How do we address this problem?  Who does it?

In other words, how do small to medium communities battle Apathy?

In all honesty, I don’t have the answer for this question.  If I did, I’d be preaching it to every community group that would listen.  But it does occur to me that the/re are a few things the folks in charge can do to help.  And some of these are documented by the larger communities too.

1. First thing that comes to mind is to build a proper structure.  A meritocracy where those who do the work can decide what gets done.  As most will note, this is no different from any other Free Software development project.  But we need to state it out loud.  If you do the work in the community, you get to decide how the community functions. As part of this process, community leaders can define a loose structure where others can join up, and help build where they find holes.  It’s a definite organic structure, but one that really works well when encouraged.
2. Have something people want, and give it to them.  For us, it’s the Utah Open Source Conference and the other events the Foundation has been providing, like hackUTOS, Nerds in the Sun, Geek Lunch, etc.   Most of these events are free and for anyone to enjoy, learn and network.  However, I can see the need for even more events and services that UTOS can provide.
3. Remind people regularly that community is here.  Reminders are very important.  It’s like what Coke and Pepsi do, constantly remind you they are out there.  The only real difference is that they are looking to sell you something for money.  UTOS and other communities are really here to help you grow and learn.
4. Constantly invite people to join the community and help.  The community is a process that is always evolving and growing, people are needed to make it evolve and grow the way they see it.  Notice I said the way they see it.  It’s up to the community members to decide where the community goes.
5. Get out of the way.  This is somewhat of a corollary to step 4, but it’s really important to point out.  Once the community machine is going, don’t put process and leadership in the way.  The community can do what it needs to do if we just get out of the way, don’t be an obstacle to progress of the community.

As UTOS, we’ve excelled at some parts of this list, and failed at other parts.  I suspect many of the other communities around have succeeded at some of the parts as well.

Mostly, I wrote this to help me understand what the goals for UTOS will be as we start to expand into a more regional community.  But I think these things can help us all deal with apathy and encourage others to get involved.  I hope to hear from the community on this as my article is definitely a work in progress.  I believe I’ve got a good set of problems and possible solutions, but it’s definitely not me that is going to implement most of them.

Please take a few hours out of the month of June and help us grow and become an exciting, active prosperous community.  You’ll feel better for it, and you’ll definitely make a few friends along the way, grow your skillset, and possibly even encourage someone else to join up and help.

Why don’t more people actually volunteer 2-3 hours per month?

One word, Apathy.  Yes, apathy.

I believe apathy is what kills communities around the globe.  They don’t have to be any specific type of community, but when someone, or enough people stop caring about a particular activity, event or cause, the community will die.  I don’t have any cold, hard facts on this, just my experiences, what I’ve read and my gut telling me it’s so.

If it were up to me, as an individual running a medium sized community conference based around Free and Open Source Software, I’d suggest that everyone come and spend 2-3 hours volunteering at the event.  While I know that’s not realistic, it can combat the apathy of which I speak.  But that’s kind of a problem too.

Where are we heading with this discussion?

For one, there are only so many volunteer positions available at the Utah Open Source Conference, or at a LUG meeting, or any such event.  But there are events that are currently not happening.  Imagine if everyone in the FOSS community in the Mountain West spent those 2-3 hours each month either helping a particular event, or creating their own special event or group.  What would the FOSS community landscape look like?

Each month I run into at least 5 people who want to help out within UTOS.  Each time I tell them the same thing, we have lots of things we need help with, we meet here at this time each month and would love to have you attend.  On rare occasion, we get a new volunteer coming to our meetings.  Sometimes they stay, sometimes they realize it’s too much and other things are a priority, and sometimes, they get so excited, they become one of the Utah Open Source Foundation’s ‘Core Team’.  So far, it’s been working well, but recently, we’ve been experiencing growing pains of our own and a little apathy as well.

Another thing to note, larger communities tend to have already dealt with this problem and have a plethora of answers for dealing with things like Apathy, a lack of knowledge and all of the other standard problems that smaller communities must deal with to thrive.  Most of those answers aren’t documented anywhere, at least not very well documented.

How does a community suffer because of apathy?

I am going to use the Utah Open Source Foundation to give some examples of where we fail.  Currently, I fear that our community suffers from apathy for a few reasons.

1. The economy.  While it’s definitely important for people to have jobs, a paycheck and a promise of more work, I find that this is among the lamest excuse people use for not helping.  If you aren’t participating in the community, you are doing yourself a disservice.  Just think of all of the lost opportunities for employment, education, skill improvement (aka resume material) and networking.
2. Family.  Again, I find that a lot of people in our community use their family as an excuse for not participating.  I’m not saying that families aren’t important.  In fact, I would say that participating in the FOSS community is a perfect example of how to show your family what you do, as well as encourage them to be part of a community and volunteer their time to their passions.  Families do take time, but I can guarantee that everyone can find 2-3 hours per month to volunteer.
3. Time.  While possibly related to the other two issues, time itself can get in the way of volunteering to help the community.  People regularly fear that they can’t dedicate enough time to help, when a community really just wants people to dedicate a few hours a month.  If you are spending a couple hours a month in front of your TV, you could cut that down and spend it helping your community instead.

Watch for part three of this series next week.

Cheers,

Herlo

What started out as a simple idea in my backyard in Springville, Utah has blossomed into something much larger, a community of people who want to participate in the coolest events in the Mountain West.   Many of those events are hosted right here in Utah.

While there are other, larger communities in cities like Boston, New York and Los Angeles, the Mountain West has something that most other communities don’t have, a sense of volunteerism, community and brotherhood.  This even holds true for the most part in the Free and Open Source [FOSS] community.  I’ve really enjoyed being part of the Utah Open Source Foundation and Conference for the past 4 years and look forward to seeing it grow beyond Utah and its humble roots.

There are some really good examples of the FOSS community coming together right here in the Mountain West.  These include Local User Groups like the Salt Lake Linux User Group, Idaho State LUG, MontanaLinux.org, Rexburg Open Source as well as some great community events like AbleConf, PodcampSLC, Geek/Blogger Dinners, hackUTOS, BYU Unix User Group Installfests and many more.

While each of these events are great in their own right, there could be so many more.  But why are there not more amazing, or more complete events?

My real question here is why aren’t there more people helping do more of these events?

If I must use an example from my experience, I find that a lot of people really enjoy attending events and networking with others.  They believe that when they do this, they will have stronger relationships and when (not if) they need to change jobs, those they networked with will likely know of a position available.  While this is generally true, it seems to me that if people actually helped with these events, they’d actually have more contacts and more opportunities when they need to find work fast.

Just think about that premise for a few minutes…

If you spend just 2-3 hours per month, yes I said per month, volunteering your time toward the FOSS community, there will be many more opportunities for you when you need it most.

Read the next segment on ‘Combating Apathy in Communities‘.

Cheers,

Herlo

I have been looking at airfare, hotel and other travel accommodations to FUDCon, but I seem to have more options than I can count.  Maybe some of you can make recommendations?  So here’s the details of my dilemma:

Option 1: Fly direct to Toronto

Now, of course, this is the easiest of the three options; in and out of Toronto International Airport (YYZ) is a great way to go.  What’s that you say?  Oh, right.  The cost prohibitive trip of a ticket that is well over $600.  WOW! That is all I can say…

Option 2: Fly to Boston and ride the FUDBus

To me, this option is the most appealing.  While I know that I can most likely crash with someone in Boston and then ride the FUDBus up, it’s going to be a bit more painful, but it might be worth the organizational headache to make what could become an epic hackfest (8+ hours) happen for me.

In this case, I would have to fly in Thursday evening, since the FUDBus leaves at around 9am from Alewife station in Boston.  And upon return, Tuesday morning could turn into Tuesday afternoon or Tuesday evening.  A bit scarier here for scheduling return flights.  The other part of this is the actual FUDCon event is only Saturday through Monday (Dec 5-7) so I would have to miss 5+ days of work, not just 1 or possibly 2 with the other options.

The price of this flight is a mere $409 round trip, a savings of over $180, so it could be worth the extra time as long as I don’t have to get an extra hotel room.

Option 3: Fly to New York City and ride a bus to get to the FUDBus

I have a good friend in Jon Stanley, who offered to put me up at his place on Thursday night, which is essentially the same as flying into Boston.  But there are a few benefits as well.  One is that the bus from NYC to Boston has an additional 4ish hours we’d get to hack and chat.  Since I’m really wanting to join the Fedora Infrastructure team, it would be a good opportunity to get my wings.  The other is that the cost from SLC to JFK is another $50 – $75 cheaper than Boston.

The drawbacks of having to leave earlier and travel longer seem to be a mitigating circumstance and really might be something I want to do.  I’m just not sure I’m willing to awake at 4am Eastern (2am Mountain) to take the bus to take the FUDBus.

Option 4: Fly to Buffalo and ride the bus to Toronto

This option seems the most economical and has the least amount of hassles save actually flying into Toronto.  Essentially, I would fly into Buffalo on Friday afternoon, catch a bus that would drive across the border and into Toronto.  The return trip is about as simple, just hop on the bus on Tuesday morning, and fly home that afternoon from Buffalo.  The cost is great too!  At a measly $200 round trip from Salt Lake, now that’s a deal!

I think the thing I am fighting with Buffalo, is that I’ll be doing this all by myself.  While it seems economical, I really, really would like to get on that FUDBus for the hackfest I am sure will happen.  Collaborating for an additional 8 hours is really really tempting.  Going to Buffalo would pretty much eliminate that option.  While I am a bit concerned about crossing the border and such, I don’ think it’s going to be the decision maker or cause me any real heartache.

Decisions, Decisions!

So what would you do?  How would you go to Toronto?  I have the funds right now and want to get everything booked in advance so I don’t have to worry about the details later.  I think my biggest debate point has to be whether to ride the FUDBus.  Money is probably the secondary issue, but comparing that seems to put Buffalo first without question.

I’m really excited either way for FUDCon this year.  I have some really good ideas to share and want to start building out a great Ambassador portal as well.  More on that to come!

Cheers,

Herlo

Our first meeting will be next Wednesday, Feb 11 from 11:30am-1pm
I will present ‘Fedora Remix: Custom distributions based upon proven design’

Here’s the rest of the details:

Conference room A on the lower level of the Salt Lake Library has been reserved.  Head down the stairs, make a left turn (essentially a U turn).  The conference room is directly under the foyer area (the area with all the shops on the 1st level)  If you aren’t clear, ask the information desk.  A map is available here of all floor plans of the library.

Also, our meetings should be posted on the Electric Signs by the entrance to the library on the first floor.

Meeting Days & Times:

All meetings will be held from 11:30am – 1pm on the Second Wednesday of each month.

• Wednesday, February 11
• Wednesday, March 11
• Wednesday, April 8
• Wednesday, May 13
• Wednesday, June 10

Feel free to add this and other Utah Tech Events to your calendar by adding the ‘Utah Tech Events’ feed to your calendar.

Traxx

You can get off 2 blocks west of the Library.  If you get off at the ‘Courthouse 500 South’ stop
There is also a University Train that stops right next to the library, but you’ll have to transfer at Gallivan Center.

Parking

Parking is recommended to be one block away from the Library as they have reduced the meters in front of the Library to only 30 minutes.  However the meters directly east (on 200 East) should still be 2 hours.  Make sure to check the time you allow yourself is plenty.

See you all there.

Herlo

The course is 15 weeks long, 3 hours per night and will be held in the Warnock Engineering Building (WEB) room 208 on Wednesdays from 6-9pm.  Basically, that means I’ll be teaching Linux once a week and keeping up my training skillz.

The only real drawback is that I’ll be missing the PLUG and SLLUG meetings for the better part of four months.

Cheers,

Herlo

6:12pm: In hotel room, snuggled up to Jennifer.  Still debating whether I’m going to sleep or just head to FUDPub.

6:15pm: Send Dave an SMS message that reads ‘be down in 10 minutes’.

6:31pm: Dave replies with SMS that reads ‘Hmmm gave up and left’.

6:32pm: Head down to the lobby to try to catch up.   Nobody there, so Jennifer and I head over to FUDPub.  By this time, hunger has taken over and I am less tired than hungry.

6:40pm: Arrive at Flat Top Johnny’s for FUDPub.  Proceed directly to the rear of the building in search of food.

6:42pm: Find food, pile it on my plate and head back to the front of the building.  The place is packed an hopping.  Lot’s of pool is being played and it sure looks like fun.

7:00pm: Our server takes our order for drinks and the party commences.  We sit down beside Mike McGrath, Jeroen van Meeuwen, Dave Nalley and a couple others as well.  Of course, we start talking a bit about Ambassador stuff and the barcamp overall.

7:30pm: About the time we’ve consumed a couple drinks and ordered food, the conversation gets good.  We’ve had a few others join us, Jared Smith, Kenny and Cade all come over and at this point we’ve basically taken over the table.

8:00pm: I’m feeling much better, have eaten a chicken sandwich and consumed a few more beverages.  At this point I’m very happy I didn’t stay at the hotel and sleep.  Jennifer and I are having fun with the rest of the group.

8:??pm: Not sure quite when it happened, but Mo Duffy decided to come by to take our pictures for the Fedora Picture Book.  It was at this time I was invited to do something, rather egged on by the table pounding.  I proceeded to the front of the restaurant to perform my now infamous moonwalk.  (Thanks to Ian Weller).

9:ISHpm: Played pool with Jennifer, Dave, Jared, Colby and others.  Spent a good hour playing pool and trying not to repeat a performance of my moonwalk.

10:30pm: Arrived at the hotel and discussed the video uploading hackfest.  It was decided we’d meet on the 3rd floor and hack for a while.

10:45pm: Met Chris Tyler and Matt Domsch along with Ian, Dave, Kenny and a few others and proceeded to render video.  I wanted to play with the syncing of the video with the audio recordings I obtained, but after several attempts, it was clearly not going to happen.

1:00am (Sunday): Because video takes a long time to render, I was still up tinkering with my rendering. About this time, Mo Duffy had sent links into #fudcon showing my dance moves.  Ian and others at the video hackfest decided this was a much better hackfest.  In the next hours, Ian had created an animated gif as well as an ogg video of my moonwalk to the tune of ‘Smooth Criminal’.  Each time I made a comment about it, the pure ridiculousness was raised another magnitude.

3:00am: After enduring enough of the video rendering and ‘Smooth Criminal’ in midi, I decided it was time to head up to the room.

3:10am: Because I hadn’t gone to bed at a reasonable hour to be useless for Sunday’s hackfest, I decided it would be a good idea to pack my bags.

3:25am: Decided that it wasn’t late enough to sleep, I started on and successfully got Moksha up and running with Luke’s demo data.  I can see how cool it will be to build Fedora-Event-Splash with a Moksha back end.  I was also thinking about an Ambassador Portal, probably somehing with statistics and updates when a user updates.  Could also show tracking of resources and other useful tools.

4:00am: Time for bed.  ZZZZzzzzzz ZZZZZZzzzzz

While I am a pretty solid Linux Admin, what I really think I’d be good at, is Project Management.  The problem being that I’ve little to no paid experience for such a thing.  The reason, however, that I believe I’d be a good fit for something like this is the fact that I’ve been in charge of the Utah Open Source Conference and it’s successful rise to the largest community conference in Utah.

Last year, we had a successful conference after a year of planning.  This year’s conference was much less work thanks to all the great volunteers, but it was still a big success, and a lot of work.  I’m excited to say that this is my pride and joy, and why I think I would be a good fit for a Project Manager.

In addition, I’m looking into starting my own business, the only problem there is the timing.  I’d like to launch it soon, but I don’t have enough capital to really get going anywhere.  However, I may still do this as I think the ideas I have would work well and could really benefit an open source community as well as small/medium sized tech businesses.  In fact, I have a meeting set up for tomorrow morning with someone who’s believed in me from the beginning on this endeavor.  I’m excited to try my hand as an employer.

I do want to mention that while this isn’t a plea to help get me a job, but rather some thoughts I needed to scribble down, I am actively looking for work.  If you have anything that might fit, here’s the latest version of my resume (in pdf form).

Guess we’ll see where the world takes me on this fun, fun ride I’ve been on for 30-some-odd years now.  And I guess that’s the point, I’m really enjoying this ride called life and so while it’s a bit of a stressful time, I’m grateful to accept these challenges.  I love solving problems, and this is just another small problem.

Fedora 10 - Released

Available at mirrors everywhere.  Also via bittorrent ? and jigdo ?.

Freedom, Friends, Features, First!  That’s Fedora!

• Take the Tour
• Read the Release Notes
• Digg it

Cheers,

Herlo

After creating the Fedora Project Mind Map, I was better able to understand how UTOS was currently structured.  I was able to put together the main pieces pretty quickly, although it seems there are several gaps in my thought process still.  For that reason, I’m opening the UTOS structure up as well.  It might not have as many contributors, but I’d like to see the structure grow.