FOSS: Don't Plan, Just Do
Open Advice FOSS - What We Wish We Had Known When We Started is a collection of anecdotes from people in the trenches of open source - Founders, Admins, Programmers, QA, UX, Artists, Packagers, Documentors, Evangelists, Conference organizers, even Business people and Lawyers.
The thing I like the most about this book is not the content but its reaffirmation that open source is not just about code. Developers are only one part of the story. At its heart, open source is a social movement, not a technological one, and that all of us, irrespective of our strengths, has a potential role to play if we agree with the overall direction.
That said, the content is no slouch. There were many things I liked, but to avoid inundating you with all my personal choices I’ll just leave with you with the following excerpt from Big Plans Don’t Work by Jos Poortvliet:
So instead of planning big things, find something small, doable and useful in itself. Not a wiki page with a plan, but the first step of what you aim for. And then, lead by doing. Make a rough first draft of an article. Make a first version of a folder. Copy-paste from whatever exists, or improve something which is already available. Then present the results, drafty as it is, to the team and ask if someone wants to make it better. Do something small and it will work.
Don’t plan, just do.
So how do you do something as big as the university student plan? You don’t! At least, not directly. Discussing this with the whole team, planning — it will surely make for a fun discussion which can last weeks. But it will not get you far. Instead, keep the plan to yourself. Seriously.
I am not saying you should not talk about it — you can. Share the ambition with whoever is interested. And it is is ok if they give suggestions. But do not rely on it, do not make plans which go much further than the first 1-2 steps. Instead, execute.
Build on what is there so that people can, slowly, start using it.
In community marketing, strategy is not on the wiki. It is not in a plan nor a time line. Neither is it discussed every week with the whole team. It is part of a vision which has grown over time. It is carried by a few central people and inspires the short-term plans and objectives. And it is shared by the team. But it has no time line and it can not fail. It is flexible and does not depend on anything or anyone in particular. And it will always be a pie in the sky…
So if you want to lead in Free Software community marketing effort, keep that big picture a big picture. Do not plan too much, but get things done!
Jos is now head of marketing at Nextcloud (and a co-founder).