Open Source Software (OSS) - Let's Show The Love

Why community matters for the future of software talent, products and the industry as a whole

We all love those stand up guys who volunteer first, arrive early and are last to leave from meetups, collaborations and indeed anything software related. They are sharing the passion, they are showing the love!! This is the good side of software as defined by the people within the industry who seek a better world through software using their passion to drive progress in an impressive way.

These channels of passion ultimately lead to the open source movement and in recent years have transformed the industry into a collaborative landscape where more and more software professionals are building their own products. They are contributing to more and more engineering led projects that are “pure” software in terms of process and culture. Many in established business are not comfortable with this as the threat of disruption is ever present when you have a collaboration of highly skilled software professionals in a room focused on a single problem. This may in part arise from the need for management ‘control’ (v ‘influence’) in allot of company cultures. This has often caused culture clashes between software professionals and management trying to stamp a traditional leadership style on a team leading to resistance and culture clashes to boot. It’s my view that this lack of understanding coupled with passion for software is one of the elements that has fuelled the transition to the open source model where software professionals freely collaborate over common problems they are passionate about leading to real world solutions that often carry commercial value.

So, with the rise of Web 2.0, the startup industry and the freemium model for tech companies in full swing, there are some highly profitable businesses out there that have their origins in the open source movement and prove the open source paradigm of collaboration does work turning more and more its detractors into supporters as time passes. Since the “OSS” train has left the station, we all should not forget where we are and where we come from when it comes to the open source movement. We should show the love in OSS through the following:

• Enable a better quality of life with a life long commitment to the open source movement and the real world problems it solves
• Widen scope from the selective and often poorly structured curriculum of education, which produces newly minted software developers and engineers. This should be done by providing entry points into software through community education free of charge for those aspiring to be software professionals
• Provide continuous learning and development for established software professionals in upgraded and newly released products via community learning and education
• Provide facilities free of charge to identified open source community groups that engage in community education and learning for new as well as established software professionals
• Understand what actually makes a good software professional and identify these personalities upon entry into a the community education network ergo the community will retain and develop such individuals as part of OSS succession planning.
• Work with industry under a common mission statement on what makes for a successful partnership with the open source software movement

What makes it all happen? I think it's simply passionate software professionals who by nature, not by training or experience care deeply about they do and want their skills to make a difference in the world. The more we actively show the love, the bigger the impact we have as a community. If we draw from our past and not let our past draw from us, we can make a better future that allows the OSS movement to take its rightful and sustainable place in the world today as the premiere software partner to business and society as a whole.

About the author: John Mulhall is a Community Manager and newly Minted Software Developer. John is also a committed blogger and from February 2016 onwards, will be publishing blogs every second week on topics around Technology, Leadership and Sustainable Capitalism.

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Pics;

https://stocksnap.io/photo/W8P1FJHOZ8

www.linkedin.com

www.blog.worldlabel.com

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Reputation - An individual cornerstone for all in society

Why reputation feeds happiness and enables success

We all have being shocked of late by the extremist sound bytes coming from Donald Trump in the US Presidential Election campaign where apparently dirty politics, insanely imbalanced thinking and a neo conservative thrust for power has affected reputations both positively and negatively on all sides.

Donald Trump somehow managed to build a business empire in spite of some colossal errors in judgement and even more spectacular business failures that he has on his resume. He did so for many reasons including the fact that he managed his reputation astutely keeping an eye on how the world viewed him along with reconciling this intelligence to his goals and objectives. All was apparently well enough until his aspirations for higher office seemed to have sent him off the deep end in reputation management by thinking his extremist rhetoric would not have consequences. As the Presidential Office becomes apparently out of reach to Mr Trump, what are the lessons we all should learn from his performance in the management of our own reputations:

• Understand Your Interacting Environment - It’s not good enough to assume your ideas are going to be openly accepted with open arms. If you have a good point (in the eyes of your audience), make it! If you have a bad point, understand how it will affect your reputation because regardless of who you are, you will be judged!
• Embrace who you are - True power in society by definition always lies within the group. By understanding the dynamic of your group interactions, you can understand who you are to ‘your world’. Its their impression of you, not your impression of yourself that matters in reputation management. If you are it, own it and understand the shrewdest of networkers and reputation managers know they can only ascend in the social order so far thanks to inherent ability and/or their situational dynamics.
• Own your ego - Don’t let your ego own you! As you can’t force someone to like you, you should not try. Ego leads to arrogance and thus blinds one to the possibilities of influencing someone to freely chose to like you, trust you and/or even vote for you. An individual’s world should not to be blindsided in the present by lies, misinformation and incessant badgering in some cases. This will be found out and when uncovered, your reputation will be appropriately punished for your ego driven misdeeds.

 As the US presidential race heats up, the outrageous behaviour by Donald Trump should serve as a reminder to us all on the dangers of not embracing your own reputation as a critical aspect of who you are.

Now for my confession. For years, I ignored proper networking, reputation management and personal branding on the grounds that I was honest, trustworthy and technically competent. Apparently, the world saw me a little differently as I had forgone the opportunity to develop my brand and sell myself to the world for who I am, not what some guy with half an opinion and an agenda wants me to be! With my kernel error uncovered in recent years, I have worked hard at personal branding, updating my skills and networking as hard and as fast as I can. The experience has transformed me from a technically competent process manager to a technically competent Technologist who believes in people, process and technology.  Reputation management is now part of who I am thanks to my embracing of it, owning it and using it to be a better version of myself! In refactoring my life into a community based iteration, I face new challenges that starts with where I belong and continues to a happier tomorrow.

Sources/Credits:

Pics;

www.abtopimages.com

http://www.gratisography.com/

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