1. LESSONS ABOUT
COMMUNITY FROM
SCIENCE FICTION
Presenta(on
(with
notes)
available
at
h3p://fastwonderblog.com/speaking/
Dawn M. Foster
Director
of
Community
at
Puppet
Labs
@geekygirldawn
dawn@puppetlabs.com

2. WHOAMI
• Geek, traveler, reader
• Past 13 years doing
community & open source
• Read 73 books last year,
mostly sci-fi / fantasy
• I keep a list:
http://fastwonderblog.com/about/reading/
Photos by Josh Bancroft, Don Park

3. DON’T PANIC
Most things will work out
if you have smart, flexible
people in your community.

4. YOU ARE NOT ALONE
Many people working
together on a common goal.

5. LIKE FAMILIES
You can’t fully
understand unless you are
part of the community.

6. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED
Bring new community
members into your
collective for new ideas

7. NO MINIONS
Community members
are valuable,
don’t treat them like minions.

8. NO RAGE
Take time to cool off and
don’t participate when
you are angry.

9. RECOGNITION
Do good things for
others and recognize
their contributions.

10. INDIVIDUALISM
Open source communities are
filled with crazy (but awesome)
individualists doing interesting things.

11. SPECIALIZATION IS FOR INSECTS
The best community members
are the ones who can help
in a wide variety of ways

12. COOLTECHNOLOGY
Participation in communities
is a great excuse to
play with new technologies.

13. TRAINING
Participation in open source communities
gives people real-life, on the “job”
training that can help them get work later.

14. LEARN FROM OTHERS
Get new ideas and insights
from other people and
other communities.

15. GOOD INTENTIONS
Assume community members
have good intentions and
focus on education and improvement.
“Undomesticated equines
could not drag me away.”

16. MORE DIVERSITY
Focus on the ideas and
work together with people
from diverse backgrounds.

17. MORE WOMEN
Encourage women in our field
and get more women
speaking at our events
www.usenix.org/blog/my-daughters-high-school-programming-teacher

18. COMMUNITY METRICS
Measure community activity
to track progress, identify issues
and recognize great community members

19. NOT AS EASY AS IT SEEMS
Community management is not all parties
and fun travel. It’s also a lot of real work
and sometimes involves being the bad cop.

20. BOLDLY GO
Travel to strange new worlds
and meet interesting people

21. THANK YOU
Contact
info:
Dawn
Foster
@geekygirldawn
dawn@puppetlabs.com
fastwonderblog.com
Some of my favorite modern sci-fi / fantasy authors:
Hugh Howey
Lois McMaster Bujold
Brandon Sanderson