The Art of Community by Bacon, Jono -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

The Art of Community

SPECIAL OFFER: Upgrade this ebook with O’Reilly Foreword Preface

Documenting the Undocumented Who Is This Book For? The Road Ahead If You Like (or Don’t Like) This Book License Join Our Community Typographical Conventions Used in This Book How to Contact O’Reilly Safari® Books Online Acknowledgments

1. The Art of Community

Collaboration-Driven Ethos The Essence of Community

Building Belonging into the Social Economy

The Basis of Communication Unwrapping Opportunity A Community Manager: Becoming the Community

Cracking Open the Personality Trust Is Everything The Value of Listening Avoid Ego, or Others Will Avoid You Theory Versus Action: Action Wins Becoming Yourself

Moving Forward

2. Planning Your Community

Planning for Success

Community: The Bird’s-Eye View

Teams: The Building Blocks of Belonging

Finding Your Place Units of Belonging Read Versus Write

Read-mostly communities Write-centered communities

Meritocracy Working Together Is Success Diversity

Designing Your Community

Baking in Openness Building a Mission Statement Building a Strategic Plan

Structuring the plan

Filling Out the Plan

Brainstorming Ideas

Technique 1: Question assumptions Technique 2: Think outside the box Technique 3: Let’s make it suck

Pulling Together the Threads

Teams: Divide and Conquer

Identify how we can divide our community into teams Define the scope of each team, and help team members understand that scope Understand the extent and range of collaboration between our teams Ensure that teams can communicate clearly and effectively

Documenting Your Strategy Wrapping Up

3. Communicating Clearly

He Said, She Said Building Your Communication Channels

Striving for Clarity Choices, Choices

Communication fetishism

The Mediums

Mailing lists Discussion forums IRC

Leading by Example

Daily Communication

Netiquette Avoiding bikeshedding

Longer Writing

The mechanics of writing Don’t write like an institution Untwisting the tail Setting tone Inspiring your community

Summary

4. Processes: Simple Is Sustainable

Eyes on the Prize

Keeping Things in Perspective

Building Great Processes

Breaking Up the Puzzle

Building a process

Process Considerations

Simplicity is key Avoiding bureaucracy Transparency

Assessing Needs

Community Cycles

Leading by example: Ubuntu

The Gates of Your Community Assessing Contributors

Reviewing new developers: In depth

Managing Feedback

Gathering feedback

Getting Buy-In for Your Processes

Document Them Make Them Easy to Find Using Your Processes

Process Reassessment

Building Regularity

Moving On

5. Supporting Workflow with Tools

Understanding Your Workflow

Roles Building a Simple Workflow The Mechanics of Collaboration An Example: Ubuntu Bug Workflow

Getting to know the problem Breaking down the conversation Lessons learned

Building Great Infrastructure

Software As a Service

Avoiding Resource Fetishism Technical Considerations

Bug Tracking

Bug reporting Bug triage

Source Control Collaborative Editing

Building and Maintaining Transparency

Tool Access Communications Reporting

Regular Workflow Assessment

Gathering Structured Feedback

Moving On

6. Building Buzz

Mindshare

The Mindshare Opportunity

The Building Blocks of Buzz

The Mission Uniting Together Inspired Words Becoming the Advocate Getting It Right by Not Getting It Wrong Honesty

Setting Up Your Base

Aims Staying Current Building Conversation Getting Online

Syndication

Microblogging

The Buzz Cycle

Planning Buildup Announce Review

Buzz Targets

Announcing Your Community

Applying the buzz cycle

Attracting Contributors

Applying the buzz cycle

Building Alliances

The Professional Press The Amateur Press

Blogs

Blog wars

Podcasts Videos

Summary

7. Measuring Community

Community Self-Reflection The Foundations of Feedback

Defining Purpose

Hooks ’n’ Data

Statistics and Automated Data

The risks of interpretation Plugging your stats into graphs

Surveys and Structured Feedback

Choosing questions Showing off your survey reports

Observational Tests Measuring Mechanics Gathering General Perceptions

Perception of you

Anonymity and Privacy

Anonymity Privacy

Moving On

8. Governance

Accountability Governance Does Not Suck Governance and Community The Case for Governance

Follow the Leader Engage the People Aspire to Inspire To Bring Peace

Learning from the Leaders

Dictatorial Charismatic Leadership Enlightened Dictatorship Delegated Governance

Setting Up a Community Council

Designing a Council

Responsibilities Structure Commercial sponsorship Membership Communication

Codifying Your Council Nominating and Electing Council Members

Forming a new council

Ubuntu Governance Example

In the Beginning... The Structure of the Ubuntu Community

Mark Shuttleworth Community Council Technical Board Team councils

Membership

Ubuntu Member Developer Council or Board Member

Escalation

Expanding Governance

Knowing When It Is Time Building the Subcouncil

Escalation

Communicating Between Councils

Summary

9. Handling Conflict

The Nature of the Beast

The Structure of Strife

The Calm Before the Storm

Contentious Personalities

Profiling the polemical Poisonous people

Barriers to Input Problems with Responsibility Lack of Justice

The Conflict Resolution Process

The Role of a Facilitator

Be objective Be positive Be open Be clear

Resolving the Conflict

Part 1: Calm and reassure

The fantastical user group debacle

Part 2: Get the facts

The fantastical user group debacle

Part 3: Discuss

The fantastical user group debacle

Part 4: Document

The fantastical user group debacle

Part 5: Reflect and maintain

The fantastical user group debacle

Dealing with Burnout

Detecting and Treating Burnout

Required rest and relaxation

Work/Life Balance

Addiction

Summary

10. Creating and Running Events

Building Family Values Events Getting Organized

Step 1: Identify Requirements Step 2: Find Help Step 3: Set Deadlines Step 4: Make Time

Organizing Physical Events

Common Attributes

Location/venue Accommodation Equipment Date/time Cost Registering attendance Catering Insurance/unions

Organizing a Sprint

Additional notes

Organizing a Summit

Structure and scheduling Inside a session Event-specific notes

Organizing an Unconference

Event-specific notes

Getting Sponsorship

Understanding Your Needs Finding and Handling Sponsors

Setting expectations The pitch

Handling the Money

Organizing Online Events

Common Attributes

Medium

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Voice over IP (VoIP) Virtual worlds

Date/time

Online Discussion Meetings

Choosing a time Advertising the meeting Setting the agenda Running the meeting

Organizing Online Tutorials

Scheduling Preparing for a session Running a session Event-specific notes

Summary

11. Hiring a Community Manager

Why Community Building Has Become a Big Business The Role of a Community Manager in the Corporation

Setting Expectations Scope of the Role Risk Breaking Tradition Control and Reporting

The ability to enact change

The Responsibilities of Community Engagement Salary Communicating Expectations to the Candidate

Managing Your Community Manager

Induction

Internal reputation Community reputation

Strategy Management and Communications

Weekly engagements Community feedback

Summary End of Part One

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