Tag: SpreadSpread

Flock Postage Stamp Contest

Now that Flickr is offering all kinds of new services (including stamp printing!) I thought it’d be fun to do something about it!

Flickr PhotoSo how about this? You design some kind of way cool Flock-inspired postage stamp and we’ll print it. I can’t say how many we’ll print, but chances are it’ll be a few (since we’ll need stamps to send out the shirt we’ll give you in exchange for your entry!).

Let’s say this little contest goes until Nov 5.

Here’s how to play: create a stamp using this template (borrowed from Postal Shirow). Upload it to your Flickr account and tag it “flockstamp” and add it to the Flock Art pool. Based on interestingness and some good taste, we’ll pick a winner and print the stamps and give you some other cool swag.

Questions? Just drop me a message!

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Bar Camp Amsterdam, the Movie

Katie from Amsterdam has posted the first BCA movie:

OK, so I made another terrible movie, aah, really need some new skills!  Anyway, it’s a rather warped view of Barcamp Amsterdam last week condensed into under 2 minutes. It was a lot of fun and a lot better than it looks…

Download barcampthemovie.mov (2489K)

From Katie’s Vlog : Barcamp Amsterdam the movie

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Bar Camp gains a sponsor, gets design, spreads

Flickr PhotoChris Pirillo of LockerGnome and Gada.be has stepped up as a Bar Camp Amsterdam sponsor:

I’ve also informed Chris Messina that we’ll be giving our support to BarCamp Amsterdam as well. Why? Because even if I can’t be there in person, I can be there in spirit. Both Gnomedex and gada.be are fueled by the greater community, so we (in turn) are fueling them.

Here a Camp, There a Camp (Chris Pirillo)

It’s this kind of community support that makes these events not only possible to organize, but enables us to offer them for free. While the logistics of arranging and planning big conferences like Web2.0 and EuroOSCON certainly have historically had large costs associated with them, it’s really very inspiring to be able to, from thousands of miles away, organize a microconference that costs little less than the time, attenion and dedication of a few wired (or mostly wireless!) folks.

We’ve got folks offering their design talent, organizing skills, office space and hard earned dough to make this happen. And it’s spreading…

Just this weekend I talked to Amit Gupta about him organizing a Bar Camp NYC. And I just saw that there’s a Sunday Startup Social being organized in Boston. Very excellent.


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Mambo spreads love, all open source-like

Mambolove Looks like Mambo’s getting into the community PR business with their newly minted Mambo Love site:

This is the official community-driven site for Mambo marketing, PR and advocacy. We hope that through this site we will be able to gather extensive global community support and awareness for Mambo and it will provide resources for members of the community to spread the word and keep the project growing.

While it’s great to see more community-centricspreading projects crop up, it does seem like the flavor of these efforts don’t always capture the genuine ethos of open source. Consider this snippet pertaining to staging Mambo Days (emphasis mine):

Every proposal submission will be taken into consideration, if your proposal has been accepted, we will provide you with the information you need to start your own Mambo event, put you in touch with the people who will be able to help you plan your event and in some cases Mambo communities will offer financial subsidaries* as well.

While this in some ways is similar to how patches are accepted in open source projects, staging your own Mambo meetup is not something that should require a blessing from Mambo, even if they can offer help. Consider what a bunch of us kids did with Bar Camp. Consider what the Spread Firefox community accomplished with the Firefox 1.0 launch parties.

It’s time that these folks wanting to get into community marketing start truly embracing their communities by realizing that their users as a whole are a bunch smarter and more capable than they presently seem to be willing accept. Armed with the right tools, self-organizing advocacy communities can be far more effective than cheesy billion dollar marketing campaigns. Here’s hoping the Mambo folks, who seem a little confused lately, return to the original spirit of open source in their nascent community marketing efforts and empower the passionate grassroots advocates within their community.

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Moving on from CivicSpace

Round Two logoAfter much deliberation and careful consideration, I have decided to move on from CivicSpace.

Though there were many, many things that weighed in to my decision, the clincher came last week when I received an offer for a senior position within Round Two. The position puts me in a strategic position to advance the culture of open source as one of my duties will be to act as an ambassador of open source to other projects, organizations, officials and wider audiences, extending the work I started with Spread Firefox. I am very excited about this part of my duties as it will enable me to create allies and forge the kind of networks that open source will need to become the dominant development standard throughout the world (yes, big goals!).

Indeed, I see this new opportunity for me as both a necessary step forward for myself as well my work on CivicSpace. As such, I have every intention of maintaining a close relationship with CivicSpace and making sure that my work will continue to benefit the CivicSpace and Drupal communities.

It’s truly been a privilege to work for CivicSpace and to have made as many good friends as I have. I continue to believe that the CivicSpace concept will continue to grow, mature and empower communities the world over.

The Commons gets spread

spreadCCSo after a false start at a guerilla marketing campaign to spread the Commons, Creative Commons seems to have bitten by the Spread bug.

This is truly fantastic and something I couldn’t have hoped for sooner. In fact, I really really want to get involved, but I’m biting my tongue for the moment since there are other pressing projects at hand… and, frankly, the CC guys typically know what they’re doing and well, I’m clearly already overstretched. What else is new?

…But man, talk about a project near and dear to my hear. If they do happen to be interested in any of my experiences with SpreadFirefox, I’d be happy to share. Consider that an open invitation.