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
2. Who am I Antonio Software Engineer @DeliverooEng Co-organiser @LondonGophers ❤ Programming, cycling, making my own pizza and brewing my own beer. Twitter: @londongopher_
3. Why This talk?
4. Learnings Communities enhance humans Anyone can help, in their own way Building trust takes time Inclusion is particularly important
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
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
7. #1 Communities enhance humans
8. “Appreciate every aspect of your Go community - talks content is only part of the equation.”
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”
12. #2 Anyone can help in their own way
13. “If you don't know how you can help, ask: there is always something you can do.”
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.”
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.”
16. LondonGophers in numbers 2013-2020 “Standing on the shoulders of giants.”
17. #3 Building trust takes time
18. “Give feedback: it's much quicker to make improvements based on real opinions.”
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
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
21. #4 Inclusion is particularly important
22. “Represent yourself and your group: everyone's voice should be heard. Don't assume, be kind.”
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
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
25. Some people can be islands
26. Community organisers make sure there are bridges that can be crossed
27. Here are some of the faces behind LondonGophers Beth Anderson Benjamin Bryant Dominic Green Paul Jolly Antonio Troina Kat Zien
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
29. Thanks for listening Fin