Meet the Community DevRoom Speakers (vol. 3)
For the 2nd year in a row, Leslie and I are running the Community Dev room at FOSDEM, and this year we’ve found the time to do some promoting around the speakers who will present. We wanted to share these interviews with the wider community as all talks are streamed live from FOSDEM, so even if you cannot join us you know what streams you’d like to watch or which videos to catch later!
In case you missed it, you may enjoy our first speaker interview post, featuring Deb Nicholson and Mike McQuaid, and our second interview post with Brian Proffitt and Jeremy Garcia.
And now, our next speakers …..
You’ve Got Some Explaining to Do! So Use An FAQ!
I was lucky enough to meet Simon Phipps back in 2007 when I ran my first conference, SkyCon. Since then I’ve caught up with him at various events, as I love the way he presents, engages with the audience and captivates the room. I don’t know Rich well – though Leslie says he’s a great chap and she’s usually right – but greatly appreciate that he took care of responding with Simon right after returning from his holidays!
Why did you submit your talk to the Community DevRoom?
Rich: The kind of transparency that comes naturally to FLOSS ( Free , Libre and open source software) developers is an unnatural act for a lot of companies. We learned some tricks while at Sun on how to create a culture of transparency inside a big company, while successfully engaging with the FLOSS world. We’d like to share one of those tricks – comprehensive FAQs – and share some fun and interesting stories from “back in the day.”
Simon: I keep spotting situations where creating an FAQ would be the ideal solution to a problem an open source office has found itself in. So I wanted to get the techniques documented and published – this is step one!
Beyond the info in your abstract, can you tell us one or two sentences about why our audience should come see your talk? Perhaps you could tell us who the ideal audience member is or a teaser for a story you will tell as part of your presentation. Anything you want to share, we are all ears.
Rich: Are you a community manager working at some corporation or large organization, and you have to explain a change that might stir up a hornet’s nest of controversy? Do you contribute to a corporate-sponsored project and want some insight into what might be going on behind the scenes? Want to hear some good stories and pull back the curtain on some FLOSS history? Then this talk is for you!
Simon: An FAQ is such a great solution yet it’s overlooked as old, obsolete or trivial when in fact it is the proven method to break through to the core problems in your open source strategy that are damaging your relationship with open communities.
Other than the Community DevRoom, what other talks or activities are you planning to attend? Anything you’d like to share about why these sparked your interest?
Rich: I’m trying to get back into coding and more techy stuff after decades of being in (horrors!) marketing, so I might hang out in Python-related tech talks. Oh – and the Legal Devroom always interests me. But for me, FOSDEM’s best track is the hallway and tavern track. 🙂 You’ll find me with my long-time friends from various communities and also meeting new folks, catching up with both FLOSS and professional stuff, as well as family and fun.
Simon: I’m giving the opening FOSDEM keynote on Saturday, where I’ll be explaining the direction I (and OSI) see open source taking in the next few years.
We hope to see you in the Community DevRoom in Building K, room K.4.601 from 10:30 to 19:00 on Saturday, 3 February. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend.
Laura & Leslie
Powered by FireStats
[…] Volume 3 […]