1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:05,040 Well, here we are at Open Source World. Why don't you introduce yourself? 2 00:00:05,380 --> 00:00:09,860 Hi, I'm John Mark Walker. I'm the founder of the latest company, Community Root LLC, 3 00:00:10,460 --> 00:00:13,680 and we're doing the Open Source and Windows Project and an Open Source and Windows Conference 4 00:00:13,680 --> 00:00:16,320 coming to the Bay Area in probably March 2010. 5 00:00:16,620 --> 00:00:21,280 So what is, I mean, I don't think Open Source and Windows is always thought of together necessarily, 6 00:00:21,400 --> 00:00:23,300 even though there's a lot of Open Source that runs on Windows. 7 00:00:23,300 --> 00:00:28,900 It's funny, everyone has in every project or most projects create an Open Source, create a Windows version. 8 00:00:29,800 --> 00:00:34,560 But there's no comprehensive way of tying together all the Open Source stuff on Windows. 9 00:00:34,660 --> 00:00:40,600 And so this conference and the project is an attempt to corral the Open Source activity there that's going on. 10 00:00:40,800 --> 00:00:43,480 And Dan, I remember, I forget if this was a year or two ago, 11 00:00:43,560 --> 00:00:48,480 but there was a big to-do with JBoss and Microsoft kind of making sure JBoss runs. 12 00:00:48,480 --> 00:00:51,840 And there were actually some interesting little facts and figures they came out about 13 00:00:51,840 --> 00:00:56,920 as far as the percentage of people running Java things on Windows and using Active Directory and things like that. 14 00:00:56,920 --> 00:00:58,600 Absolutely, and it's interesting that you bring that up, 15 00:00:58,640 --> 00:01:04,200 because a lot of projects have approached me individually saying they're not sure if they want to be a part of the conference 16 00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:08,680 because they're not sure they want to really promote the Windows side of their business, 17 00:01:08,800 --> 00:01:10,140 which is interesting to me. 18 00:01:10,340 --> 00:01:12,320 But that's sort of the... 19 00:01:12,320 --> 00:01:14,960 Do you think they feel like they would lose some cred or something like that? 20 00:01:14,960 --> 00:01:15,160 Exactly. 21 00:01:15,300 --> 00:01:16,720 It's sort of like the punk ethos, right? 22 00:01:16,780 --> 00:01:20,800 Like, we're not going to play stadiums because we play clubs, you know. 23 00:01:20,880 --> 00:01:23,180 But oddly enough, they always drink the same vodka, right? 24 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:24,360 Exactly. 25 00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:30,280 So, yeah, that's what I'm up to, and I promise it to be a lot of fun. 26 00:01:30,460 --> 00:01:31,960 And so when is that conference exactly? 27 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:34,200 Well, I'm looking at venues. 28 00:01:34,480 --> 00:01:36,500 We should have one locked down in the next month. 29 00:01:36,600 --> 00:01:38,500 But we're thinking March 2010. 30 00:01:39,060 --> 00:01:41,480 And so March 2010, right? 31 00:01:41,560 --> 00:01:41,900 Oh, yeah. 32 00:01:42,100 --> 00:01:43,700 Hopefully not during South by Southwest. 33 00:01:43,840 --> 00:01:44,560 You've got to make sure it's not that same week. 34 00:01:44,560 --> 00:01:47,440 Yeah, no, I do not want to run smack in South by Southwest. 35 00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:48,180 That would be bad. 36 00:01:48,740 --> 00:01:52,260 So you were, like, at Hyperic way back when. 37 00:01:52,380 --> 00:01:52,880 I was at Hyperic. 38 00:01:52,880 --> 00:01:54,360 And then you went to CollabNet. 39 00:01:54,660 --> 00:01:56,640 And you've sort of been in the community manager role. 40 00:01:56,840 --> 00:01:57,080 Yes. 41 00:01:57,120 --> 00:01:58,160 In those sorts of things. 42 00:01:58,260 --> 00:02:01,700 And, like, what do you think the state of community management is nowadays? 43 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:02,760 The state of community management? 44 00:02:03,620 --> 00:02:05,340 Like, well, I'll narrow that down. 45 00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:08,480 I mean, do you think it's become, like, a very well-defined narrow role? 46 00:02:08,560 --> 00:02:10,880 Or is it still kind of, like, an experimental thing? 47 00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:15,520 If nothing else, it's become this sort of sprawling where, when they say community management, 48 00:02:15,700 --> 00:02:16,920 they can mean any number of things. 49 00:02:16,980 --> 00:02:18,820 They can mean, like, actual project caretaker. 50 00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:21,480 They can mean, like, grassroots PR. 51 00:02:21,700 --> 00:02:23,160 They can mean, like, social media master. 52 00:02:23,280 --> 00:02:25,200 It's become this hodgepodge of stuff. 53 00:02:25,300 --> 00:02:29,400 And it would be great if, you know, those of us who call ourselves community managers 54 00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:34,240 could actually come up with a better, you know, terminology. 55 00:02:34,560 --> 00:02:38,740 Yeah, I noticed that there's a couple books out or coming out on the topic of community management, 56 00:02:38,740 --> 00:02:43,380 which it's kind of always a milestone in some idea when someone actually, like, you know, 57 00:02:43,400 --> 00:02:44,840 sits down and writes a book about it. 58 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:45,660 So it's... 59 00:02:45,660 --> 00:02:48,500 And there was a little conference kind of tied to one of those... 60 00:02:48,500 --> 00:02:49,260 A little bit to one of those. 61 00:02:49,260 --> 00:02:52,720 The Community Leadership Summit, which is run by John O. Bacon, who is also... 62 00:02:52,720 --> 00:02:54,500 He wrote a book, The Art of Community. 63 00:02:54,740 --> 00:02:57,340 I haven't actually read it yet, but I would imagine it's probably good. 64 00:02:57,700 --> 00:02:58,160 Yeah, yeah. 65 00:02:58,300 --> 00:02:59,860 So you should probably get a copy. 66 00:02:59,960 --> 00:03:01,140 Yeah, I just actually... 67 00:03:01,140 --> 00:03:02,920 I just ordered... 68 00:03:02,920 --> 00:03:04,040 Donmate has a book. 69 00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:09,740 And it has a, you know, a great subtitle that's like, like, community marketing without being 70 00:03:09,740 --> 00:03:12,260 sleazy or something like that, which I think is... 71 00:03:12,260 --> 00:03:15,260 It's funny, like, that's what it gets down to usually is like... 72 00:03:15,260 --> 00:03:18,800 Right, because people associate, you know, when you talk about social media or anything like 73 00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:22,920 that, or doing, you know, grassroots marketing, people think that you're, you know, yeah, 74 00:03:23,160 --> 00:03:24,340 ethically challenged. 75 00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:24,980 That's right. 76 00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:29,660 But, yeah, that's what I've been up to. 77 00:03:29,820 --> 00:03:30,940 So March 2010. 78 00:03:31,120 --> 00:03:31,840 March 2010. 79 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:34,660 And are you guys going to be doing anything else, or is it just conference-oriented? 80 00:03:34,780 --> 00:03:38,640 We'll try to put together the whole portal around that, so we try to tie together sort 81 00:03:38,640 --> 00:03:40,760 of a lot of the activity out there going on. 82 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:44,520 You know, I find in general that a lot of projects and a lot of people just don't respect 83 00:03:44,520 --> 00:03:50,000 Windows users on a very basic level, and that's why I think no major effort has been 84 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:52,840 made to sort of tie together loose ends in the open-source space. 85 00:03:53,260 --> 00:03:57,520 To have the open-source world and the Windows world kind of friendly on the user's behalf. 86 00:03:57,700 --> 00:03:58,060 Exactly. 87 00:03:58,520 --> 00:03:59,680 Well, that's a noble goal. 88 00:04:00,400 --> 00:04:00,880 Why, thank you.