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.

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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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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