study of ez publish community
TRANSCRIPT
We're in this together!
Understanding the dynamics of the eZ Publish Community
Meet the Team
Robin TeiglandStockholm School of Economics
Paul M. Di GangiLoyola University Maryland
Björn-Tore FlåtenUniversity of Agder
Elia GiovacchiniStockholm University
Nicolas PastorinoeZ Systems
Director Community
Presentation StructureStart
Finish
Recap
Tension Points~ Goal Pursuit ~
~ Decision-making ~~ Community Development ~
Interview Protocol
Lessons Learned
Recap
Research team and eZ Share Director Community discuss opportunity for partnership to explore ways to create “killer” community.
Launch of eZ Questionnaire to solicit feedback from eZ Share Community.
Research team analyzes questionnaire responses and presents results to Director Community.
Research team conducts interviews with members of eZ Community, eZ Systems, eZ Partners.
Results summarized and presented.
Oct ‘10
Nov - Dec
Jan ‘11
Feb - Jun
July ‘11Thank You!
Background Story
How it all fits together
Multiple types of actors (key players) affect development of eZ Publish Community.
Early Finding
3OA
CM OA
OE
3OA
CM
eZ Employees within Community
3rd Party Organizational Agents
Community Member
eZ
OECM
The end points of the diagram interact within the community on a regular basis, while eZ Systems, the
organization, occasionally interacts within the community but largely affects the community via external activities.
Early Finding
3OA
CM OA
eZ
OECM
Interviews
Interview Protocol
Invitations to Interview
Interview request based on selection criteria sent to individual members of eZ Publish
Community.
Pre-Interview Planning
Copy of interview guide sent to interviewees prior to interview.
Conduct Interviews
20 interviews conducted– all transcribed verbatim
123
Summary of Findings
Tension Points
Goal Pursuit
Decision-making
Community Development
Goal Pursuit
Our analysis indicates that tension can arise among the actors when pursuing goals due to the following: 1)
actors’ goals/needs and 2) information asymmetry.
Goal Pursuit
“If you are doing something for the community, then the main drawback is that you lose time directly, but in the end it is a win-win situation because what we do is build credibility as a very experienced, very knowledgeable company. We try to work globally, and some potential clients will google
us or the community and see that a few of us from our company are actively giving to the community, meaning that we know things – this is the main
reason why we do it.”
~ Entrepreneur using eZ Publish for personal business
Actors’ Goals/Needs
Goal Pursuit
"It is a challenge to know what should be kept within the company and what can be provided to the community."
~ eZ Systems executive about information sharing
Information Asymmetry
Decision-making
Our analysis indicates that tension can arise among the actors when pursuing goals due to: 1)
authoritative structure and 2) decision democracy.
Decision-making
“It’s harder to give confidence to an open source community driven by an editor than a community driven by a democratic or autocratic authority
because the editor of the CMS can always be suspected to promote its (sic) own interest, and not the community one. I often ask myself: ‘What *long-
term guarantees* does eZ Systems give to the eZ Community?’”
~ 3rd Party Organizational Agent expressing
Authoritative Structure
Decision-making
“It would be fair for those who are active participants ….. to influence development .. this is a high motivation factor for any community member.”
“In the end it is the company itself that decides what is happening and even if they show to be more open, this is not really happening, this is an outside observation.”
~ Community Member & 3rd Party Organizational Agent
Decision Democracy
Our analysis indicates that tension can arise among the actors when pursuing goals due to: 1) role of eZ in community development and 2) transparency in eZ’s
strategic direction.
"This is a challenge because as a community they want as much as possible, but if you give them the little finger, they take the whole hand – they want more when you give them something, and if they don't get something, then they get irritated. We have to
educate them on this...we are a company and not a charity, so we have to make money – but this is a challenge and you have to differentiate between what you give away for
free and what you sell.“
~ eZ Systems executive about stressing difference between eZ Publish Community and traditional open source communities
Role of eZ in Community Development
“We don’t have any real information. Are they going to continue like this? What is the policy they have for their company? Can we rely on eZ systems or not?”
"It is not easy for the community to see what we are doing or prioritizing."
~ Community Member & eZ Systems executive
Transparency of eZ’s Strategic Direction
Lessons Learned
Active Conflict Management
Open Communication
Dialogue Management
Continuous Evaluation
Lessons Learned
Active Conflict Management
Maintain a general attitude that focuses on positive
conflict to ensure mutual goals are achieved. Focus on
task conflict and mitigate relationship conflict.
What eZ is doingActive Conflict Management
Meeting physically creates stronger bonds, faster than via online exchanges. The
Event Planner initiative, led by the share.ez.no team, as well as a solid events calendar will
make sure most of the conflicts are avoided by
"preventive" (and fun !) live exchanges.
Lessons Learned
Open Communication
Ensure that two-way communication is encouraged
and transparency is maintained in dealings with
the community (e.g., Community Project Board).
What eZ is doingOpen Communication
All community teams ( Community Project Board, and share.ez.no
team ) are openly showcasing their activity, through minutes of meetings published on their
respective blogs. Atop, all mid to large-scope project directly or
indirectly related to the eZ Community's life are publicly
confronted through an open RFC process. Examples are the
share.ez.no design contest, and more recently the Event planner
and Job Board projects.
Lessons Learned
Dialogue Management
Focus on selecting and training employees that engage directly with the
community possess skills that foster dialogue, relationship-building, and trust among
members.
What eZ is doingDialogue Management
The collaboration between the community developers and eZ Engineering is increasing, as
testified by the soaring curve of submitted pull-requests on
github.com. The latter tool was preferred to all other open-source
development platform for it is tagged "Social coding". This tool
makes open-innovation more than a mere exchange of code, it
becomes a beautiful dialogue.
Lessons Learned
Continuous Evaluation
Remember to solicit feedback and re-evaluate operations to ensure new tensions are not
present and community/ organization needs are currently being met.
What eZ is doingContinuous Evaluation
Open RFCs and eZ Roadmap are prominent tools for continuous
evaluation and feedback gathering. Open RFCs/surveys concern various topics ranging
from platforms enhancements to major event location. On the
software development side, eZ Roadmap is the pure expression
of what an open-process in managing a product is.
Action items to improve communication relations, the decision making process, and member development.
Benefits
eZ Publish Community represents a new form of organizing and network of relationships. Results can help researchers and
practitioners understand how to operate this model effectively.
Uniqueness Value
The eZ Publish Community is a complex network of relationships that is driven by multiple motivation factors
that are dependent on the individual actor’s goals.
Overarching Finding
Thank You!At this time, we would like to thank all individuals who participated in this research and eZ
Systems for allowing us to engage with the community directly. If you would like to comment on these findings or have suggestions on how we can improve our analysis, please feel free to
contact one of our lead researchers:
[email protected]@hhs.se
To learn more about the researchers managing this study, please see our websites below:Paul Di Gangi: www.paulmdigangi.com
Robin Teigland: www.knowledgenetworking.org Björn-Tore Flåten: twitter.com/bjorntfl
Elia Giovacchini: twitter.com/eliagh