Stephen Fanjoy

Jono, who is the community manager for Ubuntu, started out his presentation by asking what communities can do to build and improve the sense of belonging that people have in their community. After talking a little about what belonging means, he threw out the first concrete concept that builds belonging: Stories. Jono suggests that "Stories are vessels of best practice." Whenever a community shares a story, it usually has a message attached to it--an anecdote that usually comes to some concrete point. 

He went on to talk about how open source communities are meritocracies. People in our communities rise to higher levels because of the work they do. Communities are also economies--gift economies that work on patches, rather than money.

Next Jono talked about the "Quality of Aliveness" as a factor in building belonging in a community. He gave the example of seeing a 5 year old kid use Ubuntu and how he felt the hairs on his neck stand up. These visceral experiences give us a feeling of accomplishment and that our efforts in communities are worth our time. These experiences provide a strong sense of belonging to a community.

Jono's next point illustrated that teams present vessels of belonging. For instance when you first build a team everyone is lost and no one feels at ease. But once you get to know your "local neighborhood" a little, you begin to feel comfortable. The key for building strong teams is to foster environments where people can feel like they belong and they know what to do. Provide advocacy, podcasts, translations, support, and put on local events--these all help contributors succeed and motivate them to stay involved.

Then Jono rhetorically asked how social capital in teams grows. The Ubuntu team utilizes karma in the launchpad web application, a hall of fame, highlighting people on blogs and in summits. Teams need to build some infrastructure since most people need others to celebrate their contributions. Most valuable contributors don't toot their own horns about their work--social capital grows most when teams have means to highlight the efforts of their contributors. Its best not to push people into management jobs, but to let the community organize itself. For instance, social captial builds naturally through conversations in the halls of conferences like OSCON and during project meetings/summits. Sharing stories and introducing yourself to others helps build your personal social capital.

Strive to keep a positive attitude at all times, even when dealing with problems and criticism.  People who have a glass-half-empty attitude (as opposed to half-full) can drag an entire community down. The team's attitude carries a lot of weight--a project with a "kick ass" attitude can win a ton of mind-share over projects that have negative attitudes.

Key excerpts:

STEP 1 (5 Minutes) Set Plan for Day. Before turning on your computer, sit down with a blank piece of paper and decide what will make this day highly successful. What can you realistically accomplish that will further your goals and allow you to leave at the end of the day feeling like you've been productive and successful? Write those things down... take your calendar and schedule those things into time slots, placing the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day. And by the beginning of the day I mean, if possible, before even checking your email. If your entire list does not fit into your calendar, reprioritize your list. There is tremendous power in deciding when and where you are going to do something.If you want to get something done, decide when and where you're going to do it. Otherwise, take it off your list.

STEP 2 (1 minute every hour) Refocus. Set your watch, phone, or computer to ring every hour. When it rings, take a deep breath, look at your list and ask yourself if you spent your last hour productively. Then look at your calendar and deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don't let the hours manage you.

STEP 3 (5 minutes) Review. Shut off your computer and review your day. What worked? Where did you focus? Where did you get distracted? What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?

The power of rituals is their predictability. You do the same thing in the same way over and over again. And so the outcome of a ritual is predictable too. If you choose your focus deliberately and wisely and consistently remind yourself of that focus, you will stay focused. It's simple.

The full article is at blogs.harvardbusiness.org