Category Archives: jive software

Jive Gets $15M in Funding from Sequoia

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!

PDX BarCamp Tech Meetup Aug. 23

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.

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

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

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)

OSCON Report

I had a great time at OSCON this year. A few highlights:

As usual, the real value was in the hallway conversations, shared meals, and other informal discussions with really smart people.

I will be posting video of our Art of Community panel (thanks to Drew Scott for wielding the camera!) and some footage from Beeforge on the Jivespace Video Podcast blog over the next week or 2.

Jivespace Launches!

Wondering what I’ve been doing in my first 2+ months at Jive Software?

Answer: Launching our new developer community, Jivespace.

The best part? We used our own Clearspace X product to build the collaborative elements of the community (discussions, wiki docs, blogs, etc.)

Don’t forget that I can also give away free copies of Clearspace for open source projects and developer user groups!

Having Fun at OSCON (Beer, Community, and More!)

I wanted to let people know about a few fun activities during the week of OSCON.

Beer Forge

This is a great after party sponsored by Jive Software (my employer) and POSSE (I’m a member) along with OSL, OpenSourcery, and OTBC.

When: Thursday, July 26, 2007, 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM

Where: Thirsty Lion Pub, 71 SW 2nd Avenue, Portland, OR 97209 (just a couple stops on the MAX Light Rail from the Oregon Convention Center)

How: Please RSVP to rsvp@jivesoftware.com to receive a copy of the invitation or download the invite. I’ll also try to carry around a little stash of invites during OSCON, so let me know if you need one.

Technology Community Leader Meetup

We had so much fun at the Technology Community Leader Meetup in SF before OSBC that I thought we should have another one around OSCON / Ubuntu Live in PDX on July 24th from 6-7:30pm.

Anyone currently leading, managing, or otherwise involved in technology communities (open source, web 2.0, wikis, etc.) is welcome to attend. Feel free to forward this invite on to others. It should be fun!

Location is TBD until I have an idea of how many people plan to attend. It will be somewhere in or near the Portland Convention center. If you would like to attend, please RSVP on upcoming.

Art of Community Session

Danese Cooper and I put together a community panel at OSCON on Thursday from 4:30 – 5:15 (right before BeerForge). We’ll have a great group of people on the panel including:

Jimmy Wales
Karl Fogel
Geir Magnussen
Sulamita Garcia
Whurley

Werewolf

The Portland Werewolf group plans to organize some werewolf games during OSCON (date /time still TBD).

Portland BarCamp Technology Meetup on June 28th

I wanted to remind everyone that our next informal Portland BarCamp Meetup is next week on Thursday, June 28th. 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 through October (July is canceled due to OSCON and November / December are TBD due to holidays). 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, June 28th
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 (directions). 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: http://barcamp.org/BarCampPortlandMeetups

The meetup will be very informal and similar in format to previous meetups. We’ll network, do a few introductions, talk for a few minutes about organizing the next BarCamp / DemoCamp, and then see where the discussion goes.

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, August 23rd.

Free Licenses of Jive Software Products

How cool is it that part of my job is giving away free copies of Clearspace X and Jive Forums to open source projects and developer user groups (like JUGs, etc.)? We’ve been giving away free licenses for a while, but last week I streamlined the application process with fewer questions and a simple web form to apply. Interested open source projects and user groups can get all of the details by reading my Ignite Realtime blog post on the topic.