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No one is an island. Learnings from fostering a developers community.

No one is an island. Learnings from fostering a developers community.

Talk for the first meet-up of the newly formed Go Tunisian Community.

In this 15 minutes presentation, I talked about my experience as an attendee first, and an organiser later, of the LondonGophers community, a meet-up group based in London for the Go programming language.

For each step, I share my learning and my suggestion to the members of this new community, with some tips at the end to start contributing from today.

Antonio

June 06, 2020
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Transcript

  1. No one
    is an island.
    Learnings from fostering a developers community

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  2. Who am I
    Antonio
    Software Engineer
    @DeliverooEng
    Co-organiser
    @LondonGophers

    Programming, cycling,
    making my own pizza and
    brewing my own beer.
    Twitter: @londongopher_

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  3. Why
    This talk?

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  4. Learnings
    Communities enhance humans
    Anyone can help, in their own way
    Building trust takes time
    Inclusion is particularly important

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  5. context.Background()
    »

    Moved to London
    "
    from Italy in April 2015
    » Joined "London Gophers" in December 2015
    » Became one of the organisers in August 2017

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  6. Why I joined a dev community
    » Learn about the local culture and values
    » Build meaningful connections, or even friendships
    » Be supported by - and support - others
    » Learn new things on the subject (Go!) -
    good quality talks are very important, and give
    people something to talk about

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  7. #1
    Communities
    enhance humans

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  8. “Appreciate
    every aspect
    of your Go
    community -
    talks content is only
    part of the equation.”

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  9. How I participated more actively
    » Helped with the first hack-night in a while
    » Pushed to regularly live-stream our events
    » Designed the first version of our logo
    “Made those changes I wanted to see happening,
    without expecting others to do that for me”

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  10. View Slide

  11. View Slide

  12. #2
    Anyone can help
    in their own way

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  13. “If you don't
    know how you
    can help, ask:
    there is always
    something
    you can do.”

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  14. Why I joined the organising team
    » I like helping people do what I'm too scared of
    doing - hello public speaking !
    » I thought I could be part of the solution to
    something I identified as important to me, and to
    others
    “Simply put: it's rewarding.”

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  15. The starfish
    and the spider
    “In open organizations, a
    catalyst is the person who
    initiates a circle and then
    fades away into the
    background.”

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  16. LondonGophers in numbers 2013-2020
    “Standing on the shoulders of giants.”

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  17. #3
    Building trust
    takes time

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  18. “Give feedback:
    it's much quicker to
    make improvements
    based on
    real opinions.”

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  19. What's the secret ingredient?
    » Be aware of your unconscious bias, never assume to
    know what others like, or expect: ask, and listen
    » Don't be afraid of different opinions: be open to
    challenge, and embrace change - that's where
    growth hides
    » Be transparent and inclusive
    » Don't split: multiply

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  20. Don't split: multiply
    A few initiatives born from within the community
    » Go Study Group (started by Beth Anderson)
    » LondonGophers Hack Night (myself and Dom, then
    Paul Jolly)
    » Go Contributors Workshop (Daniel Martí)
    » Foundations of Go (make sure all expertise levels
    are represented)
    » GopherCon UK + GoTime FM collaboration

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  21. #4
    Inclusion is
    particularly important

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  22. “Represent
    yourself and
    your group:
    everyone's voice
    should be heard.
    Don't assume,
    be kind.”

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  23. To recap
    » Appreciate every aspect of your Go community
    » If you don't know how you can help: ask
    » Give feedback
    » Represent yourself and your group
    » Don't assume and be kind

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  24. How can I help
    » Propose a talk, and don't assume it's not interesting
    » Help someone practicing with their talk, give feedback
    » Help finding speakers within your network, or sponsors
    who share your values
    » Help with a social media account
    » Collect/create resources for others to use
    » Come up with something you'd like to see, and make it
    happen

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  25. Some people
    can be islands

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  26. Community organisers make sure
    there are bridges
    that can be crossed

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  27. Here are some of the faces behind LondonGophers
    Beth Anderson Benjamin Bryant
    Dominic Green Paul Jolly
    Antonio Troina Kat Zien

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  28. Meet-up
    Group: https://www.meetup.com/LondonGophers/
    Website: https://gophers.london
    YouTube: https://youtube.com/LondonGophers
    Slack: #london on the Gophers Slack
    Resources:
    » Growing a community of Gophers
    » The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of
    Leaderless Organizations
    » Meet-up organiser runbooks

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  29. Thanks for listening
    Fin

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