<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000099"> Thanks for the ideas, Phil. I'm also limited by what my supervisor considers to be anthropology. I'll put these ideas to her. Phil Bull wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:1266860866.5606.16.camel@panther" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Hi Murray, On Wed, 2010-02-17 at 18:34 +1100, Anthro Pologist wrote: </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">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. </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> 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 </pre> </blockquote> </body> </html>