• Firstly, The Art Of Community was rated #2 in Top 10 must-have books on social media by Mashable. Wow, I am tickled pink about this. Thanks, Mashable folks!
• Secondly, I have have heard from a bunch of people that the legendary .net Magazine reviewed The Art Of Community saying it was well written, well structured and intriguing that O’Reilly support it as a free e-book too. Rock and roll.

If you lovely people spot any more reviews, do let me know.

At the heart of great communities is great communication. Different communities converse in very different ways. Some step out into the big blue room and talk face to face in coffee shops, classrooms and lecture theatres, whereas some chew the fat online on mailing lists, in chat channels and in forums. Unfortunately when many communities set up shop they make one particularly common mistake: they focus too heavily on the medium as opposed to the approach.

Go and check it out here.

You can see it on this page and you can check out the Art of Community Amazon page here. Go and buy a copy and support the project, folks!

Today I also did a webinar about the book and you see it here. Thanks to Intro Networks for the opportunity!

You can join us here.

Those lovely people at ZDNet have let me write a guest post about community, and I have contributed an article called Failure as a springboard to success.

The article talks about how if we embrace our failures in our communities, it can help us become better community members, and provides a model for doing so. This is particularly important for leaders. In a nutshell (from the article):

Failure should [also] be embraced in your communities. We admire leaders who are humble, honest and frank, and we grumble about leaders who are defensive and abrasive. Be the former, and your community will love you for it.

If you are involved in a community, I recommend you give it a read.

Since I released The Art of Community, one thing has become evident: the people who are buying it are awesome. If you have bought it you are awesome. If you have not, you too can be awesome.

This got my mind thinking. We should put a face to the names of these awesome people. Credit where credit is due to those of you who are supporting a Creative Commons licensed book about building collaborative communities.

So, I have a fun little competition meme. It works like this:

1. Holding your copy of The Art of Community, have a picture taken of yourself with it. Really go for gold in the picture: extra points are awarded for outfits, hats, exciting locations and comedy faces.
2. Upload your photo to Flickr (or other fave photo sharing site) with the tag artofcommunity and if you use Twitter/identi.ca, use the #artofcommunity hashtag.

I will look over all the photos and pick a winner. The winner of the competition will get a special prize. The deadline for the competition is October 25th.

Should be a little fun.

When I started work on The Art of Community I was really keen that it should be a body of work that all communities have access to. My passion behind the book was to provide a solid guide to building, energizing and enabling pro-active, productive and enjoyable communities. I wanted to write a book that covered the major areas of community leadership, distilling a set of best practices and experiences, and illustrated by countless stories, anecdotes and tales.

But to give this book real value, I was keen to ensure the book could be freely accessed and shared. I wanted to not only break down the financial barrier to the information, but also enable communities to share it to have the content be as useful as possible in the scenarios, opportunities and problems that face them. To make this happen O’Reilly needed to be on board to allow the book to be freely copied and shared, in an era in which these very freedoms threaten the publishing world.

But they came through. Thanks to the incredible support of Andy Oram, my founding editor for the book, O’Reilly were hugely supportive of the project and our desire to break down these barriers.

Today I am pleased to announce the general availability of The Art Of Community under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.

With this license that the book is under you have the following freedoms with the entire content:

• to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
• to Remix — to adapt the work

…with a few requirements:

• Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
• Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
• Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

While the book is ready to download right now, the book is available to buy in print, on Kindle, and other electronic book formats and I would like to encourage you to buy a printed copy of the book for a few reasons:

• Firstly, buying a copy sends a tremendous message to O’Reilly that they should continue to publish books (a) about community and (b) under a Creative Commons license.
• Secondly, it will encourage O’Reilly to invest in a second edition of the book down the line, which will in turn mean that communities around the world will have a refreshed and updated edition that is available to them.
• Thirdly, aside from the voting-with-your-feet side of things, it is just a really nice book to own in print. It is really well made, looks stunning and feels great to curl up with in a coffee shop or on the couch.

The book is available to buy on all the major Amazon sites:

• Canada
• France
• Germany
• Japan
• United States
• United Kingdom

Even if you don’t buy it, I would be hugely grateful that if you like it, please go and review it on Amazon. This is a hugely contribution. Thanks!

You can download the The Art of Community here.

Recently I announced my brand spanking new book The Art of Community and so far the reception has been fantastic! Thanks to everyone who has been spreading the news about the book – continue to do your good thang!

Well, I am a firm believer that you should look after your own family, and I am a member of the awesome Ubuntu family, so I have managed to swing a sweet deal with O’Reilly, the publishers of the book, to send all approved USA based teams a free printed copy of the book and all other approved teams a free electronic copy of the book. While we wish we could send all approved teams across the world a free printed copy, O’Reilly are only able to cater to USA based teams right now. Damn economy.

To keep this as simple as possible, you can request your book by following these steps:

1. The team contact shown on our LoCo Team List (and only the team contact) should send me an email to jono AT ubuntu DOT com with the subject line Free Art of Community Book For LoCo Team (be sure to type this subject line exactly as here or it may slip through the net). In your email include all the following details:
   • Your full name.
   • Which team you are from.
   • Your full address (including zip/postal code, region and country).
   • Your phone number, including country and area code.
2. I will assess whether you will receive a print or electronic edition.
3. A few weeks after the deadline you should receive your edition of The Art of Community, for free!

A few notes:

• Only approved teams are eligible for the free copies of the book.
• Only the team contact for each team (shown on this page) can make the request for the book.
• There is a limit of one copy of each book per approved team.
• O’Reilly will kindly cover postage, but not any import tax or other shipping fees.
• When you have the book, it is up to you what you do with it. We recommend you share it between members of the team. LoCo Leaders: please don’t hog it for yourselves! I would also really appreciate if you write a review of the book on your nearest Amazon website.
• The deadline for getting your requests in Wed 2nd September 2009.

Make sure you get your requests in by the deadline, anything after that will be sent to the bit bucket.

If you have any questions or queries, feel free to drop me an email.

All in all a pretty sweet deal, methinks. Enjoy!

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• Amber Graner (7)
• David Cumbow (7)

You should have an email in your inbox from me with next steps to get your book. Thanks!

After months of writing, editing, copy-editing, reviews and production, I am pleased to announce the general availability of The Art of Community! The book is printed and on its way to bookstores – it may take a few days for it to hit your local bookstore or regional online store.

This is a book that I have been working on since November, designed to provide a solid guide to building, energizing and enabling pro-active, productive and enjoyable communities. The book covers the major areas of community leadership, distilling a set of best practices and experiences, illustrated by countless stories, anecdotes and tales.

While the book draws from my experience in Open Source and cites the experience of others in other communities, the book is not explicitly designed for technical communities and the content is applicable to any community of any size. This has been a deliberate decision: I am really keen that anyone from a knitting group to a neighbourhood watch group to a political activism group to a globally distributed Open Source project can get some real value from the book.

Throughout the eleven chapters and 360+ pages the book covers the major elements of building strong community:

• Foreword by Leo Laporte – emmy award-winning broadcaster and founder of the TWiT Network provides a thoughtful foreword, complete with his expected wit and repartee.
• Preface
• Chapter 1 – The Art of Community – We begin the book with a bird’s-eye view of how communities function at a social science level. We cover the underlying nuts and bolts of how people form communities, what keeps them involved, and the basis and opportunities behind these interactions.
• Chapter 2 – Planning Your Community – Next we carve out and document a blueprint and strategy for your community and its future growth. Part of this strategy includes the target objectives and goals and how the community can be structured to achieve them.
• Chapter 3 – Communicating Clearly – At the heart of community is communication, and great communicators can have a tremendously positive impact. Here we lay down the communications backbone and the best practices associated with using it.
• Chapter 4 – Processes: Simple Is Sustainable – We then move on to focus on putting the facilities in place for your community to do great things. In this chapter we build simple, effective, and nonbureaucratic processes that enable your community to conduct tasks, work together, and share their successes.
• Chapter 5 – Supporting Workflow with Tools – We continue our discussion of community facilities to build workflows that are driven by accessible, sensible, and rock-solid tools that enable your contributors to do great work quickly and easily.
• Chapter 6 – Building Buzz – With a solid foundation in place, we move on to build excitement and buzz around your community and encourage and enthuse every man, woman, dog and pony to get involved and participate.
• Chapter 7 – Measuring Community – Although many consider community hand-wavey and unmeasurable, this chapter confronts the myth and guides you in tracking, monitoring, and otherwise measuring the work going on the community so it can be optimized and simplified.
• Chapter 8 – Governance – Our next stop is the wide-ranging and seemingly complex topic of governance. We explore what options are available for a low-friction, capable, and representative governance strategy for your community.
• Chapter 9 – Handling Conflict – One of the most sensitive topics in community leadership is handling conflict. In this chapter we explore how to identify, handle, and prevent irksome conflict; handle divisive personalities; and unblock problems.
• Chapter 10 – Creating and Running Events – Events offer an excellent opportunity for your community to bond, be productive, and have fun, and this is where we cast our beady eye in our penultimate chapter.
• Chapter 11 – Hiring a Community Manager – Finally, we close The Art of Community with some advice and guidance for organizations who want to hire a community manager to conduct and implement the wide range of topics that we have discussed throughout the book.
• Index
• Colophon

The book is further augmented with an active website complete with discussion, articles and updated news and content about The Art of Community. You can find out more at www.artofcommunityonline.org.

Reviews

I am proud to see that the The Art of Community has already received some glowing reviews and it got a great response from everyone we put the book in front of as part of the review period. Here are some of the reviews:

“In the age of participation, there is no better tour guide than Jono Bacon. The Art of Community teaches leaders how to increase collaboration and authenticity to build belonging. This isn’t just for technology leaders; anyone who wants to harness community for their cause should read this book.”

— Amanda McPherson, The Linux Foundation

“The Internet provides the potential to separate us into a cacophony of discordant voices or to congregate us as purpose-driven communities. Jono Bacon, in his insightful ‘The Art of Community’, teaches the latter path, detailing the principles of successful community-building in a way that will appeal to both neophyte and expert alike. Given the increasingly critical role of community managers in the technology industry and beyond, ‘The Art of Community’ should find a place on any businessperson’s bookshelf, not to mention that of the PTA president, book club organizer, or union activist. Yes, it’s that good”.

— Matt Asay, Alfresco and C|NET

“Jono Bacon truly understands communities–and more importantly, how to build communities that thrive. This is the definitive guidebook to building successful communities–definitive because it is based on Jono’s extensive experience as community manager for Ubuntu, a product that inspires an Apple-esque devotion in very large part because of its vast and dedicated community. For developers and entrepreneurs who want to learn how to tap into the power of community, as Ubuntu has done so masterfully, this book is a must-read”.

— Ian Murdock, founder of Debian and Vice President of Emerging Platforms at Sun

“One thing that’s impressed me about Jono Bacon, something one can notice back when he and others were building a community around their pioneering Linux podcast, is that he simply gets the concept of community. It comes out in most everything he says, and most every decision he makes. This is the kind of a person you want writing a book on the topic. open source community building cannot be boiled down to a formula. It’s a constant effort, a soft science, an art, and Bacon is an ideal art teacher”.

— Dan Goldstein, Professor of Marketing, London Business School and Principal Research Scientist, Yahoo! Research

“The success of the open source software movement demonstrates that no obstacle is insurmountable when people come together around a shared vision. In ‘The Art of Community’, Ubuntu community manager Jono Bacon gives readers a profound glimpse into his hands-on experience as the orchestrator of one of the movement’s most powerful communities. His book offers valuable lessons on effective leadership and community building. Its compelling combination of useful theory, real-world best practices, and instructive personal anecdotes make it a richly comprehensive guide for both aspiring and experienced community leaders”.

— Ryan Paul, Ars Technica

There are many more reviews available on this page , including reviews from:

• Danese Cooper, Open Source Diva and OSI Director
• Mark R. Hinkle, Vice President of Community, Zenoss Inc.
• Pete Kronowitt, Linux and Open Source Strategist, Intel
• Jeremy Garcia, Founder of LinuxQuestions.org
• Irina Slutsky, geekentertainment.tv
• Don Marti, Conference Chair, OpenSource World and Organizer, Windows Refund Day, Burn All GIFs Day, Free Dmitry, and FreedomHEC.
• Paul Cooper, Moblin UI & Apps Engineering Manager, Intel
• Seif Lotfy, GNOME Foundation, Zeitgeist Co-Founder and Team Leader
• David Schlesinger – Director, Open Source Technologies, ACCESS Co., Ltd.; GNOME Foundation Advisory Board Member”
• Amber Graner, Ubuntu Community Member

As the book gets more reviews I will be updating that page. But you, dear reader, would you like to write a review of The Art of Community? If so, send the review text with your name and affiliation to jono AT jonobacon DOT org!

Availability

The book is available from all good bookshops and should start appearing in your local bookshops soon. You can also buy the book online from a variety of stores. Many of you use Amazon, so here are some links to the product pages:

• Canada – CDN$ 35.95
• France – EUR 26,86
• Germany – EUR 23,95
• Japan – YEN3,991
• United States – $26.99
• United Kingdom – £24.79

The book is also available in electronic book format:

• Kindle Edition – $9.99
• PDF / ePub / Mobi – $23.99
• O’Reilly Safari Books Online – available in Safari Books Online

(prices may have changed when you visit these websites)

The book will also be freely available shortly under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike Non-Commercial license. It’s availability will be announced soon.

Build Some Book Buzz

If you would like to seat yourself firmly in the complete and totally frikken awesome person category and would like to help spread the word about the book, it would be fantastic if you could Twitter / identi.ca / Facebook / blog about the book, and importantly, provide a review for the book on Amazon. We also have some buttons available for your website too:

	Art Of Community Website Button Official button. 348×130 240×90 100×37
Add the following code to your website to add this button:	<a href="http://www.artofcommunityonline.org/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3597/3516061651_8910ba25c9_m.jpg" alt="Art Of Community"></a>
	Art Of Community Website Button Official button. 348×198 240×137 100×57
Add the following code to your website to add this button:	<a href="http://www.artofcommunityonline.org/"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3310/3516110235_bc1c0116e2_m.jpg" alt="Art Of Community"></a>

Thanks to everyone who was involved in making this project a reality. I am really excited about this 1st Edition and I look forward to hearing your stories about how it has helped energize your communities – do let me know!

Also, if you use IRC, do come and join us in #artofcommunity on irc.freenode.net and join in the fun.

Go and Digg this!