People go to conferences to see friends, meet people and learn new things. Over 80% of people said that seeing friends and meeting new people was the reason they went to conferences or it was very important. 53% of people said "attendees they want to hang out with" is the reason they go to conferences. […]
Why do people go to conferences? For the people! Read More »
To be honest with you, I go to conferences to meet people. I see old friends, meet online friends in person and meet new people. While I occasionally see a good talk, like Dries Buytaert’s rules for creating a great community, I usually only go to talks to start conversations in twitter or on my
Why do you go to conferences? Read More »
We spend a lot of time telling people "it's not all about you". At least I tell my 8 year old that every once in a while and I've heard it a few times myself. (And I sometimes really want to tell other people that it's not all about them.) But playing hockey on Sunday
Actually, it is all about you Read More »
When I took this job it was agreed that part of my job, but not all of it, would be fundraising. However, because of the economy I find myself thinking about fundraising more often than not these days. For example, take hackfests. Hackfests are events where you get all the key developers for a project
Hackfests, fundraising and the economy Read More »
Over the past year I've had the chance to be an "advisor" to several different organizations. There's lots of different types of advisory roles. The word advisor can cover all sorts of jobs: Giving public endorsement Being a consultant and doing work for hire. Giving advice (but not necessarily being listened to.) Managing/directing a project
How to figure out if you can be a good advisor Read More »
I like studies that try to explain how societies work. I also like books that explain how we think about money and how our beliefs affect what we do with it. So I enjoyed reading the The Middle-Class Millionaire: The Rise of the New Rich and How They Are Changing America. It was an entertaining
Book review: The Middle-Class Millionaire Read More »
Against my dad's best advice, I'm going to admit that I don't feel like I'm the best person to give a "State of GNOME" talk. I mean, it's an open source project. I don't run it, I don't manage it and people not only don't ask me for permission to do things, they don't make
What would you say about the State of GNOME? Read More »
One of the cooler things about Twitter is that friends are not necessarily mutual. You can listen to whomever you want and anyone can listen to you, and those lists aren’t the same. But I’m amazed at how many people want to keep it a mutual friends game. A game of tit for tat. And
Twitter’s friend strategy is not a popularity contest Read More »
My two year old's favorite saying right now is "it's my favorite." I believe he picked it up from his granny. Which made me think … I thought I was both of my granny's favorite. Both of my grandmothers had a huge influence in my life. And I am absolutely sure I was their favorite.
Make everyone feel like your favorite Read More »
I recently started investigating how GNOME could fund projects with grant money. Will Ross sent me an email with a lot of good information and I’d like to share his experience with others in the open source software community. Will Ross is a project manager with Mendocino Informatics, a small healthcare technology consulting firm in
Supporting free software with grant money Read More »