Monthly Archive for August, 2007

You are Invited: Jive Show and Tell Dinner

Published on August 27, 2007 in blogging, clearspace, clearspace x and jive software. Closed

Jive is releasing a new version of Clearspace with what we think are some really cool improvements on September 13th. We thought it might be fun to invite the Portland blogging, podcasting, and influencer community in for a sneak peak on Tuesday, September 11th. Everyone is welcome to attend!

The Details:

Date: Tuesday, Sept. 11
Time: 5:30 – 7:30 pm
Where: Jive Software 317 SW Alder St Suite 500 (5th floor)

You can RSVP on Upcoming if you are interested in attending.

Jive’s Agenda:

  • We get to do a demo of our new Clearspace release
  • We’re happy to answer questions about our new VC investment from Sequoia, about our job openings, or any other topics.

What You Get:

  • Free food & drinks
  • The ability to blog, podcast, etc. about these new features 2 days before the official release
  • Time to ask questions about Jive Software

How to Get Here:

The Jive Software Office is on SW Alder between 3rd & 4th. Parking is available in a nearby parking garage, and it is short walk from the Max / bus lines (Directions).

Jive Gets $15M in Funding from Sequoia

Published on August 23, 2007 in clearspace, jive software, sequoia, vc and venture capitalist. Closed

In case you missed the press, we (Jive Software) just did a deal with Sequoia Capital at Jive Software for $15M in VC funding. A few points from Dave Hersh, Jive’s CEO:

We’re proud of how we have grown this business over the last six years. We’ve been profitable since inception and have put good money in the bank. We have made our share of mistakes and missteps, but we haven’t sacrificed our values and ultimately those mistakes made us stronger and smarter. This year we struck a mighty vein with Clearspace when we launched in February. Now the growth is in high gear and bringing on a funding partner is a step towards becoming the provider of choice in the market.

and

We are proud of our heritage as a bootstrapped company. It’s helped to shape a culture of discipline and customer focus, and it’s always fun to say that we never raised a dime. Plus, there’s a few folks in this office that are a bit suspicious of VC’s. And for good reason – there’s a lot of bad ones out there who destroy companies in the name of selfish interests or bad management. But this situation is different for several reasons:

  • One VC: not a bunch in the room arguing for their own needs.
  • Minority stake: they’re along for the ride, not driving the ship.
  • Great firm: these guys didn’t get where they are by forcing bad decisions.

(Quotes from Dave Hersh’s Jive Talks blog post)

I think this is a great step for Jive, and I continue to be excited about working at a great company!

Want to see me speak at SXSW?

Published on August 20, 2007 in collaboration, community, conference, dawn foster and sxsw. Closed

SXSW has released their annual panel picker application. I submitted 2 sessions:

If either of these sessions sound interesting to you, please cast your vote for them.

If you plan on attending sxsw, I encourage you to vote for the sessions that you find interesting. I love conferences that give us, as participants, the ability to participate in the selection process.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that I will also be part of the “Hottest Babes in Open Source” panel with Silona Bonewald, Tara Hunt & Erica O’Grady (if it makes it through the panel picking process!)

PDX BarCamp Tech Meetup Aug. 23

Published on August 11, 2007 in barcamp, barcampportland, jive software, portland, portland barcamp meetup and technology. Closed

I wanted to remind everyone that our next informal Portland BarCamp Meetup is next week on Thursday, August 23rd. We had a fantastic time at BarCamp and are interested in continuing to network with other local techies. These events are held on the fourth Thursday of every month. The meetings are not highly structured, and you can arrive whenever it is most convenient if you can’t make it at 5:30.

When: Thursday, August 23rd
Time: 5:30pm – 8:00 pm
Where: Jive Software Office (317 SW Alder St Ste 500)
Sponsored by: Jive Software

Jive Software is located on Alder near 3rd. Parking is available in a nearby parking garage, and it is short walk from the Max / bus lines.

If you plan to attend, please RSVP on the Portland BarCamp Meetup wiki.

The meetup will be very informal and similar in format to previous meetups. We’ll network, do a few introductions, and talk technology for a few minutes about organizing the next BarCamp / DemoCamp, and then see where the discussion goes. This is primarily a networking activity, not a planning meeting.

Please feel free to invite a few others to join us (just make sure they RSVP)! Please encourage them to join our Google Group to receive email announcements about any last minute changes, future meetups, and other PortlandBarCamp communications.
The next meetup will be on Thursday, September 27th.

Art of Community Announcement

Published on August 11, 2007 in O'Reilly, art of community and community. Closed

I wanted to announce that we are opening up the O’Reilly Art of Community Book to allow anyone to contribute. The idea behind this project is to write our community book as a community, and we want your help! Do you have insight into communities? Experience leading successful communities? If so, please go to the O’Reilly Commons and contribute to our Art of Community Project!

Reflections on Community Management: AKA “What Do You Do”

Published on August 5, 2007 in art of community, community, dawn foster, jive software and jivespace. 3 Comments

With the launch of Jivespace, I have been thinking more about what it really means to be an online community manager. With the launch of any new product, it always feels like time to step back and enjoy the lull before starting the next new project; however, this is the time when the community manager role accelerates rather than slowing.

Seth Godin recently called the Online Community Organizer role a Job of the Future. This brings me to the most common question: “What exactly do you do?” I see the online community manager role as having several key elements: ongoing facilitation, content creation, evangelism, and community evolution. There are certainly many more tasks, but I suspect that 90% of the work falls into one of these four very broad categories.

  • Ongoing Facilitation: This is probably the activity that most people think of first. A community manager is an active participant within the community to answer questions, deal with trolls or other abuses, explain how things work, monitor the content closely, and much more. It also involves a lot of cat herding. On Jivespace, I frequently pull Jive engineers into the discussion to answer questions in an area where additional technical expertise is needed. It can also mean walking a very fine line between the community and the company by representing the company in community discussions and representing the needs of the community when working inside the company.
  • Content Creation: In any community, content needs to stay fresh and current regardless of whether you are talking about code releases or other content. People will wander away from a community that looks stale or inactive. I have been focused on recording new podcasts (which are now in iTunes) and blogging regularly in addition to making sure that questions get answered (also part of facilitation). This also involves working with others to create content by encouraging them to blog about their areas of expertise relevant to the developer community.
  • Evangelism: Getting the word out about your community can take a number of forms depending on the type of community. In general this can be served by talking to people (customers and other interested parties), blogging, speaking at conferences, and being actively involved in related communities.
  • Community Evolution: This may be the most overlooked area for many communities. It is important to continue to keep the community engaged by evolving along with the technology. New features, contests, group activities and more should be planned from the beginning. With Jivespace, I plan to implement improvements about every 3 weeks including upgrades to the latest Clearspace X release, which come out every 3 weeks. For example, a few things in the works include some bug fixes, improvements to the developer beta program, and a developer event of some type.

As a community manager, you should be thinking about how to make sure that all four of these items get an appropriate amount of attention. Responding to questions and writing an occasional blog may by not enough if you want your community to flourish. Community management can be a tough job, but I am enjoying it more than any other job so far.

The next logical discussion is about the skills required to be a community manager, but this post is already pretty long, so … this will be part one in a series of posts. The next one will be about the skills required to do this job.

Art of Community Video

Published on August 2, 2007 in O'Reilly, OSCON, art of community, community, conference, dawn foster, jive software, jivespace and podcast. Closed

For anyone who missed the Art of Community panel at OSCON, we were able to get the entire session on video. I’ve posted it to the Jivespace Developer Podcasts and Video Blog.

“Danese Cooper and I put together a community panel at OSCON discussing the art of building and maintaining successful communities. The panel included (from left to right): Danese Cooper (Moderating), Jimmy Wales, Dawn Foster, Sulamita Garcia, Whurley, Karl Fogel, and Brian Behlendorf.” (Quoted from: Jivespace Blog)