[ug-discuss] Re: [osol-mktg] Community Consolidation -- Marketing & UGs

[Jim Grisanzio]

Bruno F. Souza wrote On 04/07/07 00:17,:
> 
> On 06/04/2007, at 04:22, Alan DuBoff wrote:
> 
>> On Thursday 05 April 2007 04:42 pm, Jim Grisanzio wrote:
>>
>>> Absolutely true. But there's a little 'but' in there, too. Each user
>>> group has their own list but I had wanted ug-discuss to be the  meta 
>>> list
>>> so that members of all user groups could potentially talk to each  other
>>> easily to share ideas, stories, materials, etc as well.
>>
>>
>> But if we form small communities within, we end up being divided,  to 
>> some
>> extent. I believe if we do that we encourage segregation, my 2 yen.
> 
> 
> Right, and this is good :-)
> Small communities that share common local interests, that join local  
> developers. This is all positive.
> 
> You have to realize that when you talk about people, there is already  a 
> segregation. People are physically separated. They speak different  
> languages. They are convinced by different arguments. The idea that  
> communities are formed as "one global community" is false. The global  
> community is the merge of small local groups of friends, like people  in 
> a University or a Company. Those expand their activities to form  local 
> (city-wide?) groups of interested developers that promote  activities 
> together (those are the ones we call UGs). Those can work  together with 
> other, nearby groups, maybe promoting a larger event  that join a few 
> UGs into some common activity (next week we'll have  in Brazil several 
> events organized by around 20 JUGs. Other exemples  are UGs joining 
> together to work on translations and even open source  projects).
> 
> The fact is: it is easier for a developer to interact with local  peers, 
> in the local language. This is what the "global community"  will never 
> be able to achieve. By being "global" the community is  huge, and 
> overwhelming. Only the most daring, english-fluent, with  large 
> experience, can survive or be noticed in it, and them they  become "hard 
> to reach, everybody competes for their attention" global  "stars". Local 
> communities create local leaders, that act to  influence even larger 
> local communities, and that can at some point  become global leaders 
> also. The (comparatively) few local developers  that can survive and 
> strive on their own on the "global" community  will continue to do so, 
> and can act as the link between the local and  the global community. But 
> they will also become local stars, making  the local developers proud 
> and hopeful that they can also "get  there". This is all positive. 
> Thinking in other areas, this is why we  have University sport leagues, 
> state leagues, national leagues and  worldwide sports leagues. To build 
> up pride and confidence from local  to worldwide. By the nature of open 
> source projects, that are done  over the network, with centralized 
> accessible code to everyone, we  tend to forget that local activities 
> matter.
> 
> Strong local communities are needed for influencing universities,  
> companies, and also governments, to adopt or invest in a product or  
> technology. The close contact, and also the understand that there is  
> local knowledge, support, services, etc, makes the technology much  more 
> real and useful to everyone. It lowers the risk when you know  your 
> neighbors are also doing this. By only having the "global"  community, 
> there is no local organization that can act as a place to  come and 
> discuss one's problems. And we all know that we tend to  think that our 
> problems are different then the rest of the world's  problems, so, local 
> groups can discuss the "local" problems (even  when they are the same) 
> in a much better way.
> 
> So, no, this is not creating segregation, it is just recognizing that  
> people are already separated by location, customs, language. And  build 
> on this strength. The global community can never come to a  local 
> government or company, and explain in terms they can  understand, why 
> adopting OpenSolaris is a good thing. But we can  explain this to one 
> local person, that can then do the same to many  others. This is the 
> essence of UGs.
> 
> Bruno.
> ______________________________________________________________________
> Bruno Peres Ferreira de Souza                         Brazil's JavaMan
> http://www.javaman.com.br                      bruno at javaman.com.br
>          if I fail, if I succeed, at least I live as I believe





I agree with a lot of your observations and experiences here. I think we 
(all of us, I mean) are getting closer to a clean-up strategy here. 
Let's give this a few more days to see if we get any other opinions. 
Then later this week I'll summarize the comments on the thread and see 
if we can agree on some basic issues and move ahead on a stepped 
approach and then address areas of disagreement later or in different ways.

Thanks ...

Jim
-- 
Jim Grisanzio http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris