How To Build an Online Development Community Presentation

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Summary

How does one go about utilizing the collective efforts of countless individuals spread around the world with a minimal amount of energy? This talk will show how to build an online community that is to accomplish some goal. Really, this talk should more specifically be titled, "HOWTO build an Open Source Development Community with approximately 20 people," however, the principles discussed may be applied to many different types of online communities. Various applications and aphorisms of common Free and Open Source software development will be laced throughout the talk with particular emphasis on non-software based uses of this evolved strategy for community-building. Examples will be taken from collaborative development on Inkscape (www.inkscape.org), an Open Source Vector drawing tool, and the Open Clip Art Library (www.openclipart.org).

Jon Phillips is an open source developer, artist, writer, educator, lecturer, and curator with 12+ years of experience creating communities and working within computing culture. His involvements with mixing culture and software development have been shown internationally at San Francisco Art Institute (2005), SFMoMA (2004), University of Tokyo (2004), Korea Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (2004), UCLA Hammer Museum's Digital Storytelling Conference, UC-Berkeley's 040404 Conference (2004), USC Aim Festival IV (2003), and the ICA London (2002). He is an open source advocate and developer on Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org), a scalable vector graphics editor and on the Open Clip Art Library (http://openclipart.org). Currently, he is writing/producing a book, "CVS: Concurrency, Versioning and Systems," and produces the "local" journal SCALE.

Outline

  • Introduction
    • GOAL: How to build an online community that is to accomplish some goal
    • The Real Title should be: HOWTO build an Open Source Development Community with approximately 20 people
  • Make 1 GOAL (KISS)
    • Keep It Simple Stupid
    • Do one thing well, or do many things not so well
    • Always ask: "Does this move us closer to our primary goal?"
  • Holy Trinity of Distributed Communication (network of social software)
  • Corollaries
    • Make Common Branding
      • Pick common name that maps to a domain name
      • Use this name for the primary forms of communication
      • If you pick a graphic, stick with it.
    • Social Atmosphere is defined in first days to 2 weeks of a project
      • Start with a positive atmosphere, then this is bread into the communities dna
      • Starting with a negative atmosphere of flaming and disses, then the community will develop this way and more than likely will die.
      • Generally, it is amicable to be extra-nice, and cordial much like one would like in the real world.
    • Dealing with problems
      • Personal problems between people should be dealt with offlist
      • Group problems should be handled decisively by a core member in a positive manner
      • Problems in a community should be dealt with internally before being publicly exposed (if at all).
      • 99% of the time this solves conflicts that arise
  • Examples
  • Conclusion
    • After the above is done well and the project is stable, then proceed in developing new infrastructure.
    • Every group is different and has different requirements
    • The physical maps onto the virtual and vice-versa.
    • Group Growth Rule
      • Keep the social barrier for participation as low as allowable by the size of the community. For example, don't build a house for 20 people if there are just 2 that will live in the house.

See Also

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