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Archive for September 9th, 2008


Posted on September 9, 2008 - by jono

No, Malmsteen. No!

Wow, Yngwie Malmsteen, notable guitar virtuoso, who I have been a fan of for years has just announced the cover for his new album Perpetual Flame:

Oh dear. That is very bad indeed.

Notable reaction from the album-buying public includes

  • “Wow that’s bad…the chest hair and all..wow…“
  • “The Hoff called and wants his chest hair back.“
  • “That’s gotta be fake…my 12 yr old niece could make a better cover than that in Photoshop.“
  • “Big hairy chested playful bear seeks boy toy for long walks on the beach, cooking tofu, and long sensual massages; are you the one I’ve been looking for?“
  • “Why not call it ‘Donut Magnetic’“
  • “Do you really need your nipple on there, Yngwie?“

Posted on September 9, 2008 - by jono

The Jaunty Jackalope

I am really happy to see Mark’s announcement of the codename for the 9.04 version of Ubuntu – the Jaunty Jackalope.

I am really excited for the new challenges and opportunities we will be facing with Jaunty. Ubuntu is stepping up to the plate in a number of areas – the desktop, the server and importantly, the hugely exciting mobile space. And, being the community guy, what makes me most proud is that the core ideals and importance of the Ubuntu community remain as uniformly critical to Ubuntu as they have since day one. The sheer, gritted determination of our community is simply breathtaking, and this is going to be no different for Jaunty.

Now is an incredibly exciting time to be involved in the Ubuntu story, and every single one of us can help to make that story memorable. Bring it on!


Posted on September 9, 2008 - by jono

Measuring Community

You know what, I love being a community manager. I love the challenges, I love the opportunities, and I love the diversity of application and work. There are of course some frustrating elements, and one of these frustrating elements is the pre-conceived perspectives that some people have about this kind of work, and to make matters worse, the things that some community managers do to compound the situation. One such example, but one in which no specific community manager is at fault, but has been something of an endemic voice is that community is vastly free-form and immeasurable.

Bollocks.

Don’t get me wrong, community is very much a soft science. It is about relationships, it is about connections, and most importantly it is about trust. When there are no relationships, no connections and no trust, community managers tend to start looking for jobs as taxi drivers.

A soft science though does not mean though that there is an excuse to just assume the world is a big analogue blur that we can only measure and assess by licking a finger and lifting it to the breeze. A key trick in being an effective community leader is to discover the mechanics of your community, and understand how to assess and measure them.

When Daniel and Jorge both came onto my team, the thing I said to both of them on day one was that I always wanted them to explore two key areas as part of their work – developing strategy and the mechanics behind that strategy. This is core to everything that we do – we have a strategic plan, goals, deadlines, and a range of graphs measuring our work that would look really freaking awesome in the war room from Wargames. Alas, about as good as we have is Jorge’s second flat-screen. We use these metrics to assess our work and the health of the community.

A typical example is the upstream report in Launchpad which we are readying for beta right now – I will have more details on this soon when it is complete. The upstream report shows a bunch of upstream projects, the number of open bugs, the number of bugs with upstream activities (this means the bug is likely to be an upstream bug), and the number of bugs with upstream watches (a known upstream bug that is linked to the Ubuntu bug). This provides us with useful data for which upstreams need most focus. We are currently getting some additional features into the report for colour coding, sorting the results and removing dupes. Bugs are a metric, they are a mechanic – they are the nuts and bolts of the software development process, and we measure them closely.

A huge amount of community management is the soft science, but I urge everyone out there to think about the mechanics. Think about the things you can assess, the things you can measure, and use them as a means to identify if your community is healthy and growing and being effective in the ways that you want it to be.


Posted on September 9, 2008 - by jono

Videolicious

Guess what folks? Horseman Holbach is at it again, this time showing you how to upgrade Ubuntu source packages:

Can’t see him in all of his German glory? Click here.

There is also an Ogg Theora version available.

And…good news! Daniel and I are meeting in London to do more videos next week! Expect some more pumped up goodness for the Ubuntu Developer Channel!