Handcrafting Community

Carina C. Zona

Good morning. [As JEAN said,] I'm Carina Zona. At the speaker's dinner last night, we started realizing that many of the talks this weekend will touch on themes of community. I can't wait. Because it's a topic I'm personally passionate about. So. That means: communities and passions are how we'll kick off this day. This one is called: Handcrafting Community.

Community

I'm a developer. But my career didn't start with any of the startup stereotypes. I spent my whole career working alone in the suburbs. Where user groups wobbled along and rarely outlasted the attention of a founder.

Community

So I assumed that some places just have too few people for us to build community around. But that doesn't hold water when you look closely enough. I've watched vibrant communities form from the efforts of just one person, or two.

Community

So I started to get curious...

Community

"Community" is a word we throw around a lot. We apply it to many things. The communities I've grown curious about are the old-school kind: they're in-PERSON, and have a geographic location.

Community

Community members' identity and social ties are grounded in certain qualities:

Share

They share: [SLIDE]

Share• intentions• values• beliefs• resources

• needs• sense of

purpose• cohesion

They share: [SLIDE]

Builders

[SPACEBAR TO BEGIN]

BouchardAdamBurlington RubyConf

Burlington Web Application Group

Curiosity leads to interesting places. I've gotten to know many builders of our coding communities. Asked how their communities started. And how those have grown. How they've survived rocky periods, and become self-sustaining. I've observed, chatted, interviewed, and listened. Asked about their successes, as well as regrets and failures.

CardarellaBrian Boston Ember User Group

Boston Ruby User Group

RailsCamp New England

Wicked Good RubyConf

Curiosity leads to interesting places. I've gotten to know many builders of our coding communities. Asked how their communities started. And how those have grown. How they've survived rocky periods, and become self-sustaining. I've observed, chatted, interviewed, and listened. Asked about their successes, as well as regrets and failures.

NeugebauerChris PyCon Australia

Curiosity leads to interesting places. I've gotten to know many builders of our coding communities. Asked how their communities started. And how those have grown. How they've survived rocky periods, and become self-sustaining. I've observed, chatted, interviewed, and listened. Asked about their successes, as well as regrets and failures.

McAdamDesi DevChix

RailsBridge

Curiosity leads to interesting places. I've gotten to know many builders of our coding communities. Asked how their communities started. And how those have grown. How they've survived rocky periods, and become self-sustaining. I've observed, chatted, interviewed, and listened. Asked about their successes, as well as regrets and failures.

LehnardtJan Berlin CouchDB

Berlin JS

JSConf EU

OpenTechSchool

Swhack Berlin

Curiosity leads to interesting places. I've gotten to know many builders of our coding communities. Asked how their communities started. And how those have grown. How they've survived rocky periods, and become self-sustaining. I've observed, chatted, interviewed, and listened. Asked about their successes, as well as regrets and failures.

NollerJesse PyCon U.S.

Python Software Foundation

Curiosity leads to interesting places. I've gotten to know many builders of our coding communities. Asked how their communities started. And how those have grown. How they've survived rocky periods, and become self-sustaining. I've observed, chatted, interviewed, and listened. Asked about their successes, as well as regrets and failures.

McKellarJessica Boston Python Workshops

Python Software Foundation

Curiosity leads to interesting places. I've gotten to know many builders of our coding communities. Asked how their communities started. And how those have grown. How they've survived rocky periods, and become self-sustaining. I've observed, chatted, interviewed, and listened. Asked about their successes, as well as regrets and failures.

RemsikJim Madison RubyConf

MadUX Conference

Snow Mobile Conference

Curiosity leads to interesting places. I've gotten to know many builders of our coding communities. Asked how their communities started. And how those have grown. How they've survived rocky periods, and become self-sustaining. I've observed, chatted, interviewed, and listened. Asked about their successes, as well as regrets and failures.

PaganoJulie Girl Develop It Pittsburgh

Curiosity leads to interesting places. I've gotten to know many builders of our coding communities. Asked how their communities started. And how those have grown. How they've survived rocky periods, and become self-sustaining. I've observed, chatted, interviewed, and listened. Asked about their successes, as well as regrets and failures.

LeahyLiana Boston Ruby Women

Open Source Code Crunch

RailsBridge Boston

Curiosity leads to interesting places. I've gotten to know many builders of our coding communities. Asked how their communities started. And how those have grown. How they've survived rocky periods, and become self-sustaining. I've observed, chatted, interviewed, and listened. Asked about their successes, as well as regrets and failures.

HaughtMarty Rocky Mountain RubyConf

Ruby Central

Curiosity leads to interesting places. I've gotten to know many builders of our coding communities. Asked how their communities started. And how those have grown. How they've survived rocky periods, and become self-sustaining. I've observed, chatted, interviewed, and listened. Asked about their successes, as well as regrets and failures.

AllanPat Melbourne Ruby

RailsCamps Australia

Trampoline Day

Curiosity leads to interesting places. I've gotten to know many builders of our coding communities. Asked how their communities started. And how those have grown. How they've survived rocky periods, and become self-sustaining. I've observed, chatted, interviewed, and listened. Asked about their successes, as well as regrets and failures.

BrownPeter BurlingtonJS

BurlingtonRuby

Burlington RubyConf

Burlington Web Application Group

Curiosity leads to interesting places. I've gotten to know many builders of our coding communities. Asked how their communities started. And how those have grown. How they've survived rocky periods, and become self-sustaining. I've observed, chatted, interviewed, and listened. Asked about their successes, as well as regrets and failures.

De VoursneyRenéeRailsBridge

So. Today you'll hear some personal stories, collectively, and in their own words.

AllenSarah RailsBridge

So. Today you'll hear some personal stories, collectively, and in their own words.

MeiSarahRailsBridge

So. This morning you'll hear personal stories, collectively, and in their own words.

LaundySashaWomen Who Code

So. This morning you'll hear personal stories, collectively, and in their own words.[SPACEBAR]

“You can put on good presentations, and have beer and pizza. People will show up. But it's really different when people start to feel like these are friends. That there's shared history between them.”

Small is good.

It started with the 3 of us on my deck. We didn't have set intention for what it would be become. We just wanted to have some interesting dialogues.

In smaller towns, filling events is harder. But we treat it as opportunity to extend reach within communities, through partnerships.

Networks are a safety net.

I knew that I had enough connections that it wouldn't be a catastrophic failure. That gave me the ability to make that leap of faith that I would be supported regardless.

Build selfishly.

I didn't feel like the existing groups were a good fit for me. I'm a coder, but I don't feel like I live for coding. The groups at the time weren't the type of people I could connect with.

It didn't feel right. Very neckbeardy. Very reddity.  It wasn't bad, but I didn't feel like a fit with it. Then I met people who felt more like-minded.

I wasn't sure whether anyone else felt what I felt, and wanted it too.  What I learned is that if you feel a certain way, you are probably not the only one.

You think it's like throwing yourself a birthday party. You worry that only your friends will come. You don't expect anyone to show up. Then they do.

Yes, introverts.

I'm a shy person. But through this, I've learned to connect with people and why it's important. I've gotten good at it. It is all about the strength of crowds.

I was way less outgoing than I am now. A side effect of doing the group is that it's practice talking in front of people casually. It helped me deal with a lot of stage fright. Now I feel comfortable. It's been like therapy in a way.

Explicit values.

Folks should always understand explicitly why they're doing this, and seeing whether they're achieving what they want to achieve.

Value:• Unifying principle• Organizes choices• Beacon to others• Sets course of action

It's a community call to action.

“Challenge”

(such as)

I was not used to being challenged. Not used to being surrounded by people much more advanced than me.  It was really inspiring.

“Accessible”

(such as)

There was a lot of discussion about a potential venue that wasn't wheelchair accessible. We concluded that it's not fair that someone might not be able to participate.

“Pipeline”

(such as)

It's not a single event. We view it as a pipeline. It's a starting point. Before leaving, we call out the next one for them.

“Diversity”

(such as)

What we set out to build was for anybody who shares common interest in diversifying the community.

We're trying to develop a diverse community for all.

It's a break from the mainstream.  An alternative for those who want the space.

“Equality”

(such as)

The "everybody pays" rule is part of our ethos of "Everyone comes together, everyone is part of community".

Networks can save your butt.

I picked organizers brains a lot. People in the valley who had the most successful meetups."How can I not fuck this up?" I didn't know people would be so generous about that.

I invited everyone I knew personally.  Then reached out to my network.  Mentors and supporters reached out to their circles too.

The connections you know — the people you can rely on to get your back — are exceedingly important. How do you know you're not just running blind? Or duplicating work? How do you get support? How do you know when your idea sucks?

Networks are not mandatory.

I didn't really know anybody. It was really weird how word got out. People got excited. People followed the Twitter account. Someone built a website. It grew organically. It was really freeform. It started to build momentum.

Put word out beyond your reach.

Use social media, use friends, use networks, to start building. Start to spread word. People will help you.

I made it really easy to spread the word. The person didn't have to do anything but hit a button to share it. I made it simple for them to understand and communicate in one sentence.

Tiny is exactly right amount.

Let it grow slowly.  Get people identifying with the group and being its leaders.

It has empowered a lot of leaders who wouldn't otherwise speak or get involved. They start their own groups. They do other things.

Build sociable.

“Plenty of people attend events not for the talks but to meet people, to connect with peers. Do what you can to encourage these opportunities."

Failure, whoooo!

Elevators broke. So we squeezed everyone into one room. Some were unhappy. But then people started talking about shared experiences. So now we do it that way on purpose.

Forkable community.

Write a how-to, so that if someone wants to do one in their region too, they can just clone it and adapt to their needs.

The framework is there now. So even if the current team isn't there next time, it'll be okay. It'll keep building.

Make it really easy for others to create their own events. They don't have to think about how to, because they already know.

We made it a workshop in a box. So organizers can unbox at the next event. They don't have to do all the work to make a high quality event.

Forkable CommunitiesBerlinJS

Boston Python Workshops

JSConfEU

Open Space Technology

OpenTechSchool

PyLadies

RailsBridge

RailsGirls

Ruby DCamp

SuperHappyDevHouse

Trampoline Day

Indispensability is a bug.

Life circumstances change. Volunteers come and go.

It's hard to get people to do the big work. Stuff that takes commitment to follow through. I think that's why a lot of groups collapse.  If I left, I wonder if ours would collapse too.

I've had trouble doing delegation. I tended to do it all myself. I've learned to let go.

You do need someone who the buck stops with. But if I disappeared, I suspect everything would go away. We haven't figured out how to not have a single point of failure.

What I'm doing, I'm responsible for. But that doesn't scale very well.

If one person is driving a thing, is it truly a community? Or is it just a person?

One person can start something, but it takes a lot of people to maintain it.

Self-replicate.

You should always be training your replacement. Don't wait until you need one.

It was really great getting people to become leaders in the community. People who were programmers in their day job, becoming more leaders in the community.

Now we get alumni coming back to contribute as volunteers. Starting to become organizers. It's all coming full circle.

There isn't any one leader.  We share.  That's important.  No one has to get burned out.

For communities to exist, you have to involve lots of people, and have lots of people supporting it.

I helped spark it, but I'm not involved anymore. There are 30-40 volunteers now keeping it going, which is mind-blowing.

CoworkingHe had an office for himself but others could drop by. Slowly the numbers grew. There was a growing sense of community and shared ownership. A much-loved coworking space.

Coworking

Co-Up

Handcrafting is personal.

I was doing the regular startup life. I felt drained in my work and personal energy. I felt that my work should be positive and sustainable and moving the community forward.

I'm most interested in improving the existing long-term community over the long term, rather than creating a new one.

A ton of hard work, often thankless, and almost never financially rewarding.

Hacking communities can be exhausting. It can be depressing. Sometimes you pay a high price —

— But that doesn't mean stop. It means go faster. So the next person will benefit and do it better.

“Keep building what you're passionate about. Keep going. It'll pay off.“

Craft the community you want.

“You start with this tiny local event. Then it somehow winds up having global impact...”

kTHXBUILD.

This talk owes much to the community builders of WebDev 42°Roundtable, & everyone who's given interviews.

You rule.

Love community building too? Get in touch.

@cczona cczona@gmail.com www.cczona.com