Meme(me)
From [Blizzard](https://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=754).
* Take a picture of yourself right now.
* Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture.
* Post that picture with NO editing.
* Post these instructions with your picture.
It is my natural working posture. *Honest*.
Building Belonging
Just wanted to let you know that I am confirmed for a keynote at [Ohio Linux Fest](https://www.ohiolinux.org/) and I am working on a brand spanking new presentation called *Building Belonging*. Should be a corker. Well, I hope so.
Look forward to seeing you all in Ohio next month. 🙂
29 Today
Today I turned 29 years old. Wow.
Last night Horseman Holbach flew in from Berlin and we blew the foam off a few cold ones and eventually got submerged into a surprisingly fun bunch of people from The Courier Awards. No, not the font, the package delivery people. I know, I never imagined they had upmarket awards ceremonies in hotels either. Tonight it is out with folks from work for tapas and drinks. 🙂
Also, thanks to those of you on Facebook who have already posted some messages. That was really nice to wake up too. 🙂
Seven Years Ago
[Never going to forget](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks). Never.
Denied By Reign Completed
Well, at 2.48am, *Denied By Reign*, the debut [Severed Fifth](https://www.severedfifth.com/) album, is finally complete and I am really proud of it. It has been by far my most ambitious project yet – eight songs, 39m 57s of music, 91 guitar riffs, 35 instrument tracks, 5.35GB of recorded audio and all recorded in about two solid weeks of studio time spread out over a few months due to traveling. This project was not only ambitious in the amount of material to record, but also in the timescales to get it done with everything else going on. It was also my most challenges production project – I have never recorded so much audio before, and it really pushed the limits of my set-up – my (what I thought was a pretty studly) dual processor PowerMac G5 with 4GB RAM was really creaking under the load of so many tracks complete with EQ and effects. In fact, it was so heavyweight that I had to mix the instruments in sections and could only listen to the full song properly when I mixed it all down. Safe to say…quite taxing!
Anyway, October 21st is the release date when the entire album will be available for free, and in the meantime some sneak peeks will be on their way soon, complete with more updates on [severedfifth.com](https://www.severedfifth.com/) – I was tempted to do a formal update now, but I am going to bed. 🙂
No, Malmsteen. No!
Wow, [Yngwie Malmsteen](https://www.yngwie.org/), 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?*”
The Jaunty Jackalope
I am really happy to see [Mark’s announcement](https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2008-September/000481.html) 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!
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.
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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJzM2LNOtWU).*
There is also an [Ogg Theora](https://videos.ubuntu.com/motuvideos/upgrading_packages.ogg) 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](https://www.youtube.com/ubuntudevelopers)!
Ubuntu 9.04 Developer Summit Sponsorship
[DIGG THIS!](https://digg.com/linux_unix/Ubuntu_9_04_Developer_Summit_Sponsorship_Process_Announced)
The [Ubuntu Developer Summit](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDS) is one of the most central events in the Ubuntu calendar. It is there that we discuss, debate and design the next version of Ubuntu. It is an incredible experience, filled with smart and enthusiastic people, fast paced and exhausting, but incredibly gratifying to be part of the process that builds the next Ubuntu.
Every time we run a UDS we re-think how we do things to ensure it is as effective as possible, and for the next UDS which takes place at the food-alicious Googleplex in Mountain View, California from Monday 8th – Friday 12th December 2008, we have decided to adjust how we sponsor people. For every UDS we (Canonical) sponsor a large number of community contributors, as well as sending our entire paid development team, so we can get as much out of the UDS as possible. Traditionally we have simply picked our list of sponsors, but this time round, we would like to have those of you who want to be sponsored submit a request for sponsorship.
## How Sponsorship Works
At every UDS we have a set of key topics that most of us have in mind around a typical release. For this UDS we have taken a look at [Ubuntu Brainstorm](https://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/) and determined that the key topics for Ubuntu 9.04 are:
* Networking
* Power Management
* Desktop Experience
* Booting
* Hardware Support
* Sharing and Backup
* Desktop Configuration
* Server Configuration
* Network Authentication
* Security
* Community
* Mobile
* QA
* Other
This time around we expect everyone we sponsor to lead at least one discussion around a topic that relates to one of the above topics – this means that you will schedule at least one session, lead the discussion and make notes about the outcome of the discussion. For sessions you are not leading, we still expect you to participate through the week and join in the discussions. The session you choose to lead should be based around an idea in the [Ubuntu Brainstorm](https://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/). We will also expect you to make the notes available at the end of the week so we can provide UDS proceedings for the wider community.
If you want to increase your likely-hood of being sponsored, the following helps:
* Volunteer to become crew – we need lots of help to run the UDS, and if you volunteer to become crew you are helping to run the event and help our attendees. We like that. Also, we will give you a rather funky Ubuntu Developer Summit crew t-shirt to wow your friends and family with.
* If you only need partial sponsorship (just travel or accommodation) you can specify this in your application.
* We will be assessing your wider Ubuntu contributions – for example, if you have been keeping up with your [5-A-Day](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/5-A-Day) and have tended to the [Sponsorship Queue](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SponsorshipProcess), these are excellent additional factors that we take into account. 🙂
## How To Request Sponsorship
Luckily, requesting your sponsorship is pretty simple, and we have built a rather snazzy system (thanks to the rather excellent Scott James Remnant) to handle sponsorship requests. To apply for sponsorship, just follow these simple steps:
* Go to [Ubuntu Brainstorm](https://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/) and pick out a bunch of ideas on there that you are interested in working on for the Ubuntu 9.04 release. Remember, we expect all sponsored participants to lead at least one discussion for a Brainstorm idea, but we also expect you to attend a number of additional sessions. Note down the brainstorm ideas you are interested in.
* Go to [summit.netsplit.com](https://summit.netsplit.com) and log in with OpenID. When you have logged in, click the *Request Sponsorship* link.
* On the first page, add your location and use the *About yourself* box to tell us why you should be sponsored and tell us about your work on Ubuntu – here you should tell us your vital stats – tell us your 5-A-Day numbers, your work on the sponsorship queue, what you have uploaded, which teams you are in, your LoCo involvement, any translation work and other work that you have been involved in. When you have done this, click the Next button.
* On the next page, add each Ubuntu Brainstorm URL into box. Then select a topic that the Brainstorm idea most closely resembles and select from the Participation box what you would like to do for that idea. when you have added your idea, click the Next button.
* On the final page, answer the questions and then click Finish to finish your sponsorship request.
All done. 🙂
Everyone should get their sponsorship requests in by **Thursday 25th September 2008** to be considered. Good luck!
[DIGG THIS!](https://digg.com/linux_unix/Ubuntu_9_04_Developer_Summit_Sponsorship_Process_Announced)