1. LESSONS ABOUT
COMMUNITY FROM
SCIENCE FICTION
Presentation available at http://fastwonderblog.com/speaking/
Dawn M. Foster
@geekygirldawn
dawn@fastwonder.com
University of Greenwich, PhD Student

2. WHOAMI
Geek, traveler, reader, PhD
student
20 year tech career. Past 15 years
doing community & open source
Read 73 books per year, 2 years
in a row, mostly sci-fi / fantasy
I keep a list:
http://fastwonderblog.com/about/reading/
Photos by Josh Bancroft, Don Park

3. BIGGER ONTHE INSIDE
Communities look very different
from the inside than
when viewing them as an outsider

4. ALL ABOUTTHE PEOPLE
Communities are about the
people who participate,
not about the leaders

5. DON’T GOTOO FAR
Take time to understand the community
and participate gently to start
without doing too much at once

6. DON’T BE A REDSHIRT
Participate and contribute
in a way that people will
notice and value your work
Read John Scalzi’s ‘Redshirts’

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

8. 3 LAWS AND GUIDELINES
Guidelines / code of conduct
that change and evolve as needed

9. ANDROIDS AND EMPATHY
Don’t act like an android,
show empathy and
consider the impact of your actions

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

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

12. NO MONSTERS
Different isn’t bad,
disagree with ideas,
not the person

13. MENTORING
Train the next generation
and help others succeed

14. THEYOUNG CAN CONTRIBUTE
Age is often unknown,
encourage young people
to contribute

15. STRONG WOMEN
Encourage women in our field
and get more women
speaking at our events

16. CONTROL ISSUES
Maintain balance
to keep things productive
while not being too controlling

17. PEOPLE EVERYWHERE
Travel and
meet interesting people
working on global projects

18. NOT AS EASY AS IT SEEMS
It's not all parties and fun travel.
It’s also a lot of real work and
sometimes means being the bad cop.

19. DON’T PANIC
Things will go wrong
keep things in perspective
calmly recover

20. THANK YOU
Dawn Foster
University of Greenwich, PhD Student
@geekygirldawn, dawn@fastwonder.com, fastwonderblog.com
Some of my favorite modern sci-fi / fantasy authors:
Hugh Howey, Lois McMaster Bujold, Brandon Sanderson, Connie Willis