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Project Rolodex §

Pattern Summary §

Create an outreach script and contact sheet for conducting outreach with potential stakeholders during the initial stages of establishing and promoting an academic OSPO.

Problem / Challenge §

Academic OSPOs, in their formation stage, face a "cold start" problem: they need to build awareness, identify stakeholders and establish credibility before they have a track record of accomplishments.

Without a structured approach to outreach, early conversations risk becoming:

  • Overwhelming for a small team trying to reach many different stakeholder groups.
  • Inconsistent in communicating an OSPO’s mission and relevant services.
  • Unfocused - leading to missed opportunities for follow-up or collaboration.
  • Poorly documented - making it difficult to track who was contacted and what was discussed.

Pattern Category §

  • Awareness
  • Community Building
  • Demonstrating value as an OSPO
  • Open Source Discovery

Context §

A university or research institution with existing open source activities that are scattered or informal.

An academic OSPO at a very early stage (pre-launch or within the first six months of being set up).

There is limited or no awareness of the new OSPO or how it benefits the institution.

Forces §

The OSPO needs to identify champions, early adopters and potential resistance.

Resources are limited, requiring efficient and repeatable outreach processes.

Solution §

Create a structured approach to stakeholder outreach with a script for introductory conversations and a contact sheet for documenting the call.

Conversation Script §

A script for initial conversations about the OSPO may include the following

Introduction to the OSPO and its work §

A broad explainer of OSPOs and academic OSPOs. More general information about the specific OSPO in the context of its institution may also be helpful.

The OSPO may also choose to emphasise different aspects of its work that relate to the stakeholder’s domain, for example:

  • Senior Decision Makers: Open source as an accelerator of innovation, potential for external collaboration.
  • Faculty/Researchers: Support for releasing research software, collaboration infrastructure, recognition for open source contributions.
  • IT: Governance frameworks, security guidance, license compliance support, risk management.
  • Legal/Technology Transfer: Centralized expertise on open source licenses, IP management, contributor agreements.
  • Students: Career development, project showcasing, mentorship connections.

Discovery questions §

These questions may explore:

  • A stakeholder’s awareness of open source projects and practices throughout the institution.
  • The role open source plays in the stakeholder’s work.
  • Their specific needs around open source.
  • Other potential stakeholders to contact.

Follow up actions §

The conversation should identify any follow up actions that will be of benefit to the stakeholder and/or the OSPO.

The Contact Sheet §

The contact sheet template should capture important information about the stakeholder, their needs, common themes emerging from conversations and details of any follow up actions.

It is also a useful tool for tracking initial contact and avoids duplication if more than one staff member is conducting outreach.

The contact sheet can be a spreadsheet or a database.

The following fields may be worth considering as categories for a contact sheet:

  • Contact Information
  • Stakeholder Details: Role, Department, current open source involvement, level of interest in the OSPO.
  • Contact log: Date of contact, contact method (email, phone call, meeting), status (e.g. not contacted, awaiting response, responded, meeting scheduled, completed).
  • Call notes: Pain points or challenges, resource needs, potential collaboration opportunities, other contacts suggested, follow up actions.

Resulting Context §

There are a number of benefits to using this structured approach:

Consistency: All stakeholders receive consistent information about the OSPO's purpose and value. Efficiency: The template and script enables quick preparation and follow-up for multiple conversations. Knowledge capture and insight: Systematic documentation builds institutional knowledge about the open source landscape and reveals common themes relating to challenges and opportunities within the institution. Metrics: Offers documented progress and insight to leadership on engagement with the OSPO. Greater reach: Each conversation should generate referrals to new stakeholders.

Additional learning from JHU Open Source Program Office §

We created a contact sheet for everyone - staff, faculty and any other stakeholders that we called in the initial stages of setting up and promoting the OSPO.

The sheet contained key details e.g. the name, role, contact details and department. The sheet also contained a set of specific statements/questions for those introductory conversations.

We also developed a full set of questions that we included in the contact sheet. We never asked one person all of the questions on the list. Instead, we asked questions that related to what folks were interested in.

The questions we used were: * Tell me a little about your work * What are the biggest challenges you face when using OSS in research? Teaching? * What kind of support would you find most helpful from an OSPO? * What kind of training or workshops would you be interested in attending?
* What kind of training or workshops might be useful for your students? * What kind of resources would you like to see the OSPO provide, such as docs, tools, best practices? * How would you like the OSPO to engage with the broader open source community? City of Baltimore? * Would you like the OSPO to help facilitate engagement with the broader open source community? * Do you need assistance with license selection? Workshop or training on same? * Do you need assistance with tech transfer – choosing whether to open source, whether to monetize? * Do you want the OSPO to be an advocate for OSS? At what level – students, faculty, research, admin?

Tell me “Two More People” §

We asked everyone to suggest two more people that we should talk to. This was very useful for identifying new user groups and potential stakeholders.

Known Instances §

Contributors & Acknowledgement §

In alphabetical order

  • Ciara Flanagan, https://orcid.org/0009-0005-3153-7673
  • Megan Forbes, Johns Hopkins University, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2611-1441

A very special thanks to Megan Forbes (Johns Hopkins University OSPO) for sharing this pattern and the title at the CURIOSS Gathering in Vermont (2024).