MashedPotato Tech

'Festival Magic' I've heard this phrase for the past 8 years while serving with an amazing group of 4000 volunteers who put on the Gilroy Garlic Festival  - lauded by most as the premier food and entertainment festival on the West Coast.  While the saying started out as a bit of a joke to explain how things get done, the reality is those two words are the bedrock of an annual event that has been taking place for almost 35 years. The history of the festival is long and storied - this video gives a great overview.  However, the elements behind the concept of 'Festival Magic' are applicable to communities of all types, whether it's open source software development, social media communities, or affinity groups.  This 'magic' isn't really all that magical - it breaks down to the following main ideas: Empower Everyone to Lead Gilroy Garlic Festival volunteers are expected to lead (and follow) at all levels of the organization.  Even the most jun...

[Originally posted 11/17/09 in my work blog, but it still rings true today] It’s amazing how restricting the amount of space you have to express a concept crystalizes what is truly important about that idea. Recently, in my ‘community’ Twitter list, Holly Seddon asked a very good question which helped give me one of those ‘A-ha’ moments: ‘In one word, what should using an online community feel like or give you?’ I loved the challenge of coming up with a single word to describe a key benefit to participating in community. After some reflection, the word that popped into my head was ‘perspective’. When communities are functioning at their peak (and I think this is true even of ‘development’ communities), one of the most powerful things you can glean from your participation is the perspective of one or more of the other community members. Being able to look at business problems, source code issues, or any other medium within a community from a different angle is incredibly powerful. As ...

I hope that title caught your eye because it is a great jumping off point for something that has become readily apparent to me in the last several years of my career. Now that I'm in a consulting role (services) as opposed to previous internal development roles, I've begun to get a new appreciation for just how different the sales and services/consulting camps are. In addition, I've seen how Dr. John Gray's provocative metaphor, first brought to light in his book 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus,' also applies to what many perceive are diametrically opposed groups in any community. Now, don't get me wrong, there usually is (by necessity) a LOT of synergy between any of these two camps, but there is also a fundamental mindset difference that can easily throw an unproductive wedge between the two groups. I'll admit that I'm as guilty as the next person for not always recognizing this, and I'm sure it doesn't help that as a former so...

Ever since my first introduction to Agile software development (at the beginning of the Forge.mil project nearly two years ago), I've been noodling with the notion of how my primary role (Community Management) interfaces with and informs Agile. At first, it almost seemed like the beginning of the old Reese's ® Peanut Butter Cup commercial ('Hey, your community is in my Agile!'), but as I've had time to consider it, I think that community has a lot to do with the successful application of Agile methodologies. The culmination of this came when I was asked to speak on a panel at the recent AFEI DoD Agile conference , and the panel moderator asked us in our pre-show meeting to consider a 'lead-in' question he could give each of us in case the audience didn't have ready-made questions. I chose to have him ask me, 'How does the notion of community inform Agile software development?' In preparing my answer, I thought of three specific areas where ...

[Note: edited 9/8/10 to clear up misconceptions about my involvement in Forge.gov] I'd like to talk today about why a system similar to Forge.mil is a good idea for Federal government civilian agencies. I'll preface this with full disclosure: I work for CollabNet , the main infrastructure provider for Forge.mil . The CollabNet TeamForge product is the 'glue' underlying Forge.mil, but it allows for additional services to be 'plugged in' in the future. My role in Forge.mil is that of a community management consultant (and part-time day-to-day community manager). Despite the fact that the GSA (General Services Administration) is looking to the DoD (specifically DISA ) to help them replicate the success of Forge.mil, the main point here is not to sell TeamForge, but, instead, to make customers and communities successful from a cultural and process standpoint. Therefore, I'm posting this here for neutrality rather than at the ' OnCollabnet ' blog....

[This was originally posted on my work blog ' OnCollabNet '] I just returned from a two week conference trip in support of Forge.mil - the first week in Utah was uneventful, but the second week for the DISA partner conference in Nashville, TN at the historic Gaylord Opryland Hotel ... well, let's just say it was something I don't think any of us involved will ever forget. For those that may not have been following the news, Nashville got 18 inches of rain in just two days (an all-time record) and those of us in town for the conference were evacuated from the hotel to a local high school due to severe flooding . Though I was one of the folks living through this, I'd like to highlight some of the things I saw and experienced that, to me, showcase the true meaning and spirit of community. We deal in my world with community in a somewhat abstract sense, because we are talking about online interactions. However, I'm here to tell you, I saw some amazing, simple,...

Like a lot of people in the tech world, I try to read a variety of publications (both online and physical versions) to keep up with what is going on in the dizzying world of technology. Recently, I read a great article in a recent issue of Wired entitled Accept Defeat: The Neuroscience of Screwing Up . This article explains in some detail, with examples, the problem of 'failure blindness' in scientific research. This phenomenon causes scientists and researchers to ignore anomalies in their results they didn't expect, which are therefore categorized as 'failures'. The article goes on to state that one of the best ways of overcoming this bias is to involve other people from outside of your immediate speciality in discussions about your results. For me, this triggered the thought process of why it's important to encourage participation in your communities (Open Source or internal) from folks on the periphery of your project - non-specialists who have somethin...

I've seen a lot of information recently in social media spaces and RSS feeds I follow that portends a bit of a change in the way people approach social media, and the inevitable ' information overload ' we've all heard so much about. A lot of people compare today's information environment to a stream, and I think that's a very apt analogy. There are two primary ways that people seem to be reacting to this glut of information: more filtering or scaling back who they attempt to have 'relationships' with online. I honestly believe the answer to this dilemma is to incorporate both approaches. In a nutshell, the way I've always approached 'social media' is to remember first and foremost, it's about people and relationships, not about how high you can drive your Twitter, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, or Facebook follower count. It's also important to utilize tools to help you filter out the most important pieces of information. One of the most...

The concept of a 'back-channel' during presentations, meetings, classes and similar events has been around for a while (the analog version was called 'passing notes', and who knows, maybe even the cavemen did that during boring recitations on hunting/gathering strategy :)). The modern equivalents started with email, but now even that quaint old service is derided as 'too slow' in the world of instant messaging, and more recently, Twitter . There are two types of back-channel - private (usually in instant messaging), and public (Twitter). I know very few people who don't utilize the former during long conference calls (especially if they are with clients, and you need to address something that came up during the call privately with a colleague). This can be a huge advantage if someone can go off and get an answer/research an issue while the call continues. I can easily see a role for junior-level associates to perform this function, as I think it makes go...