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

21:37 <herlo> did you say you were willing to cook breakfast for us during UTOSC ??
21:37 <herlo> :-P
21:37 <herlo> I couldn’t remember if you agreed, or balked
21:37 <Jennifer> I did. I will make sure I don’t work so I can do it properly.
21:37 <Jennifer> 5 people, right. Plus us, of course.
21:38 <Jennifer> ?
21:38 <herlo> yeah
21:38 <Jennifer> Yep, for 3 days? I can do that. :)
21:38 <herlo> so far, I have Ian, Scott, Larry and Mirano and possibly Scott (from LA)
21:39 <herlo> it does mean that it has to be ready kind of early though…
21:40 <JenniferDean> Yep
21:40 <herlo> kk, grerat!
21:40 <herlo> or just great!
21:40 <JenniferDean> That’s what prep the night before is for
21:40 <herlo> lol, yeah
21:41 <JenniferDean> The only rule is: stay out while I’m cooking. Lol

So as you can see, I just had to comment about it right now!  Jennifer is awesome!

Looks like our guests will be well taken care of during UTOSC 2009!!

See you all there! October 8-10, 2009.  Register today!

Cheers,

Herlo

Last year, we started a project called utos-conman.  This project in about 3-5 months became the system that ran the speaker approval process, speaker listings, sponsor display, etc. for the Utah Open Source Conference 2008.  In 2009, we’re looking to make some improvements that will take us one step further to the ultimate open source conference management system.  Whether that statement is true or not, I want to push forward some goals for utos-conman.

To start off with, I worked this year with the Southern California Linux Exposition (SCaLE) to get their scale registration system open sourced and available.  It is now available, thanks Lei, and it can be checked out using svn from the google code project site.  This is exciting, and I’m happy to have the SCaLE code available because it provides a very powerful registration system, which includes the ability to create tickets, coupons, promotions, add-ons, reporting, check-in and much, much more.

Goals

The goals for this year’s Hack Night are going to be two fold, because now we have two projects.

First, let’s talk about scalereg:

• Porting to Django 1.0 (completed, patch coming)
• Adding back the validation and form management that was removed to get to Django 1.0
• Adding a new theme for UTOS, we hope to make this generic enough to let anyone add some css and images

Next is utos-conman:

• Working toward reusable app status.  Making it easier to integrate with apps like scalereg
• Adding volunteer management
• Adding better room management
• Adding upload feature to the sponsors admin section
• Integrating video and audio links

I’d like to take a moment to thank all the folks who’ve worked on these projects over the years and I look forward to having an awesome code base.  There are many many more features that we’ll be looking at in the future, including reporting, auditing and off-line capability.  For now, I’m more interested in making things work and getting it up and running.  In the next month or two, I hope to have a full-fledged registration system in place for the Utah Open Source Conference 2009.

Cheers,

Herlo

Now: Life has been hectic, but there’s still some silver lining

I’m currently sitting on a plane headed to Seattle for the Linuxfest NorthWest, where I will give my Fedora Remix presentation again. I’m hopeful that many people will desire to build their own remixes of Fedora. I am certain that there are many potential ideas out there. I’m still working on a kiosk system :)

I’m also interested in meeting with the folks who organize LFNW and talking about some new programs I think will be very beneficial to all Linux/Open Source community conferences. This is where I think the value of collaboration will really help us grow our respective regions into a much bigger/better way to promote free software.

One idea I have going is better collaboration on a conference management system. I sure hope the everyone at LFNW are as keen to helping as they were at SCaLE (hey gang!). This is something that I will be announcing very soon and hope to get a good sized community around.

OLPC: Starting a hacking group

This past Wednesday was the first UTOS-XO hackfest. We spent about 2 hours discussing the new partnership between Utah Open Source, Fedora and the One Laptop groups. The plan, set in motion by my good friend, David Nalley, was to obtain a bunch of XO’s, distribute them across North America to those who would volunteer a few hours a week to develop a fourth grade math curriculum.

We had 11 attendees, with 2 new who volunteered to spend some time developing activities along these lines. To be truthful, I think the UTOS-XO group will really shine and bring forth a good set of activities. We were able to identify 3 different activities to develop with a goal to bring the code back next month so we could ‘sugarize’ them and include them in the XO for fourth graders.

I wanted to mention that two of the volunteers in the room were quite young. Christian is 14 years and Ethan is 11. These two seemed quite capable of creating activities. Before we separated for the evening, Christian already had one component built and was showing me how he had written an activity to add 5-digit numbers together. How exciting!

Feel free to check out the pictures.

UTOS: Growing the Community

In addition to the OLPC hackfest, my role at the Utah Open Source Foundation has been expanded to focus more on the community. I’ve been able to hand off much of the conference planning to a trusty fellow, Will Smith. I’m excited to see what ideas he has in store for this year’s conference.

Because of this change, my role has started to become more involved with marketing and budgeting areas. I’m also very interested in growing a few of the programs UTOS has been doing for a while. For instance, I’m interested in streaming screencasts of the meetings (both video and audio) in the very near future on a limited basis. This is experimental, but should be great.  I’ve been able to get gstreamer to stream vnc connections and audio mostly working and streaming to our server.  It should be just a matter of time before I have a fully working application to show off.

This past week, three of the great folks who run the Utah Open Source Foundation and Conference were interviewed on Technometria, a podcast by Phil Windley.  It’s among the highest rated podcasts on IT Conversations.  We spent a good chunk of an hour talking about the Utah Open Source Conference and just building a community in general.  It was really exciting being interviewed and sharing our opinions.  I look forward to the feedback.

Another great component is the Utah Tech Events Calendar. As of March, I’ve been sending out an email near the beginning of the month with all of the tech events on our calendar. I’m excited to see this grow and continue. One highlight I’ve been seeing is the Geek Lunches and Geek/Blogger Dinners. These once a month activities give those who don’t have a ton of time otherwise, an opportunity to participate in the Utah tech community.

If you are interested in helping out the Utah Open Source community in any capacity, we’d love to have your help, desire and excitement. Please send me an email (clint@utos.org) explaining your desire and we’ll get you working on the things that interest you the most. It’s always a good resume builder even if you will learn how to be a good system administrator, programmer or designer. We need your help!

Cheers,

Herlo

Looking forward, I’m thinking a lot about the tracks we’ll be having at UTOSC 2009.  I’m wondering what others think, but I want to have at least Developer, Business and Beginner tracks.  I know that Laura Moncur and I have are already been discussing the beginner track, so that’s very exciting.

So here’s my thinking, if you want to see a particular presentation at UTOSC 2009, comment here, or on one of the blog posts on utos.org.  In addition, when we put the call for papers out, we’ll try to do a similar thing to other open source conferences, like open source bridge, linuxfest northwest and others have done.  We’ll show you all of the presentation submissions.  We’re also hoping to alter our voting system to allow anyone who has registered for the conference to vote for or against a particular presentation.

I’m getting really excited about the Utah Open Source Conference 2009.  I hope you all are too.

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.

To that end, I created a very shabby hierarchical structure which I passed around a week ago at the Core Team after conference dinner.  It went over okay, but people had a lot of questions about how the structure was organized and what not.

Organizing My Thoughts is Hard!

I didn’t know what exactly to do.  As it is, I’ve never been an integral part of an organization before like this one.  Nor have I ever created organizational charts that were very well done.  I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.  But, something amazing did happen in the span between last Friday and today, that was VYM, or View Your Mind.

When a “Mind Map” was first suggested to me by my buddy Doran Barton, I thought “well, I’ll look into that later”.  However, the more I kept trying to cram jobs into places they didn’t go, the more I got frustrated that there wasn’t a good application to accommodate the structure I was trying to build.

VYM is an application that helps get your thoughts out onto a structure.  It lets you move it around quickly and easily and even associate pictures and notes where applicable.  The problem for me was understanding how to use VYM in an environment I already knew and UTOS was not the right place!

The Fedora Project “Mind Map”

It turns out that a lot of people always wonder how the Fedora Project is structured, where the pieces go and who, what, where and how the project is put together.  Because I could at least see all the pieces, I decided that would be a good place to start.  While it’s not complete by any means, I present to you the Fedora Project VYM “Mind Map”.  From VYM, one can create pdf, png and other output sources, so I created a pdf as well

Contribute!

I’d like to see the Fedora Community take this up and add many pieces to it as it grows and builds into something more than I could make.  It’s fairly simple to add pieces as well.  You can create separate maps which can be integrated into the larger map.  Or, since the format is a zip file (essentially) with an xml definition file, I believe patches could work.

Cheers,

Herlo

Missing Teeth

My Son Shaun lost his fourth tooth this past week.  He was so excited about it, he called me as soon as it happened.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t there to experience it, but I’ve been assigned to be in LA three times in the next 3 months, plus one or two trips back to Utah should help.  I’m excited to head out and see his more holey head :)  I’m expecting some pictures to appear soon.

Djangocon 2008

On Friday, I left with a friend of mine, Seth House to Djangocon 2008, the first ever.  While I was happy to go, I wasn’t particularly excited that I would miss an entire day due to a clerical messup.  I learned quite a bit about Django and the community, I’m grateful I could go.

Django is a great framework and I’m excited to learn more about it this weekend.  I’m also grateful Google let me come back onto their campus (without incident this time, I might add), they are such great hosts.  I also got to meet Leslie Hawthorne and introduce myself, she seems pretty awesome even though I hollered at her while she was on the phone (oops, sorry Leslie).

First UTOSC Videos Released

Another great bit of news from UTOSC 2008.  The first evening keynote videos of Mac Newbold and Paul Frields have been released.  I’m excited and grateful to KnowledgeBlue and OpenSourceTV for their help with this project.  Things are rolling great on the video, thanks to Doran Barton and Nick Bauman at KnowledgeBlue for doing the video.

UTOSC Pictures keep piling up

Make sure to take a moment and have a look at the UTOS flickr group.  There’s tons of pictures there and maybe you are in one.  I’ve been tagging like crazy and hope to have them all done later this week.  I’d love to see more tags than what I’ve

A Goodbye

Also, today I found out one interesting thing, my friend Christer, who I referred to come work at Guru Labs, has left for another position.  I’m glad he’s happy and wish him luck.  Sounds like a great change for him and his family.