I’ve been implementing LDP section in our portal for the past two weeks or so. We have finally got it usable enough and devices are pouring out! You can check out more details about LDP from meegonetwork.fi pages. I have written also a few blog entries about and around the topics related to LDP (one here and second here).

I asked people in July Tampere MeeGo Network meetup about whether devices should be loaned to projects being open source only or should so called closed source projects be included too. I gave a thought to things that came up, but still I can’t see very strong arguments why open source community (which MNFI and TMN) should loan devices for free for developers who wish to keep part of the results (such as source code) for them selves. I might sometimes be considered somewhat hostile towards business interests inside open source community. Nevertheless, question that must be asked is: “If you are loaning a device for free and aim to use it to create business with it (create closed source app and sell it), what are you contributing back to community?” Why should we support your pure personal money-making interests?

Of course you can say that you will demonstrate your app at meetup and show how it is done. That is great! But that is the least you should do anyway! What really prevents you to show your code too? Does your code suck? If yes, then showing it to the world might give you a chance to learn how to write better code. That is possible, if one of the fundamental values of Open source is applied. That value is incremental development. That is made possible mostly by sharing code. Keeping your  app (apparently written in low quality code) in your own hands and forbidding access to code for others is a sure way to boost your own ego and push skilled people away.

Both allowed - open source preferred

One possible solution that Attila suggested sounded pretty valid. Both kind are allowed: open and closed source projects. But there is a trick. Solution prefers open source over closed source. If open source project needs a device that is not available, but is used by closed source project, the latter must return device and hand it over to open source project. I’d suggest that device must be returned in a week. That is reasonable time to finish immediate actions and return the device. Reasoning is simple. Community can benefit/learn more from open source solutions. Yet it is better to loan devices, than let them be in storage.

There are plenty of better organizations for doing business apps. If your intention is to deny access to source code and make money out of the app (ie develop money-making apps with open source community devices!), you might better look around and find another organization.

As one of the LDP managers, I’m not saying that I will reject or neglect any of the closed source apps, but I will prefer ANY open source project over closed source approach.

Since I stepped down from MNFI community manager’s position in our last community meeting, I’ve been focusing on Local Device Program (LDP) . What is LDP? In brief, it’s a local version of Community Device Program (CDP) described in MeeGo wiki.  Furthermore, LDP is a pilot project defined and tested in Tampere. We have defined device loaning criteria, process and management. At the moment we are finishing the application form, program description and device listing in MNFI portal. You can read more about LDP from my previous blog entry and from MNFI portal.

I stumbled upon Randall’s blog entry So what is a “Platform or Device Champion”? and it gave me an idea for this blog entry. Two issues raised in my mind: how does device champion relate to LDP? What are the differences between community device program and LDP?

Device Champions and LDP managers

I noticed that Randall describes Device Champions as follows:

Any community member passionate enough to act as a volunteer focal point for platforms or individual devices. That means researching, blogging, presenting, forum posting, leading discussions on email lists, and any similar highly visible activity in the community space. Platform or device champions need not be a subject matter expert or developer but should always be willing to help find one. Note that a Champion may or not be a Recipient. This not an elected or selected position; if you want to help, just do it!

Randall continues to define some bullet points, which might give a little more insight:

• It’s not a formal or paid position. It’s not really a position at all, and strictly volunteer
• Typical descriptive terms are eagerness, leadership, initiative, sharing
• Champions can volunteer to assist with individual devices or entire device platforms
• Persons in the role can help define the role

After reading Randall’s blog entry I started to wonder how this relates to LDP managers. LDP managers are people who are managing the device loaning applications & process, device storage, maintenance, etc. In other words, they take care of pretty much everything. To me LDP managers sound pretty much like Device Champions. Of course LDP is still looking for the final form and things might change in the future.

Now,  let’s take a look at the differences between community device program and local device program.

CDP vs LDP

Both programs aim for same result: getting devices to developers and get more action in application development. Intention is to make developers happy. The goal of CDP is

to put together a framework that makes it very easy for  anyone to contribute devices and have them go to the most qualified community members in exchange for some commitment to do something cool with the device.

LDP shares the same goal, but with local twist:

create a device program with lightweight bureaucracy which operates only locally. [...] LDP is intended to create activity around projects, which involves devices.

Both programs seem to have similar goal, but the methods and practices differ. First of all, in LDP devices are not shipped anywhere. Any registered MNFI member can apply for a device and if accepted they collect devices from storage location (at the moment from Tampere only). Secondly, device providers are not involved in selecting accepted device requests. In other words, they don’t dictate requirements for device loaning. Thirdly, any kind of NDA’s are not involved. Fourthly, we store devices locally in one location, not around the world. This also means that devices can be distributed faster than compared to shipping around the globe. Fifthly, CDP process is maintained by MeeGo project / Linux Foundation. LDP process is maintained by MNFi, but local networks run their own programs. In other words, MNFI coordinates the local efforts and develops the process, local networks execute the plans. Finally, LDP loan process is lightweight; as little bureaucracy as possible.

As stated above, Tampere will function as pilot and if other cities in Finland (or elsewhere) wish to do same, we are happy to assist.

MeeGo Network Finland has been around for about 7 months now. MNFI was born in Helsinki MeeGo Network meetup in December 2010, where I presented the idea of national network. This MeeGo networking in Finland has grown to be bigger than I ever anticipated. Remember that all this started from one off-topic line in hackerspace IRC channel. We have come a long way from there. A lot of marvelous events and activities have been organized.

MeeGo Summit FI

MNFI has organized (first in the world) 2-day developer oriented community driven MeeGo Summit FI. Summit was a great success: around 250 participants, awesome speakers, support from several companies (thanks again!), great open source spirit, lots of fun and a chance to get faces for IRC nicks. Without the efforts and contribution of our members, Summit would have been something else. People were enthusiastic and things just happened.

Plenty of local meetups, apps and activities

MNFI has also organized 18 local meetups in Helsinki, Tampere and Oulu. Most active networks are without doubt Helsinki (7 meetups) and Tampere (10 meetups). The amount of participants in meetups has been rather high, (estimated) average around 30. Based on the above facts, it’s easy to say that:

Our community has created several applications for different purposes. Some of those apps were related to Summit and some were part of Intel’s AppUp. Here’s a few examples. Sandst1 took the lead in creating mobile app for Summit program, Riussi created awesome timing app for Summit speakers and organizers, timoph took lead in developing app for generating bagdes for Summit participants and many more that I can’t remember now. Big thanks goes to Jarrrgh who is our Art Director and was responsible for all graphics (except logo which was tailored by paid designer) and layouts. Several members have started projects and many more are preparing to get started.

Let’s keep in mind that our experiences about creating regional/national community and about organizing community driven Summit have been used in defining practices for others to follow.  This was ‘confirmed’ at SF2011 by Dawn Foster. Latest effort to nurture hacker spirit is local device program, which is about to kick off in the following weeks. Again, Finland is acting as a pioneer. We have reason to be proud of our community.

Step down gracefully

Stepping down gracefully is the last ‘rule’ in MNFI’s Code of Conduct, which was adapted from Ubuntu community. It is time for me to step down as community manager. At the same time I find that hard and easy. I feel a bit sad, because my time as MNFI community manager has been so full of energy and fun. I just love being part of this community. Of course I continue in the community although with less responsibilities (we’ll see about that). My focus will be in my PhD research about how power(influencing decision making etc) is used in MeeGo project. Still, stepping down is easy since we have a lot of talented people to step into community manager’s boots. Besides, manager is not the source of ideas and activities, community is. Manager just does the best he or she can to make things come true. I will not just ‘drop the gloves’ and let new manager survive with the transition by him/herself. New manager might not be aware of all the things that are going on and might need some advices or insight on various matters. Therefore I am planning “to hold new manager’s hand” for a month or so. I hope that new manager will also use blog to give members a view to manager’s head and thoughts.

Again, thanks to all of you. You rock. We rock. MeeGo rocks!

During the past 9 months I have been acting as MeeGo Network Finland community manager. That time has included exciting and frustrating moments, joy and sorrow, but above all it has included a lot of lessons about what is a community manager. Here’s a few things that I have discovered.

Believe in future

When you are lucky enough to be a community manager in some open source community, make sure you believe in the goals and aims of that community. There might be times when you are the only one who can find something positive about the situation. Sometimes the situation is opposite. In other words, you are human too after all. You might loose (some of your) faith in future, but then when you least expect it, community will notice this and help you to get back on track. That is if you are lucky :) I was lucky. I lost some of my faith in MeeGo during the spring 2011, but then some of the community members supported me and expressed their belief in MeeGo’s future. That helped me to rebuild my thoughts.

Kick some ass

Every community faces moments of ’silence’. Community is there, but they need to be pushed a little bit. But be careful! Using carrots works better than stick. Even if there is a valid reason to whip the community, don’t get too tough. Be understanding, respect the fact that at least some of them are using their free-time (which it self is a sign of their commitment) to participate.

Enthusiasm is needed

Community manager who ‘just works’ for the community is doomed. Well, perhaps not doomed, but success is less probable. You have to be enthusiastic to get things rolling. You have to believe in open source communities and culture, you have to be part of the open source community. If you are too ‘old fashion business oriented’ person, don’t expect to be a great open source community manager, at least not straight away. You have to learn what open source is, how it works, what are the values and modus operandi.

Make decisions and take the blame

Obviously decisions need to be made. Every community can not be run in Linus style, where decision making is avoided. Make the decisions, it’s your job. Make sure you listen to the community first, ask their opinions and insight. No matter what you decide, it will never satisfy all. Learn to live with it. Note that decision making might take rather long time, depending on the issue. Keep the discussion alive as long as it needs, and keep the discussion in open. Don’t fall into traps like discussing community issues in closed email circles.

Be consistent, be yourself

Don’t loose your true identity, be yourself. If you are hard core open source believer, let it show. If you start building a ‘manager role’ which is different from your own personality, you will fail (in epic scale). People in your community will see through your mask. That will ruin the trust that might otherwise build between you and community. Trust is one of the most important things in open source communities. If you manage to avoid the above mistake, you are able to be consistent. That means, that others can anticipate you and your thoughts. They will learn what to expect from you. That builds trust.

Throw ideas at the community

Be bold with new ideas, throw them at the community, but be prepared that every idea will not get supported. Your task is to keep community vibrant, alive and bring new life into community activities. Just like in open source projects, you might need to do a lot of work yourself before others get interested. This obviously requires time and efforts.

Listen to the community

A good community manager listens to other comrades (or brothers and sisters). Don’t shut your ears and eyes even for a moment. Be alert and try to probe what is the spirit of community, what they are doing, what kind of stuff might get them more engaged.  Don’t get frustrated if things don’t seem to go forward in the speed of light. Sometimes community is silent, but it takes only perhaps one off-topic line in IRC and then all hell breaks loose, there is chaos, confusion and trouble, but above all there is activity.

An idea of local device program (LDP) has been lurking in my mind for at least 5 months now. Actions to enable ‘hacker lounge’ kind of activity in Tampere New Factory were initiated already  months ago. The aftershock of 2/11 did have an affect on this too. Things have been a bit like hanging in the air. We did receive devices from Nokia already, but those devices are not part of hacker/developer activity now. The devices are either in a box or in the hands of end-users for ‘testing’. Reason for that is simple. There has not been anyone pushing this kind of efforts, no one has been named to be responsible for this, neither has anyone claimed the ownership (as it goes in Open Source) of this project. That needs to change. I’m willing to build this local device program and see how it could run. Perhaps if it a success, perhaps not. Whatever the result is, experience would extend our knowledge about organizing such activities locally. If it would be a success, the model could be replicated around the world. One thing is sure though. We need support from local companies and device vendors, either monetary or hardware.

Purpose

LDP is related to our (Finnish) other efforts to change or renew MeeGo activities described in my previous blog entry about Local Development Ecosystem.The need for LDP has not gone away. On the contrary, more and more often I hear developers (working on different platforms such as MeeGo, Android, WebOS, iOS) desperately crying out for devices for development and testing. The MeeGo project has global device program described in wiki.meego.com and in Randall’s email. LDP extends that program by adding another way for developers to get their hands on devices. In other words, intention is not to replace MeeGo project global efforts, but create an option with lightweight bureaucracy which operates only locally. IMO such programs (meego global device program and LDP) will become more and more important in the near future, when (hopefully) multiple vendors push MeeGo devices into markets. In brief, I wish to build activity around projects, which involves devices. Hacking without devices is like hmmm….making pizza without dough, messy and fun but without meaningful results.

Scope

LDP is not just about MeeGo. I wish to extend device program to include also other operating systems. MeeGo Networks will still remain focused on MeeGo, but we don’t spit on developer who wishes to do some exploration related to some other operating systems too. Narrowing scope or tying developers hands to so called ‘meego devices’ (what ever those might be) or to limit options in search for inspiration and ideas would be against the spirit of Open Source. The less limitations, the more options. If a developer is willing to discover strengths and weaknesses of for example another great Linux based OS and share that knowledge to others, who are we to say no? I’m hacker and a little bit anarchist by nature, and I resist artificial boundaries which are build on trademarks and such. I admit that some rules must be obeyed, but that’s another issue. That’s easy for me to say, since I have no ties to any corporation. I wish to keep our local networks too as independent as possible. Same applies to hardware. Intention is to get wide variety of different devices to hack, not just those which have been tested with MeeGo. I’d love to see experiments on hardware, which might at first seem nearly impossible to run MeeGo and eventually find a way to go around. Another great thing would be building devices by our selves. I know that would require possibly a little more efforts, but hey, people in hackerspaces do that all the time too. Open Source and hacking culture is not about bureaucracy and restrictions, it’s about breaking the boundaries and most important about freedom. Freedom to explore, participate, contribute and incremental development.

Process in a nutshell

Below is another ugly process diagram. A few words about that.

Developer contacts local MeeGo network (organizer) and briefly introduces project idea and need for devices. This is not supposed to be heavy document or full blown project description, but a simple form in meegonetwork.fi community portal.  Then developer signs loan agreement, which is by the way already defined and tested in New Factory activities. In other words, that part is ready in Tampere context. Devices are stored in New Factory facilities, where MNFI has lockable storages. Different vendors are encouraged to donate devices, hardware, components and even money which will be used for buying equipment and other needed items. Device loan time will be rather long (for example 6 months). Then developer uses the device(s) in Open Source project. Intention is also to extend projects to include open hardware related activities, which enables new device innovations. Projects will produce multiple outputs, which benefits whole ecosystem including device vendors, OS and application development and community.

Status and future

I and some other members (Jukka and Matti) of MeeGo Network Finland did have unofficials discussion about LDP with various people in the Meego Conference 2011 in San Francisco. The initial response was good and inspiring. Support for this kind of efforts was given. Agreement about testing LDP concept in Tampere was also agreed, again unofficially and behind the curtains. This program is not official part of MeeGo project, at least not yet. In the following weeks, I will start pushing LDP forward. This is call for action and that includes you.

Tampere MeeGo Network started with strong interest both from network members and companies. First 4-5 meetups gathered 40 to 50 participants. However, TMN has lost some of it’s attraction lately. Partly that is due to MeeGo Summit FI which took a lot of energy from other activities, since most members were involved as volunteer organizers. Furthermore, Summit might have ‘consumed’ some of the need to have social gatherings at least for a moment. That does not explain all though. TMN meetups have been mostly about talking and discussions. There has not been much doing.

Perhaps we should change our focus to gain more attention and regenerate enthusiasm which we had in the beginning. Some of TMN members have expressed need for more hands-on related activity. This is visible in TMN meetup web discussions:

Something more coding oriented. I personally would be interested in something like “come with your tablet and we’ll help you get started”, other guys could be interested in coding camps focused on the other areas.

[M]aybe we could do a two week cadence, i.e. keep the current timeline for the presentations and news oriented meetups, and have a “enter only if you’re willing to code” type event also once a month but with a 2 week offset.

Perhaps the answer is in focusing on projects, which are run by the community. Projects are hands-on, at least application development projects should be, and software development raises new topics, issues, skills to learn and discuss. There are multiple projects going on inside our community. Current projects can best be described as ‘one man shows’. People are scattered in own projects. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it leads to situation that skills, talent, time and resources are wasted. Perhaps it’s time to find a few ideas for joint development project and participate in that even if it is not exactly what one initially wants to do. Some ideas for joint project has already been tossed in the air. One of those is to implement sort of ‘meetup app’, which would be used for making notes about meetups.

Projects are great, but what’s the big picture?

Again I had to make another drawing about the ‘big picture’ behind the projects discussed above. And again, I failed to make a simple model (skill that I lack, but I’m working on it). After a few moments thinking I found out that we have all the pieces to build/start a joint development ecosystem. Oh yes, the current buzz word ecosystem :) Anyway, what we have in Tampere:

• individual small projects (’itch’ is there, but one hand can’t make it go away)
• lots of skills and tacit knowledge
• people have interest to hands-on doing
• two universities (one is tech) and several other high education institutions.
• lots of companies, which have business interests in open source application development
• ideas, both business origin and from community.
• facilities to use as base (New Factory) and platform for projects.
• Virtual tools to enable communication: MNFI portal, mailing lists, IRC channel (#meego-fi)
• large local app development community (TMN: over 110 members)
• connections to other open source communities (hackerspaces, LUG, vapaakoodi, Ubuntu LoCo) and organizations (such as COSS)

All that needs to be done, is to make all pieces work together. In other words, someone to function as glue-gun and shoot! Below is rather complex looking illustration how things could go.

Illustration 1: Local ecosystem to feed app development

Benefits for companies

For companies supporting the above model based development are evident (and nothing new). They can test their ideas in volunteer based projects. They can use the community to implement solutions to practical needs or at least feed the community with ideas. During the projects, people generate more skills and knowledge (tacit knowledge might turn into visible form) which can be used in own product development. Needless to say that new talented employees can be found through projects and networks. New people come in from joint networks such as local hackerspaces, Linux Users Groups and other communities.

General benefits for business

Projects create applications and skills, which can benefit open source community.  New applications can create new startups for new companies and enhance entrepreneurship in Tampere region. Some of the apps would most likely be ready for end-users and could be uploaded directly to existing (and future) app stores.

What is needed

Plan to set up ‘developer lounge’, which would have devices for development and education use has been on ice for some time now. This lounge would be located to Demola, New factory. Need for devices is evident. I stumble upon the need almost daily;  many application developers (pure volunteers and people from startups) face sudden need for different devices. Developer lounge would not be limited to include just MeeGo devices. The support would include also devices suitable for iOS, Android and others. What is needed, is some support from local companies. Someone has to maintain the facilities and lounge. Of course hardware is needed too. Devices can be bought or companies could donate those for development and educational purposes.

To sum up, we have all the pieces to boost local application development and create ecosystem that benefits all participants. We just need to sit around the round table and discuss details. I’m willing to take the challenge, what about you? :)

MeeGo Summit FI 2011 was held at Finlayson area Tampere. Keynotes were at Plevna movie theater and rest of the program - three tracks, MeeGathon competition and Intel AppUp at New Factory. Friday evening party was at Gloria restaurant, which is well-known for cougars and table-dancing opportunities ;)

This Summit was possible because we have a very active MeeGo community in Finland (MNFI) which includes nearly 300 members. Big thanks goes to Hermia, COSS and other partners and sponsors as well. On Friday we handed out 259 badges. Some appeared to venue only on Saturday. Still over 100 did not come, which is bad and good. Bad because a lot of those who really wanted to come were left out (there was over 140 still queuing). Good, because the venue was not too crowded.

Overall impression that I have is that both sponsors and attendees were happy and enjoyed the Summit. Add your opinion as comment to this blog. Some verbal feedback was even flattering. Unfortunately I did not have time to follow sessions due to several responsibilities. Fortunately all sessions were recorded, so I will have a chance to look those after Summit. Those videos and session slides will be put available to summit.meegonetwork.fi as soon as possible. Pictures from Summit can be found from Flickr (search for meegofi).

People were quit eager to tweet about Summit since I counted over 500 tweets referring to Summit (hashtag #meegofi). Some blogs wrote about Summit too, for example MeeGoExperts.com. Our event IRC channel, #meego-summit-fi, had over 70 participants. Normal community channel (#meego-fi) was reserved for organizers during the summit. Even local radio “Radio 957″ had two news about the Summit in their website. Local newspaper did call me couple of times during the Summit, but I did not have time to see if Summit ever was mentioned in Aamulehti(.fi).

Some web stats:

It is not a surprise that program was most popular just after web root. A positive surprise is that visitors do check out sponsors too.

I don’t have the world map indicating browser origin before the summit, but I remember that just before the summit (about 2 weeks or so), just US, Germany, Britain and some other countries were included as origin. After the Summit, visibility is global.

Some tweets:

Feedback from participants

We are gathering written feedback from the Summit participants and deadline for that is 30th Apr. I have taken a preliminary look at the feedback (19th Apr) and below are some parts of it. Feedback form includes 5 selection questions and two free-form fields (topics were: Improvement ideas, Additional feedback). Citations below are from those free-form questions. The amount (N) of respondents was at this moment 64.

Overall impression

Nearly half of the respondents graded overall impression as ‘great’. Slightly under 1/3 felt that event was at least satisfactory and same amount saw it as ‘excellent’. One feedback sums this pretty good: “Venues used could be a little more convenient in general, but overall, you guys did a great job making sure everything clicks from day one.”

Program

Nearly half considered Summit program great. Nearly as many felt that program was satisfactory. 5% were possibly slightly disappointed. The numbers/opinions looks good since program is often the most criticized part of any summit/conference. Some participants did not see any need for long breaks between sessions: “A 45 minutes break between each and every session was maybe a bit overkill and extended the event late into the evening“. Some considered long breaks good. Opinions about facilities divided too. Some saw that “Seminars were nicely spaced so there was also plenty of time for networking and stand-browsing, which is important.”

The content was too shallow to some participants. Some would have liked to  ”see more in-depth presentations, since there definitely were a lot of very competent people who could’ve shared some of their wisdom.” “More technical and detailed presentations“. Of course these comments represent part of the participants view. Those who were happy did not give feedback and say “Ok, content was technical enough“. Nevertheless, we will take this under consideration when planning the next MeeGo Summit FI.

One great idea found in feedback was demo corner: “demo corner for participants to show off hw hacks or apps they have developed“. This was partly the idea of Hacking space at 4th floor, but it could have been emphasized a lot more.

Summit program was packed with different topics from mobile development and OBS to IVI and embedded solutions. Intel’s AppUp was the last part of official program. More than 190 developers gathered to 4th floor to learn about application development with Intel’s tools. After the session participants (190 lucky ones who had registered on time) were directed to hacking space where they received ExoPCs. This device was given for 3 three year loan, after which…well you know :) The smile I saw on people’s faces made me almost cry. My hacker heart was very pleased. Hopefully most of them will register to AppUp developer program, join our organization (meego-fi) in developer program and publish a lot of new kewl apps! That would make another AppUp in Finland more than likely.

Location & premises

Most of the participants were happy with location and premises. Most of the critique was about the arrangements on the 4th floor: “The North and South halls were too close to each other, and the presentations disturbed each other somewhat.” There were two tracks in one big hall. The tracks were separated only with curtain and that did not obviously stop the sounds coming from one track to the other. This is something that can be said to be sort of failure, but that was the best we could do with the given opportunities. Perhaps the best comment was related to weather: “Wish really hard for even better weather next time round.” We should move Finland to better location…that would need a few more sponsors though :)

And what about next Summit?

We did not fail with this Summit, instead we exceeded the expectations of several participants. This two-day Summit is in my opinion a good example (if not reference) for others to follow. I guess it would make sense to arrange Summit again 2012. If you would like to see that happen, join Meego Network Finland (more info #meego-fi) or support us otherwise for example by blogging and tweeting about us.

Oh! Don’t forget to join our organization at Intel AppUp Developer program. Our organization is (for the sake of consistency, dm8tbr loves this;) ) meego-fi and we have over 30 developers already.

This blog entry describes what national MeeGo network is and what it could be. Viewpoint is  teams which are the core of any community. Introduced model is  a refined vision or version which has been build through the experiences in Finland (MNFI). The model described here will not be the last. It is natural for the community to stay constantly on the move. Still some teams are more ’sticky’ than others and that is natural. This stickiness is discussed briefly. The model is not constructed entirely from my own thoughts. A lot of MNFI members (and some others) have been involved by creating practices and guidelines. My role in this is to gather things together and raise some discussion (hopefully). I own my gratitude to all of you, but to name a few cybette, jnwi, timoph, smoinen, Riussi, Ans5i, matrixx, sandst1, bergie, Stskeeps and jibun.

Why teams and not groups?

Before taking a look at the initial teams in MNFI, one might be wondering why I prefer to use the word ‘team’ and not for example ‘group’? According to some scholars and other thinkers, groups are formed before teams. Groups are loose networks or collectives and teams are in fact first only groups. But if things go well, group becomes a team which is more cohesive unit, possesses complementary skills and abilities, share a goal and are committed to achieve that goal. Of course this might sound like pure semantics, but it’s not. Another difference between teams and groups is leadership. In groups leader or leaders define the goals and members are willingly accountable to leader(s). In teams, members hold each other accountable and try to reach consensus on goals and how to approach identified goals. Yet another difference is found how groups and teams handle conflicts. When conflicts arise in group – for example someone is not performing as expected – members look for the leader and expect him/her to act. In teams, members approach the person directly. Final difference I wish to expose is related to decision making. Groups use commonly voting or implied agreement. Teams prefer to use consensus. There are other viewpoints to this, but I will not address those here.

At the global level MeeGo community uses the term ‘working group’. That’s fine, if you are not anarchist and hard core FOSS like me. The word working does not fit in unless you are participating MeeGo related activities as paid staff. Even though I get paid to be community manager, the word still pushes my away. Team as a term is more casual and loose enough and it fits the purpose (at least in national level) which is to get people committed to community.

I would also like to see a clear division between teams and task-forces. Teams are something that are sort of sticky; teams live longer and have more general nature in community. Task-forces are small groups, which are established for special purpose and live only to gain a specific goal. After the goal or goals have been reached, it is disassembled either for good or for some time (for example Program Task-force).

The initial teams

Our national network has been around for about 4 months now. I did have a vision of national level MeeGo network in the early stages, when I started to co-host Tampere MeeGo Network (TMN) meetings with Myrtti. I posted my vision to newly established TMN mailing list with topic: ”I have a dream”. Cheesy and worn, but it says exactly what it was, a dream.  The mail (Oct 25 2010) started with the following:

I’ve had this idea in my head for a week or so and it’s time to spit it out. I can see that a sort of community portal would be needed in the future. The portal would aggregate several info streams and possibly offer some tools for the community. By community I mean MeeGo Networks in Finland. The portal would serve as a single entry point to all local networks, MeeGo related events and activity in Finland.

In the beginning (Oct -Sept 2010) there was nothing more than Tampere MeeGo Network and lost wannabe community manager, which also co-hosted TMN meetups. At the same time Helsinki, Turku and Jyväskylä also started to organize activities. As far as I know, just Helsinki and Tampere have been active since that, but I might be wrong. After we got TMN up and running, the idea of national events matured. After a while,  foundations for the national community were defined when 6 teams were established:

I did not select pieces of puzzle by accident to describe teams. Building community from teams is like doing a puzzle. Sometimes pieces fit perfectly, sometimes not and justified forcing is needed (not necessarily by the manager). Some pieces are connected to several other pieces (gain more focus or have more activity) while some stay near the edge of the board. Unlike in puzzles, the pieces of community can overlap slightly. Too big overlapping in tasks and responsibilities will create disorder and can cause ‘territorial disputes’.  Of course community must be open to new teams or new combinations of existing teams. That’s why there are holes and hooks on the edges of pieces. I could discuss the group dynamics of teams, but it would be out of scope of this entry. Better save that for later.

Right from the start, some members of TMN jumped into teams (which were at first groups). In October some interest towards national co-operation raised in Helsinki. In December Helsinki MeeGo Network (HMN) joined newly born MNFI. This moment can be said to be the real birthday of MNFI. That moment was 1st December 2010 when HMN had meetup in Helsinki and I visited there to tell them about our (TMN) visions related to Summit and national community. Response was good and some joined immediately. You can read more about the early stages of MNFI from previous blog entry.

Let’s take a look at (just briefly) the early teams illustrated in picture above. First of all, it’s a colorful bunch :) Team names have hardly anything constant. One team is called task-force, one does not include the word team and rest are teams which varying prefix. It is said that some amount of formality and uniformity in naming structures is good. In this case, that was not followed. One team name includes even MeeGo community specific jargon (meegons). That name used inside our community is fine, but for the outsiders, from where new members come, it might seem a bit odd and puzzling. Who should we blame for this mess? Well, yeah, no other than me. I have been involved in some communities before and some ideas came from those experiences. Furthermore, since I’m a researcher I read some books and other writings. One good book for every community builder/enabler/manager is  Jono Bacon’s The Art of Community. It includes basics to get you started, but remember that every community is a bit different and you need to adjust those ‘advices’. And that is what I’m doing now, adjusting the model to fit our needs and situation.

MNFI teams were established while keeping two things in mind. First, we planned MeeGo Summit for the spring and teams seemed natural tool for that purpose (clear goal which everyone agreed on). Second, some teams need to stay alive after the summit and form more constant basis for community. This blog entry tries to take a look at life after MeeGo Summit FI, so the focus is on ’sticky’ teams.

Communication & Tech team

This team (for the sake of clarity let’s call it C&T) is responsible our server, national level mailing lists (freenode and meegonetwork), irc Ops and controls our own domain. Freenode is our national level mailing list provider. We use meegonetwork domain for team mailing lists and mail addresses. In other words, C&T is rather tech oriented and looks a lot like company IT department. Before the redistribution of tasks between this team and Marketing team, social media related tasks were sort of ‘no mans land’. Our national level social media were handled by me and smoinen.

C&T lead handled (and still does as far as I know) Tampere MeeGo Network Facebook page. Same lead also manages the LinkedIn group. This is something that is not consistent or clear in our practices, since Marketing team is supposed to manage all social media related services. This will be discussed below in details. This overlapping is an example of previously discussed task overlapping between teams. Even though it might look inconsistent or illogical, these overlappings or sneaking in other team’s ‘backyards’ normally does not matter as long as everyone knows about it. Besides we are not a big community, at least not yet so information spreads inside our community mostly from person to person. People seem to prefer personal communication over posting to national mailing list. This observation is based on the facts that MNFI has around 250 members (based on Meetup.com) and a little over 30 have joined national mailing list. Even our IRC channel (#meego-fi) has more people (over 50). Meetups are also one communication tool, since a lot of issues related to MNFI are discussed there, partly because I have reserved 15 minutes for my self in some of our TMN meetups.

Program Task-force

This team was established to take care of Summit program. Tasks included among others things to define the structure, gather ideas who should be the speakers (and then invite or approach selected candidates), what kind of tracks there should be, where the tracks can be placed and what other activities there could be. This team was based on inviting suitable community members to it. In other words, it was not open team. A of lot ideas regarding the Summit content came from community. Even though the team had responsibility to take care of the program, several community members were involved. For example, a great deal of the Meegathon competition definition was result of community work.

Marketing team

Marketing team has been (or still is) one of the most popular teams. Several members are involved in it partly because it includes a wide variety of tasks from simple leaflet distribution to graphical design. Moreover, the members in this team are highly active. This team is open, meaning that anyone is welcome to join it. Marketing team was previously more oriented to print media and  constructing marketing material such as leaflets, posters and t-shirts. They handle the whole process  from the start to distribution. This means that they design material, contact printing companies, get the prints and organize distribution. In other words, marketing team acts as quite independent unit. Of course they ask opinions from rest of the community, but they do decisions (in marketing issues). Tasks and role of this team has changed lately, but I will address that later.

Hosting team

Team’s duties include comprehensive management of items which affect speaker’s enjoyment. Such items are for example arranging hotel rooms, providing information and assisting in session preparations. Managing pre-registration and registration (including portal) is one of the key responsibilities of this team. Hosting team also takes care of Summit information desk, updates program during the event, tweets and assists Summit participants in various situations. In brief, they are the human touch or face of Summit organizers. They are the people to go to when you have lost your precious laptop, netbook, N900, tablet, shoes, coat, Tux/MeeGon figure or hacking buddy. Information desk is also the correct place to inform the organizers about different activities which summit participants are encouraged to arrange at the venue. Such activities include hands-on sessions for small groups, unconference/barcamp sessions and workhops (or in this case hack-shops).

Hack3r team

To be labeled as Hacker is an honor among us. The word hacker means to us the same as ‘Sir’ does for the royalty. Members of this team are talented in different technical areas and posses deep knowledge. They are not so interested about anything that involves maintaining systems. Instead they are true explorers and tinkerers, always looking for new tech to try. Team members are not overwhelmed in front of technical problems and can think outside-the-box to find solutions.

This team has been responsible for defining ‘developer USB- stick’, which will be given to all Summit participants. That stick will include lots of tools for MeeGo related application development from various sources. The main idea behind this stick is to cut down the need to download all tools at the venue. Furthermore, it will hopefully serve participants’ needs also after the summit.

Party MeeGons

This is probably ‘teh’ team where the party animals join. Members of this team are true multi-talented entertainers; VJs, DJs with ideas for stunning laser shows. Parties are important part of any summit or conference. Because our Summit is developer and hacker oriented event, we do not want to offer our summit participants fancy dinners at mansions or rigid and boring wine tasting. We prefer to have more casual and relaxed parties, which can include ad hoc competitions and shows.

Part of this team’s work is to find location for the party and negotiate necessary issues with facility provider. They are also encouraged to find opportunities to have joint parties with other developing and hacking oriented communities. Also getting a sponsor for the party is important and one of the tasks. In other words, this team is given quite free hands on how the parties are arranged.

That’s enough about the initial teams. You can read more about the teams from previous blog entries (for example about Program Task-force). That was the situation for a few months. Things started to change (in my mind also) around Jan-Feb 2011.

Something old - something new

In February 2011 Marketing Team lead and Communication & Tech Team lead had discussions in which they agreed that some of the tasks need to be redistributed. My initial response was:” This is great! Teams start to behave as teams and define own nature and ‘borders’.” This showed also another important aspect of good and vibrant community. This is how teams and community should work: share ideas and work together as community between teams at least in team lead level. Of course sharing ideas and information between teams in general (including member to member) is highly necessary, even more than in lead level. This is why the importance of fluent communication is highlighted in my new model below.

The need for fluent communication is nothing new to those who have been in communities for some time, yet it is sometimes necessary to remind about that. In the figure above, communication is taken ‘away’ from Tech team. This change should be understood figuratively. Lets take a closer look at communication and the teams.

Communication

Tech Team is still responsible for technical items related to communication. Reason why the word is separated, is that communication is everyone’s responsibility. Simply follow the rule: tell others what you are doing, if you want others to participate or it affects other parts of community.

Tech team lead (cybette) created a marvelous acronym and guideline for the team leads to follow. Team leads are given more responsibility in communication. In our community team leads have been given permission (username and passwd) to use our ping.fm service through which we push information to various social media tubes such as twitter, facebook and linkedIn group. Pushing is mostly generating bigger knowledge about us among the possible new members ie pushing a story out to the marketplace. At the same time we are pulling people in. Pulling is here understood as “focus[ing] to all the ways we use content and the web to pull attention and discussion in.”[source]

Enough with the social media and back to communication. Cybette labeled the guideline as D.S.P!

1. Discuss,
2. Share and
3. Ping!

Issues are first discussed inside teams or in other appropriate collectives. Ones some kind of opinion or proposal has been reached, it should be shared. Sharing can take place for example in our mailing list. The third step is to push information outside, not to keep it all within ourselves. This kind of model is simple and easy to remember. All this has been our practice for some time now and it’s part of the old.

Instead, what is new in this model, is the emphasis on social activities. Of course one can argue that MeeGo networks exist to do system and software development and innovations. This is true, but limiting one’s view to that neglects the other significant strengths of MeeGo ecosystem, namely social events.

Event Team

Having real world meetups - preferably monthly - are unique features of MeeGo ecosystem. Ubuntu or Android community does not have similar meetups. The closest thing to regular MeeGo meetups  are hackerspace events. More about hackerspace you can read from my other blog and from previous blog entry which compares MeeGo networks and hackerspaces.

This unique feature which differentiates us from other Open Source ecosystems affects our community structure and practices as well. We need ‘event team’. We need a team that coordinates our national level events and acts as a context to discuss issues related to monthly local meetups and other social events in local (cities) level. In other words, this team would be the core Summit organizing team. The other aspect - organizing meetups - is discussed below in details.

This team includes the previously discussed Hosting team. I would bring meetup organizers (and co-organizers) to this team. Until now, their important role has been neglected. They have existed, but without any clear position or context in our community. This is partly understandable, because in our community local MeeGo networks are independent from the national body. Still, remaining independent they should be part of our core activities.

Meetup organizers

Let’s take a look at what meetup organizers do, why they are valuable and why they should be included to ‘event’ team. Five duty areas can be identified: general level meetup organizing, sponsor negotiations, meetup promotion, inspiring and activating members in local level, and starting Summit preparations and acting as core Summit organizer team.

1. Organizes meetups

Well, obviously they are responsible for the meetups. This means finding locations to hold meetups, print the nametags, makes necessary arrangement with facility owners, is our local contact person and face to outside world. Concerning the space, best option is to get fixed location which has enough space and at least adequate setup for presentations. Otherwise you might end up running behind the sponsors instead of making them come to you.

This also includes sketching agenda for every meetup. It does not how ever mean that organizer should generate topics for presentations. Instead he/she should encourage members to suggest presentations and collect those as agenda. Tool for this might be local mailing list, as we have in TMN. Mailing list also helps to keep members informed about different issues and fosters activity even between the meetups. We have used meetup.com services as well. It has been the main tool for organizers. Yet our intention is to get rid of it as soon as possible. Not that it’s completely screwed, it has some features that are not as good as they could be. We will implement similar (yet improved) service in our national level portal.

2. Negotiates with sponsors (others help to get)

Often sponsors can be easily found or persuaded to take part. At least in Tampere, sponsors have been interested to be part of us. Previous sentence expresses the way I see sponsors’ role in our community. They are not ‘others’ somewhere outside the community. They are part of the community. We should listen what they say, but not loose our ability to remain independent. They must also know that they are seen as part of the community.

3. Takes care of meetup promotion

This taks is part of our marketing and communication. Putting our events to meego.com events list, the world around us can see that we are active and alive. Listing events can also attract new members. Adding our events to meego.com events is also one form of communication towards global community. By doing so, we tell rest of the community that ‘hey! We are here, we are plenty and we do interesting things!’ We have been adding our events to vapaasuomi.fi calendar too, but that is somewhat too laborious and it has been neglected lately. It would be a great place to put info, since it distributes event details for example to ubuntu-fi.org’s frontpage.

4. Activates members to contribute

Meetups need presentations, demos, implementations and permanent or casual co-organizers. Meetup organizers should be innovative, explorer like personalities. They should be bold in ideas. They are supposed to inspire members with different ideas. Let the members act as filters, they will tell you whether your idea is mad, insane, impossible or great, inspiring and a little from outer space. Flying drone is an example of such goofy idea. We tried that in Tampere and right after that in Helsinki. People talked for weeks about that presentation and drone flying around. It even inspired some members to start developing new application to drone.

5. Start Summit preparations

Main responsibility to get annual summit preparations going (includes building necessary teams). and meetup organizers are supposed to work together. Why put Meetup organizers to begin Summit organizing? First of all, they are at least monthly in touch with the people in our cities where meetups are organized. They hear what is interesting, they discuss with a lot meetup participants. Secondly, they know the facilities in their area probably pretty well. Thirdly, they are constantly in touch with local companies (which are commonly also multinational) because of meetup sponsoring. In brief, they are are extremely well connected people and they should be encouraged to be so.

Of course meetup organizers are not alone in starting Summit preparations. In 2011 Summit preparations Program Task-force took the lead in overall planning. Reason for that was simple. Community manager and two other initial promoters of the Summit worked in same company (Hermia) and were located in same city. Two of these key persons were in the Program Task-force as well and the third knew the facility providers in Tampere extremely well and was experienced event organizer. This triangle formed the ‘high council’ to make last decisions after discussing issues with others. In other words, even if Event Team would start the preparations, some kind of ‘general management’ team -even if it is distributed in several teams – will most likely be established and some outsiders can be included if necessary.

Additional activities

Meetup participants often continue the night after meetups. These events or activities are not really tasks of organizer(s), since post-meetup gatherings for example in nearby bar often occur without interfering. At least in HMN and TMN people go to nearby restaurants after the meetups for a few beers. In Tampere, sometimes nearly half of the meetup participants (normally around 40-50) attend the post-meetup gatherings. The significance of post-meetup meetings is mostly related to networking and continuing discussions which started at meetup.

Another possible task for meetup organizers is to act as contact person between other local communities and MNFI/Local MeeGo Network. An example of this could happen in Tampere. In Tampere we hold our meetups at Demola. Demola is now building some kind of developer lounge, which is supposed to be a place where Demola visitors and student can get their hands on different devices.  Those devices will also include MeeGo OS.  The lounge is as far as I know planned to be used also as demo site, where applications and other presentations could be held. I would like to see presence of TMN and MNFI in that lounge. By presence I don’t refer to maintaining the space, but more like a chance to attract more people to MeeGo activities and spread knowledge about MeeGo. This would be important since visitors of Demola often include key members of local companies, students and City officials. Having meetups in fixed location would enable deeper cooperation with the facility owners.

As it can be seen, meetup organizers act pretty independently and that’s how we like to keep it.

Marketing team

This team was discussed earlier and the role of team is changing already. In our February community meeting, responsibilities between marketing team were altered. This was due to too high overlapping in tasks and responsibilities with the Communication & Tech team.  Now this team is responsible for: marketing material such as posters and leaflets, media policy, website content policy, social media accounts, press releases and other press related issues. In addition to that, Marketing team lead acts as community managers right hand or side kick. Now the task and responsibility division between the above teams is more clear since C&T is now responsible for: MNFI portal development, Summit venue IT infrastructure/connections, Live streaming of presentations during the summit, video interviews (speakers etc.), App for summit program (summit program related, not Intel), Summit registration tech, IRC channel(s) (ops) and Mailing lists (freelists.org, meegonetwork.fi).

Development team

Members of this team are still true hack3rs! Just the name is different. One of the new responsibilities of this team is to manage our ‘organization’ and members of it in AppUp Developer Program (Intel). This team will continue (hopefully) in developing tools for us. In other words, they stay with the code and hardware hacking. I guess this team is how most people (the great public) see Open Source communities, bunch of coders.

Task-forces

Of course all the things do not fit into the above teams or if one team is stuffed with loads of tasks and members it will become hard to manage. Remember that optimal team size is 7-12. People can not always participate in team work, they will be absent sometimes even for weeks. Then if team size is less than 7,  the broadness of skill is not enough and absent members make ‘holes’. Again, if there are more 12 members, it will make management and coordination harder (but not impossible).

Therefore, it is necessary to set up task-forces, which were discussed in the beginning. In the previously introduced structure of MNFI Event Team and Marketing Team has some gray puzzle pieces. They represent the task-forces. These little units can overlap between teams more than normal teams, but they will live for relatively short time and for specific purposes.

Closure

So this is my view how MNFI could be restructured. The moment for another redistribution of tasks is not now. Suitable time could be after MeeGo Summit FI, after which some kind of restructuring is necessary anyway. Of course all the above is still rather vague and by no means perfect. Also the role of portal is still unknown, since building of it has just began and no-one really knows what it will be. Hopefully it will make some tasks easier for all and unites information flows. As a recap, below is current and new (possible) MNFI structures.

Current

New

Any thoughts? Just add comment below. Feedback is always welcome.

Most of people working with or around MeeGo should be aware of the decisions Nokia announced Friday 11th Feb 2011. In brief, Nokia announced that the new strategy includes “a broad strategic partnership with Microsoft to build a new global mobile ecosystem; Windows Phone would serve as Nokia’s primary smartphone platform.” According to Nokia (Elop) this does not however exclude participation in MeeGo development, “MeeGo will place increased emphasis on longer-term market exploration of next-generation devices, platforms and user experiences. Nokia still plans to ship a MeeGo-related product later this year [2011]“. After a week there is no detailed information what this means for Nokia people working with MeeGo. At least some have continued with MeeGo, some not. In my eyes, this item is just a bump on the MeeGo road, a bump which was needed. Why?

Bumps are needed.

Personally I needed this bump, but perhaps the global community needed it too. It has been rather hectic during the last few months. It gave me time to evaluate our efforts and take a breath. It also forced me and perhaps others too to reconsider the role of MeeGo community. By community I refer to all who participate in MeeGo development including paid staff and volunteers. Bumps are rarely pleasant, but often needed to get new angle to issues at hand. The amount of uncertainty what is going to happen to a lof of developers and MeeGo, was probably the biggest issue to raise unpleasant feelings. For the community, bumps like this one, are tests to processes and ability to react to different changes that occur without any warnings. Healthy community is ready for such bumps and has created tools and methods to overcome problems and challenges to continue forward. The worst thing community can do in such situations, is to sit and wait. Ok, even worse is to look back and fall into self pity. Wait for what? Salvation from outside? It might come or not.  Silent revolution is on! Redistribution of power is on! There will be no big guns blasting and people on the streets. The longer community is without clear direction, the more people get frustrated and start to flee,  search other projects and areas to contribute. Community needs to react, not wait, and it has. During this week, two things happened: Community responded and Intel took the lead.

Intel took the lead…

Intel has been the other partner in developing MeeGo with Nokia. Now that Nokia decided to go with M$, Intel took the pole position. Nokia has not been able to tell community what it is going to do with MeeGo. They say things like participation with “significant amount” of resources. That’s good, but how long is the community supposed to wait for something concrete? This shift in lead was visible in Intel’s efforts during this week. Intel has thrown all-in.

Intel has mobilized own activities and dragged several others to engage too. The moment for shifting to bigger gear was right and the place for it was Mobile World Congress 2011 in Barcelona. In MWC and around the world several news, announcements and technology demos have been related to MeeGo. Here’s a few:

1. Intel began to push AppUp developer program more aggressively (competitions and free of charge membership in developer program). MeeGo Network Finland is there too as ‘meego-fi’ organization with nearly 20 members.
2. Intel’s MeeGo AppLab at MWC. More Intel MWC
3. MeeGo TV (preview) was introduced (youtube)
4. Splashtop Releases MeeGo-Based Splashtop OS for OEMs
5. Intel introduced their view on MeeGo tablet UX (Odd is that sources are not contributed to community, hopefully changes soon)
6. Fujitsu introduces its First MeeGo™-Based Netbook in Asia Pacific
7. MeeGo Tablet UX on WeTab / ExoPC (youtube)
8. NPad MeeGo-powered tablet to combat the iPad in China this fall

In MeeGo Network Finland

In our community (MNFI), scale of feelings has been broad. In general people have been quite peaceful. Under the surface some of the hardcore FOSS people have perhaps felt somewhat disappointed. At least I did and still do. To me this bump was also a kick in the teeth, giving the finger to FOSS. This kick did not drop me to floor. Instead it raised fighting spirit. Some others have felt the same. People see future in Open Source, not in grasping to closed source solutions. I must admit that I’m biased, since I love Open Source and hacker culture. Both of which hardly ever include loving feelings towards closed source solutions favoring corporations. The image on the left represents just my own ideology, not everyone in our community.

Bumps and MeeGo Summit FI

Summit was on hold for a week or so. We were waiting for the dust to settle and give some time for the sponsors to regroup their forces. This was most unpleasant time for me. Now situation looks more bright. At this moment we proceed as planned. I did push the people responsible for the sponsoring to do something, but they told me to wait. And so I did :) A few speakers might be cancelling thei participation, but that can be overcome rather easily. We haven’t asked the speakers yet whether they are coming or not. Instead, some of them have approached me (such as Kate Alhola, Carsten Munk and Jan Krebber) and informed that they will come. Biggest loss is that Thiago Macieira cancelled his participation, but that was due to personal reasons and had nothing to do with the events described above. Intel and some other sponsors have already confirmed to stay with us. Intel has confirmed to sponsor Meegathon competetion. In addition to some hardware prizes Intel “is thinking about a special prize for the Meegathon – and will come back to that later”. It looks that if big setbacks do not occur, we will have the summit as planned. Interest towards the summit is still huge. People are signing to queue for cancellation seats. In brief, regarding the summit, nothing new in the Western Front.