2008 Nonprofit Software Development Summit
The good folks at Aspiration Technology are once again creating their magic with the second Nonprofit Software Development Summit. Given current economic conditions looking rather sucktastic to say the least, I'm looking for inspiration these days. And I find I'm really excited about the power of FOSS to help organizations that have limited IT resources to accomplish their goals. Pragmatism, accompanied by noble goals, is unstoppable. Provided there is action.
That's where the crew at Aspiration comes in. I go to a fair number of conferences. I spend most of my time with the hackers, documenters, artists, user experience researchers, users and partners of people in FOSS, and I know what motivates them to get things done. Hearing from people like Gunner, Lena, Michelle and San, people want to go GSD. (There are a whole host of other folks who belong on this list, as well; you'll find their names among those partners collaboratively developing the summit agenda.) Every time I go to an Aspiration led event I leave refreshed and inspired. And I get more good things done.
I'll be giving a talk about Google Summer of Code™ and how Google's support of the participating projects has helped provide tools to the non-profit world. I want it to be more of an open discussion and to find out what the non-profit world wants from FOSS developers.
In so many situations, I think we lose momentum because there are so few people who can translate between the divide of, for the sake of brevity, users and hackers. You know, those people who think their computer is, at best, a tool with many inconveniences. These are smart people. They are just not you - they do not breathe it, live it, love it, feel it in their fingertips the way you do. They want to accomplish a task and they don't have much of a budget to do it on. You can help with that. Though you likely need someone to help you help them figure out what they want. Then again, you may be one of those less-rare-than-previously-thought-but-still-rare-nonetheless social geeks who really digs talking to people. If you are, you should totally come. If you are one of those people who is good at getting people to geek out together when they are in totally different disciplines, you should totally come. I think we will learn a lot from one another.
That's where the crew at Aspiration comes in. I go to a fair number of conferences. I spend most of my time with the hackers, documenters, artists, user experience researchers, users and partners of people in FOSS, and I know what motivates them to get things done. Hearing from people like Gunner, Lena, Michelle and San, people want to go GSD. (There are a whole host of other folks who belong on this list, as well; you'll find their names among those partners collaboratively developing the summit agenda.) Every time I go to an Aspiration led event I leave refreshed and inspired. And I get more good things done.
I'll be giving a talk about Google Summer of Code™ and how Google's support of the participating projects has helped provide tools to the non-profit world. I want it to be more of an open discussion and to find out what the non-profit world wants from FOSS developers.
In so many situations, I think we lose momentum because there are so few people who can translate between the divide of, for the sake of brevity, users and hackers. You know, those people who think their computer is, at best, a tool with many inconveniences. These are smart people. They are just not you - they do not breathe it, live it, love it, feel it in their fingertips the way you do. They want to accomplish a task and they don't have much of a budget to do it on. You can help with that. Though you likely need someone to help you help them figure out what they want. Then again, you may be one of those less-rare-than-previously-thought-but-still-rare-nonetheless social geeks who really digs talking to people. If you are, you should totally come. If you are one of those people who is good at getting people to geek out together when they are in totally different disciplines, you should totally come. I think we will learn a lot from one another.
Labels: gsd, life, places i'll be, work
posted by Leslie Hawthorn at 9:34 PM
4 Comments:
oooh i love the sound of this! translating between geek and non-geek is a passion of mine. :)
i wish i'd found out about it a bit sooner!
@ sarah stokely: Though I of course can't speak for the organizers, I feel confident they'll hold this event again in 2009.
That's really an interesting event! I believe NGOs should use much more Free Software - but OSS developers should also be more passionate to help NGOs. Therefore such a summit is the perfect setup to connect these groups.
Would be cool to organize something like that in Europe one day. Good luck with the event!
that sounds so brilliant.
wish I had a teleport device.
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