Tools and Resources

(and badges!)

Or

How to encourage participation in Evergreen II

Grace Dunbar 

Vice President, Equinox Software
grace@esilibrary.com

Previously, on "How to encourage participation in Evergreen"...

Recognize your Barriers to Entry

  • Insular Jargon
    • (Perl, CSS, C Store, Cron job, MARC, LCSH, Git)
  • Fear of not fitting in to the "clique"
    • (I'm not one of the cool kids)
  • But mostly, we...
    • don't think we're qualified
    • don't want to be wrong
    • don't want to look stupid if we're wrong
    • don't have TIME
  • Choose something small 
  • Choose something that the team has a passion for
  • Build a local team
  • Get together in person!

To Do:

  • Collaborate
  • Embrace (Polite) Contention
    • It's okay to disagree! (In fact, it's actually helpful.)
  • Compromise

Great Teams...

Open Source Communities succeed based on  involvement from all levels of users.

Without it the project will ultimately fail. 

Community participation and time is critical.

What can my organization do?

Be intentional about committing resources.

  • create opportunity/space
  • show up
  • listen  
  • set aside dedicated time 
  • reward involvement 

Allow for wild ideas and failure, after all, you're rewarding involvement, not success... right?

  • You'd be amazed at what people will do for a T-shirt. 
  • Kudos and karma. 
  • Cookies!  Pizza!
  • Buttons, Stickers, Swag, Tchotchkes
  • BADGES!

 

How to show appreciation.

And, finally, never underestimate the power of a kind word.

The full presentation can be found here: http://slides.com/graced/deck

JD Hancock, "Be Mine", CC by 2.0 - no changes

Moving on...

Let's Talk Tools

What do you need?

  • A space to share ideas?
  • A place to chat?
  • A space to vote on ideas?
  • A place to sketch up UI interfaces?
  • A place to write & track requirements/responses?
  • A place to report bugs/problems?
  • A tool for tracking time/effort?
  • A tool for writing documentation?
  • A way to track participation?

So. Many. Options.

  • IRC
  • Wiki
  • Moodle
  • Trello
  • Lighthouse
  • Asana
  • Jira
  • Balsamiq
  • etc. etc.

Barriers to entry

(Do we sense a theme?)

  • Evaluate your needs - overkill is worse than nothing.
  • Is it easy to learn/understand/use?
  • Is it easy to access?
  • Who is in "charge"?
  • What are the "rules"?
  • Is it interoperable?

Trello         http://trello.com

Asana        http://app.asana.com

Tick Tick    http://ticktick.com

Transparent tools for task management

Transparent tools for development / bug tracking

Launchpad    http://launchpad.net

Lighthouse    http://lighthouseapp.net

Balsamiq       https://balsamiq.com

The Ten Commandments

  • Every idea has merit, but not every idea has equal merit
  • Disagree if you disagree
  • Software is not meant to solve political problems
  • Good, Fast, Cheap.  Pick 2.
  • Consensus is not the same as unanimity
  • Someone needs to be in charge
  • Have deadlines
  • Focus on outcomes
  • Don't sweat the small stuff
  • Be kind

Case study

Audience participation...

now's the time to run.

BADGES

Badgecraft for making and distributing badges.

PicMonkey for editing photos/creating badges.

grace@esilibrary.com

Made with Slides.com