What open source and J.K. Rowling have in common

[mozfest-bot]

[ UUID ] 0af60d57-cf7b-4c3d-9878-c67eb28b9f8f

[ Session Name ] What open source and J.K. Rowling have in common [ Primary Space ] Digital Inclusion [ Secondary Space ] Open Innovation

[ Submitter's Name ] Justin Flory [ Submitter's Affiliated Organisation ] Fedora Project; Rochester Institute of Technology [ Submitter's Github ] @jflory7

What will happen in your session?

One of the most well-known writers of literature, J.K. Rowling is a master of storytelling. What you might not have guessed is that open source and J.K. Rowling have something in common. The importance of storytelling in technology communities is as important as some of Rowling's famous characters in Harry Potter. In this session, speaker Justin W. Flory introduces the purpose of storytelling in open source communities and how to uncover that narrative. There a variety of tools and methods that can be used to help tell the story of project, particularly with data analysis.

What is the goal or outcome of your session?

By the end, audience members will understand the role of crafting the story of their open source project and how it motivates the community, what methods are available for writing this story, and what the outcome of focusing on storytelling results in. The goal is to enable attendees to understand why writing the story of their community enables them to grow and share their message widely, and also have an idea about how to do that effectively.

If your session requires additional materials or electronic equipment, please outline your needs.

• Digital projector (HDMI or VGA)
• Presenter remote (if available)

Time needed

60 mins

[EPIKhub]

@@jflory7 - Interesting session Id like to attend :)

[hannahkane]

@jflory7 - agreed, this would be fun to attend. Can you explain a bit how you see this connecting to the Digital Inclusion space? Thanks!

[jwflory]

@hannahkane Wow, I'm so sorry for the late response on this! I completely missed the email.

Recently, one of the GNOME founders, Miguel de Icaza, said it best: "Gnome and Free Software are political movements, they happen to ship software." Open source communities are as much about software as they are people and society. The more that I explore and dive deep into open source, the more that I begin to see software projects and communities not as lines of code and community contributors, but as stories. From the projects themselves to the people behind them, there are unique stories that compel people to participate in open source / technology communities. While there's multiple ways of framing it, I'm hoping to focus the most on looking at open source projects as a collection of stories, and how looking at a project as a story helps you build out your project and strengthen your community. Specifically to the point of inclusion, I believe that thinking about technical software and communities in a non-traditional view (i.e. as stories) enables you to include more people's personal stories into your project community. Ultimately, I want to convey to the audience about how improving the story of their open source project helps grow and involve more people and makes a project more accessible and open to others.

I think every time I give this talk, it always changes a little bit based on the stories that I hear or get to understand from others since the previous time. I'm excited for MozFest as an opportunity to deliver this. Normally I deliver this in 30 minutes, but I want to spend more time looking at the people angle too, which I am increasingly led to believe is just as important as the project angle, as far as stories are concerned.

Let me know if you have any other questions, I promise more timely responses this time. 😄

[hannahkane]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, @jflory7. Unfortunately we didn't think this session was quite right for the Digital Inclusion space this year. I'm removing the milestone to allow other spaces to consider your proposal.

[mozfest-bot]

Thank you for taking the time to submit a session to MozFest. Due to the high level of submissions, we’re unable to accept all proposals and unfortunately, your session was not part of the final group.

Thank you for taking the time to submit and we will follow up on email very soon.