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Looking at thewetware
Understanding stakeholders"
for succesful communities
Miguel Cornejo Castro!
fOSSa 2011, Lyon!November 26th 2011!
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MacuariumLabs!community action research
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Evolution: closed communities into conversation spaces
MacuariumLabs!
community action research
Wetware is what defines OSS
• The code itself is agnostic. The difference is how it gets built, and
why. The relationship between the software and the wetware.!
• There is a pesky, irreverent, egotistic, creative, rather wonderful thing
between the keyboard and the chair. Mostly water. And let's not
mention users. Not corporate sponsors. Nor the wider ecosystem.!
• Most often, OSS is the result (and the driving cause) of a healthy
community. But communities take so many different shapes. And are
so fissiparous.!
• "I don't expect wetware to work as logically as software". Orson Scott
Card, "Speaker for the dead".!
• Allogical? Illogical? Really?
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Community and your project
• Communities as people and conversations and something else. The channel and tools are
(sort of) irrelevant.!
• When the project is just you…!
– … “the community” is a friend and some geeky early users.!
• When you’ve got a product…!
– … “the community” helps you make it useful.!
• When you’re established…!
– “the community” is the engine and main channel of the value-adding ecosystem.!
• When you’re staid (or when you least expect it)…!
– “the community” breaks apart and walks out on you.!
• When you think the community just takes care of itself...!
– "the community" fails and your dream project falters.
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Sponsor.!
Core.!
Power contributors.!
Ecosystem.!
Dev community.!
User community.
Community?
Owner.!
Manager.!
Member.!
Conversation space.
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Wetware is a host of stakeholders
• The sponsor. In one way or another.!
• The (original or current) vision leader.!
• The trusted, involved core.!
• The wider, variegated contributors.!
• The (hopefully many) ecosystem units that add some
value.!
• The end users, more or less unlettered.
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Different stakeholders, different reasons
• For the individual coder it may be a job, but in the aggregate it's volunteer work.!
– Even when paid, most in the community work at it because they want it. Beyond the core, it’s often quite close to volunteer work.!
– Logical, driven, (usually) product of many hands and minds: the tool you build because you want to use it… and no two uses are alike.!
• For the sponsor, OSS may not be (only and necessarily) a religion…!
– It can just be a business strategy to level the technological field or make prevalent your standard (Apple’s work with Konqueror or -sort of- FaceTime)!
– It can be just a business estratega to facilitate access to the technology at the lowest cost, so you can build an early user base of future upgraders (Alfresco, OpenBravo…).!
– It can be just a business strategy to make your professional services widely known to custom-development prospects (mySQL in Oracle).!
– It can just be a business strategy to cheaply build a base of customers you can sell services to (Auttomatic with wordpress.com, and so many others).!
• And the ecosystem is another WIIFM planet.!
• Any which way, it needs a community. And if it doesn’t, it gets one anyhow. Pesky things, communities..
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Alignment, alignment, alignment
• Just what are we building?!
– The goal, and the philosophy. Either share or don’t join. Needs to be clear.!
• What are we doing it for?!
– The reasons driving us and paying our hours. Need to be compatible.!
• How are we doing the work?!
– Dev methods, processes, tools. Some are religions. Need to share a core creed.!
• Who is in charge, at each level?!
– And why? And to what extent? And how well? Remind me about the mission thing.
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Affinity, competence, firepower... Servant leadership for the wetware
• Negotiate, choose, drive competition.!
• Shared? My dream?!
– Motivation stems from shared decisions. Not just absent leadership. You need your people to reliably do the
boring useful tasks too. You need them to share the big idea.!
• Your creature, your call?!
– Decide what you want to decide upon. And remember that what you set free, you can't control.!
• Participation?!
– Or delegation. Or implicit trust. No contribution without representation (you can get it, but motivation,
innovation and quality will not be the same).!
• Changing course?!
– Beware the fork. Watch you traction. In short, listen. And be ready to lose excess weight rather than a clear focus.!
• Are manners important?!
– With brain workers? Every day.
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Affinity, competence, firepower:!The alogical wetware
• Are we divided?!
– Separate work groups set agendas and see things differently.!
• Are we compatible?!
– Some people just can’t get along. Even engineers.!
• Do we share a vision?!
– Whatever our reasons, are we seeking the same creature? With a passion?!
• Are the gurus properly packaged?!
– The OS worker has a right to be heard. A silenced contributor is halfway a
mutineer.
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You work for yourself, yes, but if you
want scale...• Do you know your users and their priorities?!
• The creator of Wordpress was a Drupal early user and community member. He left because Drupal gave no priority to ease of use. Now, Drupal is spending so many hours building ease of use back in.!
• Are you talking to them?!
• The survival of an OS tool (and even of SAP) depends on its being useful to users at every level. That depends on support: the user community.!
• Who is keeping an eye on the end users?!
• The kind of collaborator who can drive a user community is not the one who can code best. It's the user wrangler. And they're delicate beasts.!
• And it' not in one place: it makes up a "conversational space". Not a sigle space.
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Mind the ecosystem... and the sponsor
• They're involved for a sound business reason. And they contribute along their own needs.!
• They need the project to be a certain way (from licensing to features), expect to be heard, and measure results.!
• They can switch horses... or directly fork (Konqueror to WebKit).!
• They're useful: they wield lots of brain hours.!
• They are usually needed to make the project useful tp the wider public.!
• They (especially the main sponsor) feel entitled.
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Contributor:
representation,
appreciation,
participation... And
vision.
Ecosystem: quality,
WIIIFM, business
strategies.
End user: features,
support quality.
In short: many types of wetware,
different motivations and expectation
Core: mission, vision,
power, togetherness.
Sponsor: pragmatic
measurable goals
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More on this point of view
http://emekaeme.wordpress.com/publicaciones!
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and please let me know your experiences:!
"
Miguel Cornejo!
Managing partner!
"MacuariumLabs is a project of!
Macuarium Network!http://www.macuarium.com/foro
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