Art Of Community Online

A printed copy of The Art of Community spotted at O’Reilly in Cambridge, Mass!

Amber Graner gained press attention for her adventure of joining the Open Source community and writing a series of frank and to-the-point blog entries sharing her experience. Based upon her honesty and passion for learning about community, I was keen to ask her to review the book and offer some comments on the content. Well, she has just written up a rather nice blog entry:

Jono Bacon’s latest book, The Art of Community – ROCKS!

A few weeks ago I was given the awesome opportunity to review The Art of Community. I was surprised, excited, and humbled. However, as I read each chapter I realized that whether it is an Open Source Community, a Parent Teacher Group, or a Church Group, or your favorite book club, this book has something for you. Communities are Communities!

Some people know, I am new to both the Ubuntu and Open Source communities, yet through my life I have had opportunities to be part of other communities and I wish I had The Art of Community then. My participation and learning process would have been a bit easier. However, my learning process just got a little smoother.

The Art of Community will take you to the heart of what it takes to be part of, govern, deal with conflict and even what to look for in a community manager. Each chapter flows into the next, yet if you want to focus on a single topic, such as Creating Buzz or Events, each chapter will work well as a stand-alone guide.

The Art of Community will take you, as it did me, on your own personal journey through the most common themes of community such as “Where do I start?” “What do I do now that I am part of a community?” “How do I plan an event?” “I have a problem, now what?” “I want to start a team how do I?” – just to name of few. The Art of Community answers these questions and much, much, more.

Ready for the definitive community howto book? Then The Art of Community is for you. So what are you waiting for order now. Click here. If you pre-order don’t forget to add the “I have pre-ordered” to your websites, and blogs!

I just wanted to give you a hint at what to expect. I found each chapter to be a trigger for all sorts of ideas. The wheels are turning and smoke is coming out of my ears. Ok, there is no smoke, but I was overwhelmed out the amount of information that Jono has assembled into this book. I hope you will find it as exciting and useful as I have and will continue to! Enjoy!

Amber is one of the few people to have read the full draft of the book cover to cover, and as such, this is the very first review. Thanks so much for your kind words, Amber!

Just a quick note on a few interviews I have done recently about community management:

• OSTATIC
• LinuxQuestions

More Art Of Community updates coming soon!

Just wanted to throw out a few non-writing updates about the book.

Firstly, I am absolutely tickled pink that the Art Of Community Facebook Page now has 83 fans! We are growing, and thanks to every one of you who has become a fan. Your support of the project is fantastic!

Thanks also to Jim Grisanzio the Senior Program Manager for OpenSolaris Engineering for his rather kind post) about the Art Of Community:

“Jono Bacon at Ubuntu is writing a book on communities — The Art of Community. I’m looking forward to this book. And I’m glad he’s writing it from his view at Ubuntu. I’m trying to follow Ubuntu more lately. I don`t know too much about the community, but I met some Ubuntu guys in Tokyo a while back and I also met Jono at CommunityOne last year and found him to be a very cool guy”.

Jim has also started an OpenSolaris community discussion about the book and how useful it can be for their work.

This is exactly the kind of purpose I would love the Art Of Community to be used for: providing a a foundation for growing and sharpening new and pre-existing communities. I would like to welcome our new OpenSolaris friends to the Art Of Community website.

Also, thanks to Blender Nation for mentioning the book and Ton Roosendaal’s Interview involvement.

Finally, it seems that a bunch of people have been signing up to watch my Twitter Updates. I hope they prove useful to you, even if I tweet that I spilled a glass of wine all over my laptop.

Well, the announcement of the book has been out for a day or so, and the response has been incredibly encouraging. Thanks again for your incredible support and such a warm welcome to my new baby.

In addition to your rather spiffing comments, there has been equally spiffing write-ups in the press. I just wanted to list a few pieces that I was really pleased with:

Ars Technica: Jono Bacon announces CC-licensed book project

“Ubuntu community manager Jono Bacon has announced that he is writing a book about community building for tech publisher O’Reilly. The book will be made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license so that members of the community can modify and redistribute the content.”

“His announcement has been met with enthusiasm by members of the open source software community, some of whom could appear in the book’s anecdote-driven narrative. It seems like a unique and innovative way to approach the topic”.

Creative Commons: The Art of Community – Stories and Tips for Community Building

“When released the book will be available in print from your favorite supplier of O’Reilly books and will also be available online under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. Jono is a believer in Creative Commons licensing as can be seen from his music project Severed Fifth and the use of CC licenses for the Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase. Adding this book to his repertoire of CC-licensed content shows just how far one person can go when embracing the ideals of Free Culture.”

OSTATIC: Building an Open Source Community? Help Is on the Way

“Management is tough all round, but managing open source projects is different still. Most developers are giving their time because the project interests them, and non-developers join because they find the project useful, and they want to share their enthusiasm. But a community not being any one remotely homogenous group means that passions sometimes run high, and it’s not always easy to keep a project’s community — it’s life — moving forward. It may have just gotten easier. Ubuntu’s Community Manager, Jono Bacon, announced his upcoming book, The Art of Community will be available later this year”.

Lets keep the train running. Keep spreading the word folks. Every blog entry, every tweet, every dent and every story counts.