3 posts tagged with "guide"

Today, I write this article motivated by a new community initiative that we are starting and still doesn’t have a name. It is mainly aimed at people with experience or the intention to create technical communities, with the purpose of helping to create healthier, more attractive, useful, and sustainable communities.

In this context, I find myself needing to define what a technical community is, at least for me.

An ambiguous term​

To begin with, I hope everyone agrees with me that the term community not only has many meanings and synonyms, but it has been used to refer to many things, sometimes more accurately and sometimes less so, making it very ambiguous.

For example, when we talk about a community, we could be referring to a multitude of things (at least in Spanish):

• A collective
• A guild
• A group (e.g., mutual aid group, group of users/customers, ...)
• A club (e.g., book discussion club, fan club
• A tribe
• A gang
• A sect, clan, or The Fellowship of the Ring 💍😂
• ...

In the tech world, the term has been used, and we could even say... abused or misused to the point where some of us feel that the romantic meaning of the word has been distorted.

Here are some illustrative examples in different contexts:

• The community of a technology
  (e.g., Python community, Java community, Android community, …)
• The community of a platform
  (e.g., GitHub community, Twitch community, Reddit community, Stack Overflow, Meetup…)
• The external community of a brand or organization
  (e.g., GDG community, GDE, Microsoft, Mozilla, Wikipedia, OSM, CodelyTV...)
• The internal community (of employees) of a brand or organization
  (e.g., SNGULAR, Izertis Community, Adevinta, ...)
• The community of an influencer
  (e.g., Midudev, mouredev, ...)
• The community of a movement, practice, or methodology
  (e.g., Open source community, Agile community, ...)
• The community of an event/conference
  (e.g., Codemotion, ...)
• The community of a field or guild
  (e.g., Frontend, Backend, DevOps, ...)
• ...

This often leads to debates about what we generally mean by community in the tech world.

Keep in mind that language evolves over time, and the use of words is closely linked to the context in which they are expressed. To dig a bit more into this, I’ve decided to start a series of articles on the History of technical communities (in Spain).

My definition​

Here’s what I understand by technical community, in the most traditional/romantic sense, heavily influenced by my own life experience, and clearly biased:

It is a group of people who:

• Emerge from their own initiative (grassroots movement).
• Share an interest in technology (software or hardware), for example: programming languages, methodologies, cybersecurity, data, or robotics.
• Are governed by a set of norms or rules, whether implicit or explicit (like a code of conduct, decalogue, nettiquete, ...) and defined by the community itself.
• Have a purpose or goal more focused on professional or personal development rather than pure entertainment.

Where all these people, both promoters and other participants, voluntarily decide to invest part of their free time (out of intrinsic motivation), and sometimes money, to interact regularly with each other. Sometimes without expecting anything more than the satisfaction of helping others, sharing knowledge, sharing experiences, learning from others, collaborating on projects, and ultimately enjoying with like-minded people their passion for technology in their free time.

Always altruistically, and even seeking the good of others at their own expense, often leading to the formation of strong bonds.

If I had to name some communities that I think would fit quite well, they would be:

• !Hispahack
• Hispalinux
• Local Python communities
• HOT communities
• etc.

That said, I must say that:

• This definition probably does not apply to more than 90% of the communities that exist today.
• Nor does it mean I do not appreciate or admire other types of communities.

The controversy​

The other day, thinking about some classic debates where people from the same generation discussed whether “X” was a community or not, I remembered when my father used to tell me: “what you’re listening to isn’t music, it’s noise!” Does that sound familiar? Personally, I think it’s natural that as we get older, we hang on to our memories and nostalgia for something, and it’s hard for us to accept that things change and evolve into something that we may or may not like.

And more often than I’d like, I find myself in similar debates: is an online community a real community? Is the community of a company a community? Is the community of X a community?, ...

What really matters​

But I wonder, how important is the label we put on it?

My opinion is quite firm on this. I say that, as always, the most important thing is to seek what unites us and not what separates us. We are already in a sufficiently divided, confrontational, and polarized society, to add more fuel to the fire over things that, in my opinion... are trivialities.

Just like people, communities are diverse; you may like them more or less, and everyone will judge which people and communities they like better, seem healthier, or toxic, but in any case, what I say is... let’s try to empathize, always act with respect, sincerity, honesty, and as far as possible... collaborate.

In my opinion, this is the antidote to most problems.

And you, what do you think?

Those who know me know that I am used to giving training and talks to adults, but helping a 7-year-old child learn to study... is something totally different, and it is proving to be quite a challenge 😅.

So today I want to talk about my experience trying to help my son José summarize books, how I have come to feel frustrated by setting my expectations too high, and the conclusions I have reached.

The context​

To give you some background:

• Every two weeks he brings a book from school home.
• These are books that himself and his classmates have brought to class, usually bought by the parents.
• They are asked to fill out a worksheet after reading where they have to make a summary of about half a page.
• These books are like Anna Kadabra, Pokémon, Marcus Pocus, Dog Man, ... which mostly have +100 pages.
• Lastly, they have the "reading challenge" (optional), where each month they are encouraged to choose another book that meets certain characteristics. For example:
  • In January, one with a beautiful cover
  • In February, one with illustrations
  • In March, another with a number in the title
  • In April, one turned into a movie
  • In May, one with an author from your country
  • In June, a graphic novel/comic.

Although most books are recommended for children his age, in some ways it surprises me:

• The length of the books, especially for the pace at which they have to read. Although I suppose it is good because it requires them to read almost daily a chapter, which will help them develop a reading habit.
• The vocabulary contained in the books, sometimes quite advanced, which is good, I suppose.

But I would like to know if I am the only one or if other families also have similar feelings. I encourage you to tell me in the comments 😜.

The frustration​

It all starts when after several weeks, after reading my son's summaries looking for spelling mistakes, I realize that I don't understand the summaries very well. So, with the idea of helping him improve them, I start asking him questions, to see if I can understand the plot better, but still I'm missing characters, or clarifications, or anything else that makes it hard for me to understand the story.

In the end, both his mother and I decided that the best thing would be for one of us to also read the book, so we could help him because otherwise, how would we know if he had missed something important or not?

Well... something that initially didn't seem complicated, I realized was more difficult than I thought 😅.

One of the things I have noticed while reading the books is that every one or two pages, there are words that I suspect he doesn't know, like exhalation, arrogant, seep, utopian, electoral campaign, ..., so every time I read one of his books, I ask him to verify.

Indeed, many he doesn't know, and I always tell him:

José, when you don't understand something...ask what it means! Because if you don't, you're probably not understanding the story well.

I always do it... even when I'm reading Mikecrack stories to him and his brother in bed before sleeping, but no matter how much I repeat it... there comes a time when he stops asking.

But well, once the entire book is read and all the vocabulary is reviewed, we move on to the summary. There, my method consists of reminding him that every story has:

• A beginning, where something usually happens that disrupts the order and:
  1. Creates a problem to solve.
  2. Is the trigger for an adventure.
• Then there's the development (or middle), which is what is told in most of the book.
• Then there's an end (or conclusion), where the situation is resolved, or the story ends, and everything returns to normal.
• And besides this, there are some characters more important than others, without whom the story could not be told well.

And then I ask him to, using those four elements, tell me what happens at the beginning, the most important things that happen before reaching the end, how everything is resolved and returns to normal, and while doing that, explain who each of the characters are.

Well, as you can imagine, despite all attempts and trying to give him hints, because to be honest, even I sometimes find it hard to summarize... I can't get the summary to meet my expectations 😅, which ends in my frustration 😡, for which I then have to apologize to him, explaining that it is not his fault but my own frustration for not being able to help him 😞.

Asking for help from the teacher​

So I said to myself, "OK Raúl, you're not doing it right, ask the teacher for help!" (and that's what I did).

After talking to her, she gave me some advice. Since the books are quite long, she told me to ask José to write down "the main ideas" of each chapter on a separate sheet, and then with all of them, make the summary.

Here are the notes we made from the book Anna Kadabra 13. Danger at the Mansion:

The problem is that when taking notes and making the summary, he sometimes missed important things, like the fact that the supposed villain of the book wasn't so bad (but had been deceived), or he focused on things that caught his attention but weren't relevant, like an anecdote about a secondary character.

But of course... he's a child, how do I explain to him what is a main character or event and what is a secondary one?

I tell him: "if you remove that part of the story or character, can you still understand the story? Is it still the same?" and he says something like... "dad, if you remove anything... the story is no longer the same", and he's not wrong 🤣. So in the end, on more than one occasion, I end up telling him what I THINK is important and why.

Asking for help from my mother​

In the end, I turned to my mother, because besides being my mother, she was my language teacher, and the teacher of many children in a school in Nerja.

She recommended a book that seemed promising: "In primary school, learn to learn - 6: Learn to summarize and take notes", and I, as an obedient son (sometimes 😜😜), bought it.

As you can see on Amazon, the book was published in 2001 (more than 20 years ago!), but what caught my attention was what I saw in the introduction:

Seeing that "in the past" it wasn't until the age of 10 that summaries were learned reassured me. This, along with the last meeting with my son's teacher, who again hinted that I shouldn't be so demanding with the summaries, I've decided to relax and see it from another perspective 🧘💆.

My conclusions​

I have to get used to the fact that the summary is not that important (for now). What is important is that my son:

• Keeps enjoying reading.
• Continues developing his reading speed and comprehension.
• Learns vocabulary.
• And above all, doesn't start disliking reading because after... there's going to be a time of "dad's anger" ;(.

So now what I've asked him to do is that when he reads a book:

• Have a blank sheet of paper at hand.
• Write down all the words he doesn't know.
• And ask Alexa (Echo Show) what they mean, and write them down. I was going to buy him a traditional dictionary... but honestly, I think this way will be faster and he will use it more.

Because from now on, when I read the book, I will see if he has done "his homework" and taken notes, because now instead of putting so much emphasis on the summary, we will try to get him into the habit of looking up what he doesn't understand, so he can learn vocabulary and better understand what he reads.

How do you see it? Any advice? 🙂.

Comments​

Today I am writing to announce that in 🧠 My digital brain I have added a new section to collect resources for people who energize 🌈 Tech communities in the hope that they will help create more sustainable communities over time.

New resources section​

Following the document I produced with help from several people⁽¹⁾ last year (🇪🇸) after the Open Space @ CommitConf 2023, I have published three resources:

• 📄 How to attract new people to our community
• 📄 How to keep people's interest
• 📄 How to encourage new people to give lectures

I have also created several "placeholders" on resources that I hope to develop based on input from the upcoming Open Space⁽²⁾:

• 📄 How to finance communities
• 📄 How do you encourage others to energize
• 📄 Tools to manage a community
• 📄 Other resources for *community leaders

(1) At the end I have added a list of people who have contributed to this work.

(2) Next week is CommitConf 2024, where the OpenSpace on "How to sustain technical communities" that Dani Rey, Oskar Calvo and I have proposed will take place, which will be "the continuation" of last year's Open Space where some of the challenges facing technical communities were discussed.

Communities in recess?​

Are the communities in recess?, are the communities having more problems now than before?

After talking to many people, and in different forums, such as the Open Space, my perception is that there is a general feeling about the drop of activity in many of the technology communities (both in Spain and abroad) in the last few years, especially since the pandemic.

By "drop of activity" I mean a mix of things, but mainly I mean a lower attendance to meetings (face-to-face and online), interactions in mailing lists/IMs, etc.

And this situation, worries those of us who energize communities.

One of the concerns that I have heard recurrently is that the average age of the people who are part of these communities is growing, or said with other words, that it is difficult to attract and engage the new generations.

Personally, I am reluctant to believe that this is because the experience offered by the communities no longer provides as much value to the new generations as other new formats, channels or "forums".

But before we continue... what is a community?

What is a community?​

Or rather, what do I mean by community, or technology community?

Perhaps it is good to start with this question, since for example, during the Open Space, in my opinion, there were times when the conversation revolved around different concepts of "community".

In my case, I talk about what is known as "communities of practice", which in short are groups of people(user groups, associations, meetups...) that:

• organize regular meetings (face-to-face and/or online).
• share a passion / profession / concerns, ... for technology (software, hardware, methodologies or best practices, ...).
• mainly, seek to collaborate with each other, voluntarily and altruistically.
• they seek the common benefit above the particular one (including the particular interest of the organizations that may support/sponsor them).
• are always open to new people.
• feel part of the group and identify with it.

So, I just wanted to clarify that:

1. All this is in my experience and is based primarily on the type of communities I just described.
2. I believe that most of the ideas and tips shared in the documents, can be applied to this type of communities, whether they are local (in small and in big cities), as much as online/virtual, regardless of the fact that each one has its peculiarities.

Having said all of the above, it does not detract from the fact that some of the tips can also be applied to people who are in the business of disseminating online content, or people who organize large conferences.

What has changed?​

Why do those of us who have been energizing communities have this feeling/perception?

To give some context, I started to get involved with this particular type of communities at the university (in ~2009), and since then I have participated, contributed, founded and co-organized quite a few communities, organizing hundreds of meetings (of all kinds).

Based on this experience, I would say that the feeling that activity is declining is mainly due to the fact that it is harder for us to provide value as we did before.

Now the offer is wider and the attention is diversifying with the increase of communities, channels/media (Discords, Slacks, social newtwords, ...), but also the rise of influencers.

Personally I also think that digital contact is eating more ground to the physical, just see that almost everything is done through apps: order food, a cab, talk / chat, procedures with the administration, ... even flirting! 😅 and I have no doubt that this also has consequences.

That is why I believe that it is not that communities do not provide value, but that they simply have to take into account this change of context and reinvent/modernize themselves. Remember, as Albert Einstein said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results."

I hope that sharing some of the advice I heard at the Open Space, and some of my own, will serve to help refloat some communities and help new ones to emerge.

A book I really like that talks about adapting to change is Who Moved My Cheese? 🧀🐁.

Anatomy of communities​

And before I finish, I wanted to share some ideas and resources to share my understanding of communities.

The most basic are the degrees of involvement. I used to explain them this way to my Esri colleagues several years ago (~2017):

After that, Jorge taught me several theories:

• The Orbit Model, which serves as a model to explain that to increase the feeling of belonging to a group, it is necessary to increase the number of interactions and positive impacts between people, and that bonds are forged.
• The 1% rule, which I use to adjust expectations that no more than ~1% will help to energize, nor ~10% participate, although really measuring this is often quite subjective, just like trying to measure a friendship (because at the end of the day, that's what they are).
• The Community Maturity Model, an interesting framework for classifying different types of communities.

Contributions​

I would like to start by thank Dani Rey (@kdarrey) from XantarDev and the Commit team, who made it possible for us to meet last year to share experiences and reflections about this very interesting topic and that has been the germ of these resources.

Below is a list of the names I was able to capture during the Open Space held in April 2023 at CommitConf.

• Attendees representing local communities and events:
  • Dani Rey / @kdarrey, from XantarDev (Santiago)
  • Óscar Calvo, representing Spanish Drupal Association and DrupalCamp (Madrid)
  • Pablo Castro, of the [Linux Programmers and Users Group].(https://twitter.com/gpul_?lang=en) (Coruña)
  • Juanma Ruiz, Roberto García Romero, Javier Pulido, Álvaro Barahona Sánchez, Francisco José Hermoso Baños, from DevopsDays Cáceres (Cáceres), CáceresTech and CáceresDevOps
  • Javier Gutiérrez Fernández, from Pamplona Software Crafters
  • Luis Mesa, from Databeers Sevilla
  • Soraya Muñoz, of The Spanish GNU/Linux Users Association Hispalinux and Machine Learning Spain.
  • Jesús, from Comunidad Python Coruña
  • Pablo, from Córdoba Free Software Classroom
• Content producers:
  • Noe Donato / @vamoacodear
  • Carmen Ansio
  • Martín (Disseminator since 2011)
• Other attendees representing members of the public from these communities:
  • Tomás Giménez from coches.com
  • Marta Rey, Inés Huertas, Gustavo Vargas, and others from Kairós
  • Kini Software from Criteo
  • Reinalia
  • Fabiola
  • Jordi
  • Santiago B. @santyx_error

Sorry for those people I left out!!!, if you read the article you can leave me a message in the comments to add you (or make a PR) 😜😂.

And I also want to explicitly thank: Soraya Muñoz, Juanma Ruiz, and Mariano Pérez Caro for their contributions and reviews to the papers I have shared.

Comments​