I've been working on a handful of planning documents for SDFF over the last few weeks. One is related to the expansion of the San Diego Broadband Initiative. The other is a white paper I owe to one of our funders.
Since the document is being written for the potential benefit of other communities who may wish to put a program like ours together, I'm going to try and make it as thorough and detailed as possible. To do so, I realize that I need to include some of the "intangibles" that have made SDFF successful. That's easier said than done, considering that those intangibles include unique people, experiences, and philosophies. I hadn't given a lot of thought to the "depth" of this document before I started writing it but now that I'm into it a bit, I realize there are certain "trade secrets" that need to be shared.
From time to time I plan to post excerpts of the paper to this blog. The excerpts will include some of the basics like "find a reliable source of hardware, get a supporter with unrestricted funds, hire some interns, and go forth". But it will also include some of those intangibles I mentioned. I think for just about any successful organization, whether "for" profit or not, the things you can't see or don't read about in press releases are usually the things make the biggest difference.
As someone who worked for a Fortune 500 company not long ago, it's still strange to think that sharing the "company secrets" is a good thing. But in the world of doing good, it really is.
