Christopher Johnson The Story Of Get Paid And A Social Source Process To Create New Opportunities With Plone

Slide 1: Social Sourcing Free Software: The story of GetPaid and creating new opportunities for Plone Christopher Johnson ifPeople | www.ifpeople.net Plone Conference 2007 Napoli, Italy October 9, 2007

Slide 2: Outline What is Social Sourcing? ● Why is it important for Free Software? ● The Story of GetPaid & Social Sourcing ● Lessons for Plone ●

Slide 3: What is Social Sourcing? Def 1: Open Source Software for Civil Society Organizations (ie NGO/non- profit)

Slide 4: What is Social Sourcing? Def. 2: An organizing approach that gets diverse stakeholders to participate to the software making process.

Slide 5: Similar Process: Charrette Charrettes bring together people from ● multiple perspectives at the design stage for an intense collaboration. Root: French for “cart” – More than just “crunch time”, it is also core to an – Integrated Design Process

Slide 6: Charrette Frequently used for: innovative building ● design, community planning, product design. Key: collaborative decision making in design –

Slide 7: Data Center Charrette People from hardware, software, security, ● energy, real estate and more Resulting design: – 89% energy use reduction ● Equivalent computing power ● Increased reliability ● See rmi.org –

Slide 8: Why is this relevant? Open Source Software projects are ● driven by developers ==> Developers, like architects, often reticent to get “human” input ==> Difficult for non-developers to participate in shaping outcome

Slide 9: Why is this relevant? Diverse perspectives enrich the product ● ==> Expectations from client clarified upfront ==> Opportunities and constraints explored fully

Slide 10: Why is this relevant? The quality of the process determines ● the quality of the outcome ==> How you get it done determines what you get done ==> Position product to have a strong community

Slide 11: Plone: ● Flexible + very useful out of the box – Internationally... ● Wide use in NGOs, though still dependent on – third-party systems for donations 2006 PloneConf BOF ● Conclusion: Need state of the art payment – processing framework

Slide 12: To action! But... ● /me was new to community, not a developer, and – with no ecommerce software experience. “Social sourcing” helped to be transparent, – inclusive, and improve the product. <DOCTYPE FREESOFTWARE PUBLIC...> ● <div id=”entrepreneur”> ...don't be afraid!

Slide 13: Step 1: Get oriented ● What is already out there? – What do we know about those things? – Why do we need something else? – Result: ● Reference on Plone Commerce: – http://plonegetpaid.com/why/plone-commerce-backgro Need for the product: – http://plonegetpaid.com/why/need-for-this-product

Slide 14: Step 2: Make a plan ● What should we do? – How can we do it? – Who does it benefit and how? – Make it pretty to look at... – Results: ● Goal for GetPaid M1: Donation handling – Sponsorship plan: – www.plonegetpaid.com/sponsor

Slide 16: Step 3: Recruit leaders and participants ● The project needs a qualified “sheperd” – Variety of expertise are needed – Result: ● Lead architect: Kapil Thangavelu – Organizer: Christopher Johnson – NGO Liason: Jon Stahl – Developers and UI: various (see Credits) –

Slide 18: Step 4: Refine the requirements ● (participative) Get input of users, developers, user interface – experts, consultants/supporters Results: ● Architecture outline – User stories –

Slide 19: Step 5: Ask for money! ● If you don't ask, you won't get it... – Tips for asking: – Connect needs with value ● Be transparent ● Be patient and persistent ● Result: ● Raised over US$12,000 to date – Contributions page –

Slide 20: Step 5: Don't forget... ● Be accountable and transparent –

Slide 21: Step 6: Celebrate successes! ● Reward and recognize people and their – contributions Communication is important! – Results: ● Blog, mailing list – Celebrations... –

Slide 23: Ongoing: ● Make it fun! – Keep it organized! – Keep people motivated! – Results: ● 3 Sprints (UNC, Google, Argentina) – Google Code (wiki, issues) – Blog, mailing lists, channel (#getpaid) –

Slide 24: Social Source v1.0 Alpha ● Study the market (benchmark) – Put together a compelling plan – Recruit the right people – Engage a wide base in refining requirements – Ask for money – Celebrate successes – Sustain it: fun, organization, motivation – Regroup, review, and restart... –

Slide 25: What does this mean for Plone? Plone is great! ● Lots of work heading into the future...but ● towards what? Perhaps Plone could benefit from process – improvements that would: Clarify direction and identity ● Provide more inclusive design process ● Improve the overall product ● Strengthen Plone community ●

Slide 26: Plone Creation Process Overall vision: ● Open process associated with vision? – How can users be more involved? ● Place to document it? – Features: ● PLIPs process determines features...but you – have to be a “core developer” to make a PLIP Something before PLIPs but more specific than vision? ● Way to involve non-developers? ●

Slide 27: Reminder Check out GetPaid at Naples Sprint! ● Sprint for the Red Ocher Release Candidate – October 13-15, 2007 –

Slide 28: Thank you! Contact info: ● Christopher Johnson – cjj (at) ifpeople.net – www.ifpeople.net – Links: ● www.plonegetpaid.com – plone.org –