|
Replies:
7
-
Last Post:
Jun 10, 2009 9:16 PM
by: jimgris
|
Threads:
[
Previous
|
Next
]
|
|
Posts:
1,575
From:
GB
Registered:
4/27/05
|
|
|
|
[ogb-discuss] Townhall lessons
Posted:
Jun 6, 2009 1:00 PM
|
|
How not to run a townhall:
- Don't sit up on a stage distant from the audience
- Don't sit up on a stage where you can't see the agenda
- Don't sit up on a stage blinded by the lights so you can't see *anything*
- Don't compete with free beer
OK, so it was worth trying but I don't think the session was worthwhile. Given
how many attended (and who) in retrospect we would have been better just
grabbing some chairs in the middle and chatting. Oh well, maybe next time -
and this message is partly so that next time it'll go better. (The
session at the
summit in Santa Cruz last year went pretty well, but that was in a significantly
different context.)
I got a huge amount out of the trip overall, but I suspect there
weren't that many
community members at C1 - and many of the Sun people were probably tied up
with other stuff anyway.
--
-Peter Tribble
http://www.petertribble.co.uk/ - http://ptribble.blogspot.com/
_______________________________________________
ogb-discuss mailing list
ogb-discuss at opensolaris dot org
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/ogb-discuss
|
|
|
Posts:
285
From:
US
Registered:
3/9/05
|
|
|
|
Re: [ogb-discuss] Townhall lessons
Posted:
Jun 8, 2009 11:06 AM
in response to: ptribble
|
|
On Sat, 6 Jun 2009, Peter Tribble wrote:
> How not to run a townhall:
>
> - Don't sit up on a stage distant from the audience
> - Don't sit up on a stage where you can't see the agenda
> - Don't sit up on a stage blinded by the lights so you can't see *anything*
I don't think any of us expected that! :(
> - Don't compete with free beer
Yeah, pretty tough. I see what you mean, though, if next year we can't get
a slot at a time different than the reception, we should probably not bother.
> OK, so it was worth trying but I don't think the session was worthwhile. Given
> how many attended (and who) in retrospect we would have been better just
> grabbing some chairs in the middle and chatting. Oh well, maybe next time -
yes. Michelle even suggested that at one point, but then the guys finally
got the stage set... so most of us felt compelled to use it :)
> and this message is partly so that next time it'll go better. (The
> session at the
> summit in Santa Cruz last year went pretty well, but that was in a significantly
> different context.)
I wasn't there for that session, but I imagine it was more integrated
into the actual agenda and not tacked on (and at the same time as free
beer in another location)
> I got a huge amount out of the trip overall, but I suspect there
> weren't that many
> community members at C1 - and many of the Sun people were probably tied up
> with other stuff anyway.
I got a lot out of this conference as well. I would've liked to speak to more
of the developers, but I'm not sure if they were there or not.
Valerie
--
Valerie Fenwick, http://blogs.sun.com/bubbva @bubbva
Solaris Security Technologies, Developer, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
17 Network Circle, Menlo Park, CA, 94025.
_______________________________________________
ogb-discuss mailing list
ogb-discuss at opensolaris dot org
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/ogb-discuss
|
|
|
|
|
Posts:
3,835
From:
JP
Registered:
4/6/05
|
|
|
|
Re: [ogb-discuss] Townhall lessons
Posted:
Jun 8, 2009 5:37 PM
in response to: bubbva
|
|
On 06/09/09 03:06, Valerie Bubb Fenwick wrote:
> On Sat, 6 Jun 2009, Peter Tribble wrote:
>> and this message is partly so that next time it'll go better. (The
>> session at the
>> summit in Santa Cruz last year went pretty well, but that was in a
>> significantly
>> different context.)
> I wasn't there for that session, but I imagine it was more integrated
> into the actual agenda and not tacked on (and at the same time as free
> beer in another location)
Oh, yes, Santa Cruz was totally different. Well publicized beforehand,
no beer competition (beer was later), much smaller venue with only a
couple of other rooms overlapping. Everything was more convenient
(pretty cool venue, actually). I bet there were 50 or so people in the
room at the time. Plus, things were a tad more controversial back then,
so there may have been more of a draw. In general, the focus of the
Summit was much more narrowly defined, and I think that works better for
a young community like ours. I think the OSUGs have the right model for
conference building -- keep things small, informal, and local and repeat
often.
Jim
--
opensolaris.org transition: http://opensolaris.org/os/community/web/
_______________________________________________
ogb-discuss mailing list
ogb-discuss at opensolaris dot org
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/ogb-discuss
|
|
|
|
|
Posts:
1,495
From:
Registered:
5/18/05
|
|
|
|
Re: [ogb-discuss] Townhall lessons
Posted:
Jun 9, 2009 10:33 AM
in response to: jimgris
|
|
On Mon,Jun 8, 2009 at 5:37 PM, Jim Grisanzio <Jim dot Grisanzio at sun dot com> wrote:
> In general, the focus of the Summit was much more narrowly
> defined, and I think that works better for a young community like ours.
I agree - other than the <absolutely fantastic> User Group session on
Wednesday, I'm not sure that the OpenSolaris Community itself got much
- if anything - out of "Cloud Computing and Java 2009" (aka
CommunityOne). Certainly, Sun's latest OpenSolaris distro release got
lots of play - but (as Fowler et al plainly said), Sun's view is that
OpenSolaris is really only a developer preview for the next major Sun
Solaris release.
There was lots of talk about Sun's OpenSolaris 2009.06 distro and all
the features Sun included in it, but I didn't see much at all about
the community itself. In fact, it seemed that Sun went out of its way
to ignore us. Sun's OpenSolaris VP blew off a planned lunch with the
OGB, the OGB town hall was scheduled against the beer and wine
reception in the Pavillion and wasn't included on the official agenda
or signage*; rounding out the day, Sun sponsored an OpenSolaris
Engineering Party that was for Sun employees only - non-Sun
OpenSolaris community members were explicitly not welcome, and several
were turned away at the door.
For me, (other than the User Group event itself), the most exciting
conversation of the week was talking to Sriram and Christopher (and
...) about uniting the rest of the distros around the OSUnix effort.
-John
____
[*] So, even if you knew to come to the town hall at 6pm, when you got
there you found that the union crews had already turned off the
lights, put away the camera and microphones and told everyone to
leave...
_______________________________________________
ogb-discuss mailing list
ogb-discuss at opensolaris dot org
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/ogb-discuss
|
|
|
|
|
Posts:
1,271
From:
US
Registered:
10/6/05
|
|
|
|
Re: [ogb-discuss] Townhall lessons
Posted:
Jun 9, 2009 11:52 AM
in response to: plocher
|
|
John Plocher wrote:
> On Mon,Jun 8, 2009 at 5:37 PM, Jim Grisanzio <Jim dot Grisanzio at sun dot com> wrote:
>
>> In general, the focus of the Summit was much more narrowly
>> defined, and I think that works better for a young community like ours.
>>
>
> I agree - other than the <absolutely fantastic> User Group session on
> Wednesday,
+1, I look forward to the notes form this session and I'm already very
excited by all the new information and contacts that came out of it.
> I'm not sure that the OpenSolaris Community itself got much
> - if anything - out of "Cloud Computing and Java 2009" (aka
> CommunityOne). Certainly, Sun's latest OpenSolaris distro release got
> lots of play - but (as Fowler et al plainly said), Sun's view is that
> OpenSolaris is really only a developer preview for the next major Sun
> Solaris release.
>
Agreed, this has been the view of Sun's distro.
> There was lots of talk about Sun's OpenSolaris 2009.06 distro and all
> the features Sun included in it, but I didn't see much at all about
> the community itself. In fact, it seemed that Sun went out of its way
> to ignore us.
I can see how you would feel that way.
> Sun's OpenSolaris VP blew off a planned lunch with the
> OGB,
But, the official liaison was there, as planned, and he picked up the tab.
> the OGB town hall was scheduled against the beer and wine
> reception in the Pavillion
This is partly due to unworkable schedules of OGB members also, we had
choices and made them according to our personal lives, not for the best
turnout.
> and wasn't included on the official agenda
> or signage*;
We could have done more to promote it ourselves, we can't place blame on
others for this issue, we have to examine what we did to get our agenda
out there and into the minds of the community (not enough). I'd like to
post-mortem this in our meeting Thursday.
> rounding out the day, Sun sponsored an OpenSolaris
> Engineering Party that was for Sun employees only - non-Sun
> OpenSolaris community members were explicitly not welcome, and several
> were turned away at the door.
>
This was not good, but, even Sun employees who did not RSVP in advance
were turned away at the door. Again, we have to reflect on our own part
in this problem. If we want to bring extra attendees to events, we have
to do the legwork to find out if it is possible and make it happen
(which we didn't).
> For me, (other than the User Group event itself), the most exciting
> conversation of the week was talking to Sriram and Christopher (and
> ...) about uniting the rest of the distros around the OSUnix effort.
>
Like you, I really enjoyed hearing from Sriram, very good questions to
take back to the teams who weren't at the User Group event. Though, I
think he was frustrated by some of our immediate answers related to the
Why IPS? question. My conversations with Christopher were one-sided,
unfortunately, and even after trying to talk with him more than once
about his concerns, he only made demands and plainly talked down to me.
-Michelle
> -John
>
> ____
> [*] So, even if you knew to come to the town hall at 6pm, when you got
> there you found that the union crews had already turned off the
> lights, put away the camera and microphones and told everyone to
> leave...
> _______________________________________________
> ogb-discuss mailing list
> ogb-discuss at opensolaris dot org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/ogb-discuss
>
_______________________________________________
ogb-discuss mailing list
ogb-discuss at opensolaris dot org
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/ogb-discuss
|
|
|
|
|
Posts:
3,835
From:
JP
Registered:
4/6/05
|
|
|
|
Re: [ogb-discuss] Townhall lessons
Posted:
Jun 9, 2009 9:43 PM
in response to: plocher
|
|
On 06/10/09 02:33, John Plocher wrote:
> There was lots of talk about Sun's OpenSolaris 2009.06 distro and all
> the features Sun included in it, but I didn't see much at all about
> the community itself.
Oh, it was there. It was just under the surface, that's all. The
community is still too small to fill a large venue like Moscone with a
big corporation like Sun running the gig. That's to be expected. Also,
OpenSolaris has been technology-focused and Sun-focused from the
beginning. Again, that's to be expected too -- at least initially.
Let's not forget that the company did an extraordinary thing four years
ago by opening up all this technology and funding all the
infrastructure, but I've always said (and still believe) that the
responsibility for community development largely rests with the
community -- not with Sun. Sun's contribution to the community was to
bootstrap the project with source code, tools, engineers,
infrastructure, exposure, and some initial community development
programs. That's quite an investment, actually. And other companies are
starting to participate, too, which is adding a new element to the mix.
But we as a community of people need to assert much more of a role in
organizing /ourselves/ rather than always looking to Sun to do it for us.
That's what the OSUGs have done. Back when we opened the project we had
no OSUGs and no OSUG program. No one had any cash to give these guys so
we just created a little community on the site and opened some lists and
that's pretty much it. Then we moved them to project spaces and gave out
some t-shirts and CDs and they just grew organically for the most part.
That's why we like the OSUGs. They just went about the business of
organizing /themselves/ without always looking to Sun to do the work for
them.
By the way, later this week we will be exactly 4 years old. On June 14.
Jim
--
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/
_______________________________________________
ogb-discuss mailing list
ogb-discuss at opensolaris dot org
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/ogb-discuss
|
|
|
|
|
Posts:
795
From:
AR
Registered:
6/24/05
|
|
|
|
Re: [ogb-discuss] Townhall lessons
Posted:
Jun 10, 2009 6:08 PM
in response to: jimgris
|
|
Well...we are a young community, we have a lot of improvement opportunities. Let's learn the lessons we have from the other, maybe older communities.
the features Sun included in it, but I didn't see much at all about
the community itself.
In the next event we can think in some "Communities Pavilion" to promote our efforts, not as a brand, then as communities...agree?
Oh, it was there. It was just under the surface, that's all. The community is still too small to fill a large venue like Moscone
Well...there is a starting point for everything. Let's think *big* and plan one or more sessions in the next event where the community "products" will be present. Sun can help the communities growth, and this helps Sun be bigger.
15 years ago people used to ask me "who uses this strange OS you have in your machine? What is Linux? And what is Solaris x86?". Now we know about both.
Let's not forget that the company did an extraordinary thing four years ago by opening up all this technology and funding all the infrastructure,
Mmm...I disagree here...If Sun would not opened the code, the Solaris popularity would be maybe bigger than HP-UX, but lower than Linux. We are commited to make our communities grow because we are enthusiastic with the technology first developed by Sun, and then opened.
but I've always said (and still believe) that the responsibility for community development largely rests with the community -- not with Sun.
+1 here
Sun's contribution to the community was to bootstrap the project with source code, tools, engineers, infrastructure, exposure, and some initial community development programs. That's quite an investment, actually. And other companies are starting to participate, too, which is adding a new element to the mix.
It would be great if the "other" companies take this as a worldwide policy.
But we as a community of people need to assert much more of a role in organizing /ourselves/ rather than always looking to Sun to do it for us.
I don't know in other places, but here (Argentina) there are only three Sun employees in our community. We organize our meetings, events, tech talks, etc. interacting with other LUG's, PUG's, etc.
That's what the OSUGs have done. Back when we opened the project we had no OSUGs and no OSUG program. No one had any cash to give these guys so we just created a little community on the site and opened some lists and that's pretty much it. Then we moved them to project spaces and gave out some t-shirts and CDs and they just grew organically for the most part. That's why we like the OSUGs. They just went about the business of organizing /themselves/ without always looking to Sun to do the work for them.
By the way, later this week we will be exactly 4 years old. On June 14.
Time for margaritas!
Jim
--
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/
Best regards, -- HeCSa
|
|
|
|
|
Posts:
3,835
From:
JP
Registered:
4/6/05
|
|
|
|
Re: [ogb-discuss] Townhall lessons
Posted:
Jun 10, 2009 9:16 PM
in response to: hecsa
|
|
Hernan Saltiel wrote:
> Well...we are a young community, we have a lot of improvement
> opportunities. Let's learn the lessons we have from the other, maybe
> older communities.
I agree that we should learn from others. I attended Jono Bacon's talk
on community building (Ubuntu) at C1. I don't know much about their
governance issues, but they have 200 or so user groups, which they call
teams. What's interesting about their teams is that they are designed to
reach out to new people, welcome them in to the community, and get them
contributing. That last bit is important because that's the foundation
community itself.
He also used the term "gifts" to describe contributions, which I though
was interesting. It's a different perspective than we have, I think.
In general, I like Ubuntu as an example since they have a large user
community and take lots of non-code contributions. Since that's one of
the directions we are going, I'm sure we can learn a thing or two about
how they are building community.
Having said that, I was also impressed to see that we do actually have
many of the components in place that Ubuntu has, but I think our culture
is vastly different, our community is obviously much smaller, and we
don't communicate well across our community. Our communications seem
more vertical than horizontal at this point in our evolution. This is
where I think the OGB, the Facilitators, and the OSUGs can help a great
deal. These are not problems, per say, but things from which to build
and grow.
> the features Sun included in it, but I didn't see much at all
> about
> the community itself.
>
>
> In the next event we can think in some "Communities Pavilion" to
> promote our efforts, not as a brand, then as communities...agree?
I like this idea. I think I read on some list a few months about about
this. Someone mentioned it or something similar.
>
> Sun's contribution to the community was to bootstrap the project
> with source code, tools, engineers, infrastructure, exposure, and
> some initial community development programs. That's quite an
> investment, actually. And other companies are starting to
> participate, too, which is adding a new element to the mix.
>
>
> It would be great if the "other" companies take this as a worldwide
> policy.
That may come with time. For now, I think those companies are more
focused on their own respective engineering projects. And that's fine to
start, of course. Their contributions are extremely valuable at that
level. Over time, however, they may see it in their interest to help
build community more generally as well.
>
> But we as a community of people need to assert much more of a role
> in organizing /ourselves/ rather than always looking to Sun to do
> it for us.
>
>
> I don't know in other places, but here (Argentina) there are only
> three Sun employees in our community. We organize our meetings,
> events, tech talks, etc. interacting with other LUG's, PUG's, etc.
Yep. We do, too. We do a lot of interacting with Linux now. Heck, us
OpenSolaris guys are part of the Linux UG in Tokyo, and we hold Linux UG
meetings right in this Sun building. And the Linux guys come to the
OpenSolaris meetings, too. In fact, I'm modeling what Linux has already
done. There is no single company sponsoring the Linux community, so when
you hang out with them you clearly see a different attitude toward
community building than we currently hold. That's what I was getting at
in my earlier note.
> By the way, later this week we will be exactly 4 years old. On
> June 14.
>
>
> Time for margaritas!
Works for me. And sake here in Japan, too. :)
Jim
--
opensolaris.org transition: http://opensolaris.org/os/community/web/
_______________________________________________
ogb-discuss mailing list
ogb-discuss at opensolaris dot org
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/ogb-discuss
|
|
|
|
|
