As many of you will know, I organize an event every year called the [Community Leadership Summit](https://www.communityleadershipsummit.com/). The event brings together community leaders, organizers and managers and the projects and organizations that are interested in growing and empowering a strong community.

The event kicks off this week on Thursday evening (17th July) with a pre-CLS gathering at the Doubletree Hotel at 7.30pm, and then we get started with the main event on Friday (18th July) and Saturday (19th July). For more details, see [https://www.communityleadershipsummit.com/](https://www.communityleadershipsummit.com/).

This year’s event is shaping up to be incredible. We have a [fantastic list of registered attendees](https://communityleadershipsummit.com/attendees/) and I want to thank our sponsors, [O’Reilly](https://oreilly.com/), [Citrix](https://www.citrix.com/), [Oracle](https://www.oracle.com), [Mozilla](https://www.mozilla.org), [Ubuntu](https://www.ubuntu.com), and [LinuxFund](https://linuxfund.org/).

Also, be sure to join the new [Community Leadership Forum](https://www.communityleadershipforum.com/) for discussing topics that relate to community management, as well as topics for discussion at the Community Leadership Summit event each year. The forum is designed to be a great place for sharing and learning tips and techniques, getting to know other community leaders, and having fun.

The forum is powered by [Discourse](https://discourse.org/), so it is a pleasure to use, and I want to thank [discoursehosting.com](https://discoursehosting.com/) for generously providing free hosting for us.

## Speaking Events and Training at OSCON

I also have a busy [OSCON](https://www.oscon.com/oscon2014) schedule. Here is the summary:

### Community Management Training

On **Monday 21st July from 9am – 6pm in D135** I will be providing a full day of [community management training at OSCON](https://www.oscon.com/oscon2014/public/schedule/detail/34247). This full day of training will include topics such as

* The Core Mechanics Of Community
* Planning Your Community
* Building a Strategic Plan
* Building Collaborative Workflow
* Defining Community Governance
* Marketing, Advocacy, Promotion, and Social Media
* Measuring Your Community
* Tracking and Measuring Community Management
* Conflict Resolution

### Dealing With Disrespect

On **Tues 22nd July at 10.40am in Expo Hall A** I will be providing an [Office Hours Meeting](https://www.oscon.com/oscon2014/public/schedule/detail/37042) in which you can come and ask me about:

* Building collaborative workflow and tooling
* Conflict resolution and managing complex personalities
* Building buzz and excitement around your community
* Incentivized prizes and innovation
* Hiring community managers
* Anything else!

### Office Hours

Finally, on **Wed 23rd July at 2.30pm in E144** I will be giving a [presentation called Dealing With Disrespect](https://www.oscon.com/oscon2014/public/schedule/detail/34248?cmp=tw-prog-confreg-info-os14_tweet_general) that is based upon my [free book of the same name for managing complex communications](https://dealingwithdisrespect.com/).

This is the summary of the talk:

> In this new presentation from Jono Bacon, author of The Art of Community, founder of the Community Leadership Summit, and Ubuntu Community Manager, he discusses how to process, interpret, and manage rude, disrespectful, and non-constructive feedback in communities so the constructive criticism gets through but the hate doesn’t.

> The presentation covers the three different categories of communications, how we evaluate and assess different attributes in each communication, the factors that influence all of our communications, and how to put in place a set of golden rules for handling feedback and putting it in perspective.

> If you personally or your community has suffered rudeness, trolling, and disrespect, this presentation is designed to help.

I will also be available for discussions and meetings. Just drop me an email at [email protected] if you want to meet.

I hope to see many of you in Portland this week!

If there is one question I get more than most, it is the proverbial:

> How do I get started in community management?

While there are many tactical things to learn about building strong communities (which I cover in depth in [The Art of Community](https://www.artofcommunityonline.org/)), the main guidance I am keen to share is the importance of *leadership*.

Last night, while working in my hotel room, I bored myself writing up my thoughts in a blog post and just fired up my webcam:

*Can’t see it? See it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2rI3wL3hiY)*

If you want to get involved in community management, be sure to join the awesome community that is forming on the [Community Leadership Forum](https://communityleadershipforum.com/).

A little while ago I set up the [Community Leadership Forum](https://www.communityleadershipforum.com/). The forum is designed to be a place where community leaders and managers can learn and share experience about how to grow fun, productive, and empowered communities.

The forum is open and accessible to all communities – technology, social, environmental, entertainment, or anything else. It is intended to be diverse and pull together a great set of people.

It is also designed to be another tool (in addition to the [Community Leadership Summit](https://www.communityleadershipsummit.com/)) to further the profession, art, and science of building great communities.

We are seeing some wonderful growth on the forum, and because the forum is powered by [Discourse](https://www.discourse.org/) it is a simple pleasure to use.

I am also encouraging organizations who are looking for community managers to [share their job descriptions on the forum](https://www.communityleadershipforum.com/t/new-career-opportunites-category-for-community-management-jobs/143). This forum will be a strong place to find the best talent in community management and for the talent to [find great job opportunities](https://www.communityleadershipforum.com/category/career-opportunities).

I hope to see you there!

**Join the [Community Leadership Forum](https://www.communityleadershipforum.com/)**

It seems [Mozilla is targeting emerging markets and developing nations with $25 cell phones](https://www.cnet.com/news/mozillas-25-firefox-os-phones-look-to-score-in-india/). This is tremendous news, and an admirable focus for Mozilla, but it is not without risk.

Bringing simple, accessible technology to these markets can have a profound impact. As an example, in 2001, 134 million Nigerians shared 500,000 land-lines (as covered by Jack Ewing in Businessweek back in 2007). That year the government started encouraging wireless market competition and by 2007 Nigeria had 30 million cellular subscribers.

This generated market competition and better products, but more importantly, we have seen time and time again that access to technology such as cell phones improves education, provides opportunities for people to start small businesses, and in many cases is a contributing factor for bringing people out of poverty.

So, cell phones are having a profound impact in these nations, but the question is, will it work with FirefoxOS?

I am not sure.

In Mozilla’s defence, they have done an admirable job with FirefoxOS. They have built a powerful platform, based on open web technology, and they lined up a raft of carriers to launch with. They have a strong brand, an active and passionate community, and like so many other success stories, they already have a popular existing product (their browser) to get them into meetings and headlines.

Success though is judged by many different factors, and having a raft of carriers and products on the market is not enough. If they ship in volume but get high return rates, it could kill them, as is common for many new product launches.

What I don’t know is whether this volume/return-rate balance plays such a critical role in developing markets. I would imagine that return rates could be higher (such as someone who has never used a cell phone before taking it back because it is *just too alien* to them). On the other hand, I wonder if those consumers there are willing to put up with more quirks just to get access to the cell network and potentially the Internet.

What seems clear to me is that success here has little to do with the elegance or design of FirefoxOS (or any other product for that matter). It is instead about delivering incredibly dependable hardware. In developing nations people have less access to energy (for charging devices) and have to work harder to obtain it, and have lower access to support resources for how to use new technology. As such, it really needs to *just work*. This factor, I imagine, is going to be more outside of Mozilla’s hands.

So, in a nutshell, if the $25 phones fail to meet expectations, it may not be Mozilla’s fault. Likewise, if they are successful, it may not be to their credit.

I am a firm believer in building strong and empowered communities. We are in an age of a *community management renaissance* in which we are defining repeatable best practice that can be applied many different types of communities, whether internal to companies, external to volunteers, or a mix of both.

I have been working to further this growth in community management via my books, [The Art of Community](https://artofcommunityonline.org/) and [Dealing With Disrespect](https://dealingwithdisrespect.com/), the [Community Leadership Summit](https://communityleadershipsummit.com/), the [Community Leadership Forum](https://communityleadershipforum.com/), and delivering training to our next generation of community managers and leaders.

Last year I ran my first community management training course, and it was very positively received. I am delighted to announce that I will be running an updated training course at three events over the coming months.

# OSCON

On **Sunday 20th July 2014** I will be presenting the course at the [OSCON](https://oscon.com/) conference in Portland, Oregon. This is a tutorial, so you will need to purchase a tutorial ticket to attend. Attendance is limited, so be sure to get to the class early on the day to reserve a seat!

[Find Out More](https://www.oscon.com/oscon2014/public/schedule/detail/34247)

# LinuxCon North America and Europe

I am delighted to bring my training to the excellent LinuxCon events in both [North America](https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon-north-america) and [Europe](https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon-europe).

Firstly, on **Fri 22nd August 2014** I will be presenting the course at LinuxCon North America in Chicago, Illinois and then on **Thurs Oct 16th 2014** I will deliver the training at LinuxCon Europe in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Tickets are $300 for the day’s training. This is a steal; I usually charge $2500+/day when delivering the training as part of a consultancy arrangement. Thanks to the Linux Foundation for making this available at an affordable rate.

Space is limited, so go and register ASAP:

* [North America](https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon-north-america/extend-the-experience/community-management-workshop)
* [Europe](https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon-europe/extend-the-experience/community-management-workshop)

# What Is Covered

So what is in the training course?

My goal with each training day is to discuss how to build and grow a community, including building collaborative workflows, defining a governance structure, planning, marketing, and evaluating effectiveness. The day is packed with Q&A, discussion, and I encourage my students to raise questions, challenge me, and explore ways of optimizing their communities. This is not a sit-down-and-listen-to-a-teacher-drone on kind of session; it is interactive and designed to spark discussion.

The day is mapped out like this:

* 9.00am – Welcome and introductions
* 9.30am – The core mechanics of community
* 10.00am – Planning your community
* 10.30am – Building a strategic plan
* 11.00am – Building collaborative workflow
* 12.00pm – Governance: Part I
* 12.30pm – Lunch
* 1.30pm – Governance: Part II
* 2.00pm – Marketing, advocacy, promotion, and social
* 3.00pm – Measuring your community
* 3.30pm – Tracking, measuring community management
* 4.30pm – Burnout and conflict resolution
* 5.00pm – Finish

I will warn you; it is an exhausting day, but ultimately rewarding. It covers a lot of ground in a short period of time, and then you can follow with further discussion of these and other topics on [our Community Leadership discussion forum](https://communityleadershipforum.com/).

I hope to see you there!