Category Archives: open source

TransitCamp

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Want to say congratulations to Jay Goldman, Eli Singer and Mark Kuznicki. Their article on TransitCamp has been published in the February 2008 issue of the Harvard Business Review.

For those unfamiliar with the concept of an unconference – like TransitCamp or the opencities unconference we put on last year – the article is a great starting point.

It’s a wonderful example about how citizens can be engaged in a truly meaningful way. As the website states: TransitCamp was – and will continue to be – a solution playground, not a complaints department. It is as much a celebration of transit as it is a place where people gather to figure out how to make it better.

Much like a NFL game is as much about the tailgating, social/community oriented party in the stadium parking lot as it is about the serious game going on inside the stadium, TransitCamp is as much about celebrating and uniting the transit community as it is about the serious work of figuring out how to make the TTC better.

And, to top it all off, it was a place where ideas get to flourish and are not subjected to consensus and other lowest common denominator approaches.

This, and all sorts of other good reasons, is why HBR made it a breakthrough idea for 2008.

(BTW: Go Pats Go)

Take it, and make it better…

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Here is why I love the internet. It allows anyone to take their idea or research and share it with the rest of us. In this case Johnny Lee shows us how $250 worth of gear can enable us to create something people have been trying for decades to get right. Better still, he shared the code so others could do it too – and even build on his work.

Everything about this video is great. From the idea, to Johnny’s presentation style (which is clear to the non-expert) as well as his casually humour and charming delivery.

It will be interesting to see how Nintendo reacts to this and Johnny’s other innovations.

Sony both set the bar and wrote the book on how to alienate your customers when it launched lawsuits against the owners of its digital AIBO dog (pictured right) who offered up software hacks that allowed the digital pet to do (cool) new things.

So far my google research shows they’ve been silent. This is at least one step up from Sony.

My “top 10″ 2007 blogging moments: #1

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This is, quite possibly, my best moment of 2007. I’ve been promising some friends that I’d blog about it for quite some time – so here we go.

PART 1:

Khale v GonzalesBack in January, Lawrence Lessig – a man whose speeches and books: changed the way I see the world; got me excited about and engaged in open source; inspired me to start fighting for the internet; helped instigate my blog; pulls me (at times) towards law school; and regularly makes me want to move to San Francisco a be part of what is one of the most exciting community in the world – wrote this post.

The post essentially discusses two things. The first half reviews and assesses the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (or the Ninth Circuit for those who know their courts) decision on a copyright case called Kahle vs. Gonzales (broadly themed around the issue of Free Culture that Lessig has championed). The court ruled against Lessig and his team so he dissects their response. In the post’s second part Lessig diagnoses that his argument might have been better expressed visually. He then outlines a model, and a graph, he developed to do just this. Most importantly, he posts the basic spreadsheet on his blog and states:

Again, this is a beta model. I’d be very grateful for any errors identified, or for a better specification of the same. After a review by a couple friends, I will post any corrections to this. At that time, I’ll also include any corrections noted in the comments.

I would do virtually anything to help Lessig and the important work he, and others like him, are doing. Sadly, lacking a legal background I’m not sure how much help I would be in drafting an improved Supreme Court petition (I would probably just waste his time and actually do the cause more damage than good). Designing a better graph however, that is something I can do.

Consequently, I posted a comment on Lessig’s blog where I re-graphed his results but displayed them in a visual manner that I thought made it easier to convey his argument. You can see my comment, along with the reasoning and the new model, here. I of course also shared the model so that others could improve on it.

The best part was Lessig wrote me an email me and thanked me for the help. Words can’t convey how much I’ve wanted to help with this movement/cause. So getting a thank you email meant the world to me. In this space (and virtually every space) I’m a nobody – some guy on the other end of a wire – but I love living in a world where even I can spend a few hours (a lot of hours actually) working on something and do well enough that I can help an expert and leader of a movement I feel so much passion for. I still feel ill-equipped to help out, but that thank you email made me feel like that my small contribution was genuinely helpful. For both those who know me, and those who don’t, it may sound pathetic, but I really couldn’t stop smiling for days.

And then it got better.

Part 2:

One of the nicest people in the world – Virginia Law School professor Chris Sprigman emailed me out of the blue with a note that said:

Hello David.  Larry sent me the message you sent to him, and I’ve been puzzling through your graph.  I’m drafting a petition for rehearing in Kahle, and I’d like to speak with you and understand your methodology, in the hope that we might use your graph in the brief.  Do you have any time to speak later today?

We chatted and I went through a couple of iterations of my graph. And then at some point he asked: Would you be willing to do all the graphs for our Supreme Court petition?

Obviously, I agreed.

So you can see the petition here. Sadly, my original graph that got me involved didn’t make the cut. I don’t make any claims that my work was at all intellectual – I was making graphs. But I’m not sure I’ve ever been happier then the hours I spent tweaking things here and there to see if there was something – anything – I could do to help make this small part of a Supreme Court petition better.

So there it is, number one – for the simple reason that blogs and the internet can allow anyone, anywhere, to contribute to something they believe in. I’ve never met Chris or Larry and they didn’t know me from anyone, but the internet’s meritocratic culture meant that if they thought I could contribute – it didn’t matter – they’d bring me on. And for that I’m eternally gratefully, and will also be eternally willing to work my butt off for them and for the cause of free culture.

My top 10 2007 blogging moments: #10

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The slidecast of my FSOSS presentation on Community Management as the core competency of Open Source gets 750 views in 2 weeks (and counting)

That’s like 50 people a day.

Is this a self-indulgent post? Absolutely. But then any top ten list that starts with the word “my” is probably going to be. That said, it is nice to take stock after just over a year of doing this.

Don’t worry, they’ll get better.

Community Management in Open Source Slidecast

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A few weeks ago I gave a talk at the Free-Software and Open Source Symposium (FSOSS) on how community management is the core competency of Open Source projects. It is a concept I’ve been playing with for a while – thanks to both the prodding and help of my friend Mike Beltzner. Mark Surman, John Lily and the people at Web of Change have also been key in helping move these ideas forward.

A number of colleagues have been asking for the slides and/or the ability to watch the presentation. I’m pleased to say that you can now get both, thanks to SlideShare.

There was a fair amount of discussion during my presentation – which can’t be heard because the audience didn’t have microphones – so I edited the audio file down to 45 minutes. After listening to the presentation I realized I took too long to get to the meat of the subject, so for those in a rush, you may wish to fast forward through the first few slides.

The feedback from the talk itself has been great. You can reviews, good and bad, here, here, here, here, and in the comments here. I’m already working on a second version so if you have any thoughts or comments please do post them below or send me an email.

FireFox 3 Beta and other cool gadgets

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If you aren’t technically inclined, but are interested in impressing your co-workers, consider downloading the recently released beta version of FireFox 3.

This is your chance to look cooler than everybody else in your cubicle farm… pimping out your computer with the latest in open-source coolware.

And since we are speaking of gadgets… Gayle D. recently gave me this very cool pedometer. As some of you know, I try to walk at least one direction to all my meetings. This little device isn’t radically radically changing my life… but it is keeping me aware of my decision to walk everywhere. More importantly it’s enabled me to both set a target of taking 10,000 steps and given me the capacity to measure my progress. This is definitely pushing me make better, healthier decisions.

I’d heard a while back that Ontario Health Promotion Minister Jim Watson pitched to Research in Motion the idea that Blackberry devices should have an integrated pedometer.

I thought was a fantastic idea. Obviously it hasn’t gone anywhere – and to be fair, these advanced pedometers would add to the size of any Blackberry device… but I hope RIM hasn’t dropped the idea altogether.

How to make $240M of Microsoft equity disappear

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Last week a few press articles described how Google apparently lost to Microsoft in a bidding war to invest in Facebook. (MS won – investing $240M in Facebook)

Did Google lose? I’m not so sure… by “losing” it may have just pulled off one of the savviest negotiations I’ve ever seen. Google may never have been interested in Facebook, only in pumping up its value to ensure Microsoft overpaid.

Why?

Because Google is planning to destroy Facebook’s value.

Facebook – like all social network sites – is a walled garden. It’s like a cellphone company that only allows its users to call people on the same network – for example if you were a Rogers cellphone user, you wouldn’t be allowed to call your friend who is a Bell cellphone user. In Facebook’s case you can only send notes, play games (like my favourite, scrabblelicious) and share info with other people on Facebook. Want to join a group on Friendster? To bad.

Social networking sites do this for two reasons. First, if a number of your friends are on Facebook, you’ll also be inclined to join. Once a critical mass of people join, network effects kick in, and pretty soon everybody wants to join.

This is important for reason number two. The more people who join and spend time on their site, the more money they make on advertising and the higher the fees they can charge developers for accessing their user base. But this also means Facebook has to keep its users captive. If Facebook users could join groups on any social networking site, they might start spending more time on other sites – meaning less revenue for Facebook. Facebook’s capacity to generate revenue, and thus its value, therefor depends in large part on two variables: a) the size of its user base; and b) its capacity to keep users captive within your site’s walled garden.

This is why Google’s negotiation strategy was potentially devastating.

MicroSoft just paid $240M for a 1.6% stake in Facebook. The valuation was likely based in part, on the size of Facebook’s user base and the assumption that these users could be kept within the site’s walled garden.

Let’s go back to our cell phone example for a moment. Imagine if a bunch of cellphone companies suddenly decided to let their users call one another. People would quickly start gravitating to those cellphone companies because they could call more of their friends – regardless of which network they were on.

This is precisely the idea behind Google’s major announcement earlier this week. Google launched OpenSocial – a set of common APIs that let developers create applications that work on any social networks that choose to participate. In short, social networks that participate will be able to let their users share information with each other and join each other’s groups. Still more interesting MySpace has just announced it will participate in the scheme.

This is a lose-lose story for Facebook. If other social networking sites allow their users to connect with one another then Facebook’s users will probably drift over to one of these competitors – eroding Facebook’s value. If Facebook decides to jump on the bandwagon and also use the OpenSocial API’s then its userbase will no longer be as captive – also eroding its value.

Either way Google has just thrown a wrench into Facebook’s business model, a week after Microsoft paid top dollar for it.

As such, this could be a strategically brilliant move. In short, Google:

  • Saves spending $240M – $1B investing in Facebook
  • Creates a platform that, by eroding Facebook’s business model, makes Microsoft’s investment much riskier
  • Limit their exposure to an anti-trust case by not dominating yet another online service
  • Creates an open standard in the social network space, making it easier for Google to create its own social networking site later, once a clear successful business model emerges

Nice move.

Open source fun, Open source problems…

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I had a thoroughly enjoyable time at the Free-Software and Open Source Symposium (FSOSS) at Seneca college. I had a great time giving my talk on community management as the core competency of open source communities. The audience was really engaged and asked great questions – I just wish we’d had more time.

The talk was actually filmed and can be downloaded, but it is only available as an OGG file wihch is large (416Mb) but rumor has it they may get converted into a smaller more streamable format in the future. Once the video is available I’ll also post the slides.

Also, I want to thank Coop and Shane for blogging the positive feedback. I’m looking forward to building on and refining the ideas…

One of the key ideas I’m interested in pushing is how “open” open source communities are – and how they can make themselves easier to join. I actually had an interesting experience while at FSOSS that highlighted how subtle this challenge can be.

During one of the lunch breaks Mark Surman and I ran a Birds of a Feather session on Community Management as the Core Competency of Open Source Communities. In the lead up to the session, a leader of a prominent open source community (I knew this because it said so on his name tag) walked up to me and asked:

“Are you running this BoF?” (Birds of a Feather)

Not being hip to the lingo I replied… “What’s a BoF? I’m not super techie so I don’t know all the terms.”

To which he replied “Evidently.” and walked away.

And thus ended my first contact with this particular open source community. With its titular leader nonetheless. Needless to say, it didn’t leave a positive impression.

I’ll admit this is an anecdotal piece of data. But it affirms my thinking that while open source communities may be open – to whom they are open may not be as broad a cross section of the population as we are lead to believe (e.g. you’d better already know the lingo and cultural norms of the community).

There is another important lesson here. One that impacts directly the scalability of open source communities. At some point everyone has to have a first contact with a community – that first impression may be a strong determinant about where they volunteer their time and contribute their free labour. Any good open-source community will probably want to get it right.

The Dunbar number in open source

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For those interested in open-source systems (everything from public policy to software) should listen to Christopher Allen’s talk (his blog here) on the Dunbar Number.

Dunbar’s number, which is 150, represents a theoretical maximum number of individuals with whom a set of people can maintain a social relationship, the kind of relationship that goes with knowing who each person is and how each person relates socially to every other person.

Malcolm Gladwell brought the Dunbar number into popular discourse when he referenced it in his book The Tipping Point.

However, Allen’s talk tries to nuance the debate. Specifically, he wishes that those who reference the Dunbar number would be more aware that in he research literature, the mean group size of 150 only applies to groups with high incentives to stay together. As examples he cites nomadic tribes, armies, terrorist organizations, mafias, etc… in short, groups in which mutual trust and strong relationships are essential for survival. This is in part due to the fact that there is a cost group members must pay to maintaining this groups of this size: one must spend 40% of ones time engaged in “social grooming.” This means sitting around listening to one another, talking, being engaged, etc… Without this social grooming it is difficult to develop and maintain the unstructured trust that holds the group together.

More interestingly Allen’s research suggests that in modern groups there is a correlation between group satisfaction and the size of the group. Things work well between 3-12 people and from 25-80. But in between there is this hole. Groups in this “chasm” are too be too big to use many of the tools (like meetings) that small groups can use, but too small to successfully rely on the tools (such as hierarchies and reporting mechanisms) that allow larger groups to function.

Open source projects (and really any new project) should find this interesting. There is a group size chasm that must, at some point, be crossed. When I’m less tired I will try to wander over to sourceforge and see if I can plot the size of the projects there to see if they scale up nicely against Allen’s graph.

In addition, I’m curious as to whether some softer skills around facilitation would allow groups to function more effectively, even within this “chasm.”

Where are the progressives on Net Neutrality?

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I’m excited to see that the Green Party has included a section on Net Neutrality in it’s platform.

4. Supporting the free flow of information

The Internet has become an essential tool in knowledge storage and the free flow of information between citizens. It is playing a critical role in democratizing communications and society as a whole. There are corporations that want to control the content of information on the internet and alter the free flow of information by giving preferential treatment to those who pay extra for faster service.

Our Vision

The Green Party of Canada is committed to the original design principle of the internet – network neutrality: the idea that a maximally useful public information network treats all content, sites, and platforms equally, thus allowing the network to carry every form of information and support every kind of application.

Green Solutions

Green Party MPs will:

  • Pass legislation granting the Internet in Canada the status of Common Carrier – prohibiting Internet Service Providers from discriminating due to content while freeing them from liability for content transmitted through their systems.

Liberals, NDP… we are waiting…