to those that are doing good by their metrics, but it would be nice to see those metrics. What are they being spent on? What are you achieving? What's happening?
I personally think that implementing a system of recording would not only benefit us (the hive user) but also give people a birds eye view of what is going on in the development of hive right now -- so that perhaps it's not all as doom and gloom as people think. Or at least the underlaying thought of hive anyway. Because I'm getting that a lot right now. People are beginning to talk openly about it and not in closed doors anymore.
Call me naive all you like, I believe most things are above board, but I think a point of healing general consensus amongst hive users would be opening up recording to people we are funding. It would do us a lot of good. Not only the people of hive, but the people we fund too.
Like I said, I fell behind once on my originally stated targets and I had to work up an action plan to get back on track. It kept me on my toes.
Anyway, those are my thoughts for today. Do with my thoughts as you like! Hah.
Peace :)