[00:00.000 --> 00:10.800]  All right, oh wow, it started, hi everyone.
[00:10.800 --> 00:13.000]  First off, huge thanks to organizers for having me here.
[00:13.000 --> 00:15.120]  This is my first Boston.
[00:15.120 --> 00:18.920]  It's as chaotic as everyone said, but it's been a lot of fun going through everything.
[00:18.920 --> 00:23.280]  So I'm going to be talking about creating pathways that invest in you maintainers.
[00:23.280 --> 00:25.480]  This is based on a blog post I wrote before.
[00:25.480 --> 00:29.200]  I get it, I don't like to read either, so thanks for coming to my lightning talk.
[00:29.200 --> 00:31.640]  You can hear the blog post in spoken form.
[00:31.640 --> 00:32.640]  So my name's Abby.
[00:32.640 --> 00:35.240]  I run the open source maintainer programs at GitHub.
[00:35.240 --> 00:38.120]  So I care a lot about maintainers, about open source.
[00:38.120 --> 00:42.600]  And I do think that thinking about pathways for new maintainers is one of the most effective
[00:42.600 --> 00:46.400]  ways of thinking about your community and just where to invest and how to really build
[00:46.400 --> 00:48.360]  that up.
[00:48.360 --> 00:50.960]  So first, who here is the maintainer?
[00:50.960 --> 00:52.920]  It's a lot of you.
[00:52.920 --> 00:53.920]  Good job.
[00:53.920 --> 00:55.920]  Thank you so much for your work of maintaining.
[00:55.920 --> 00:57.080]  You're the backbone of open source.
[00:57.080 --> 00:58.880]  It's huge applause for the maintainers.
[00:58.880 --> 01:02.640]  Thank you.
[01:02.640 --> 01:04.640]  And are any of you solo maintainers?
[01:04.640 --> 01:06.960]  It's a couple.
[01:06.960 --> 01:08.280]  Okay.
[01:08.280 --> 01:11.520]  So I'm going to talk about a framework that I worked on when I was at Mozilla.
[01:11.520 --> 01:14.280]  So this is put together by a bunch of my colleagues there.
[01:14.280 --> 01:17.160]  But I do think a sustainable community needs a couple things.
[01:17.160 --> 01:21.360]  First it needs a way for new people to come into the community and a way to level up within
[01:21.360 --> 01:22.840]  that community.
[01:22.840 --> 01:26.080]  I learned this the hard way when I was in university.
[01:26.080 --> 01:29.440]  And when you're running student clubs, there's this four-year cycle where kids are going,
[01:29.440 --> 01:33.760]  not kids, they're adults, where adults are going through, people are going through.
[01:33.760 --> 01:38.400]  And if there's ever a year where you're not recruiting first years or freshmen, then four
[01:38.400 --> 01:42.920]  years later, your club just has no one to lead it and it sort of dies out.
[01:42.920 --> 01:47.240]  So that's a bit of an exaggerated cycle, but it still happens in the real world.
[01:47.240 --> 01:50.240]  Like people are going to stop working on this eventually, so you have to keep thinking about
[01:50.240 --> 01:55.680]  new people coming in and ways to replace yourself.
[01:55.680 --> 01:58.200]  So we're going to look at this mountain of engagement.
[01:58.200 --> 02:01.560]  And I'm going to talk through all these steps and we'll talk about best practices for just
[02:01.560 --> 02:06.640]  moving people up these steps in a way that really helps you become new maintainers.
[02:06.640 --> 02:07.640]  So it starts with discovery.
[02:07.640 --> 02:09.800]  How do they first hear about your project?
[02:09.800 --> 02:12.720]  Maybe they're at Fostum or on a mailing list or something.
[02:12.720 --> 02:13.720]  Next is first contact.
[02:13.720 --> 02:16.400]  Do they join your Discord server?
[02:16.400 --> 02:19.360]  Do they start your repo?
[02:19.360 --> 02:20.360]  And then participation.
[02:20.360 --> 02:22.280]  Maybe they start talking in the chat.
[02:22.280 --> 02:23.720]  Start making issues.
[02:23.720 --> 02:24.720]  Sustained participation.
[02:24.760 --> 02:25.760]  They keep coming back.
[02:25.760 --> 02:26.760]  They keep making issues.
[02:26.760 --> 02:28.680]  They start making pull requests.
[02:28.680 --> 02:31.120]  Start really doing things in the community.
[02:31.120 --> 02:34.480]  Networked participation, this is the one I'm really interested in, is when they start
[02:34.480 --> 02:36.920]  bringing others into the community.
[02:36.920 --> 02:38.200]  And then finally leadership.
[02:38.200 --> 02:42.600]  And this can be as little as hosting our next meetup or as big as maintaining the whole
[02:42.600 --> 02:49.400]  project and you can really identify what you're interested in and write that out.
[02:49.400 --> 02:51.480]  So starting with discovery.
[02:51.480 --> 02:53.120]  Some best practices.
[02:53.120 --> 02:54.120]  Have a public repository.
[02:54.120 --> 02:55.120]  Work at GitHub.
[02:55.120 --> 02:58.160]  Have a public repository somewhere.
[02:58.160 --> 03:00.600]  Some marketing is usually really helpful.
[03:00.600 --> 03:02.440]  Go to conferences like this.
[03:02.440 --> 03:03.800]  Talk about your project.
[03:03.800 --> 03:06.160]  Write on mailing list.
[03:06.160 --> 03:09.040]  Having an open source or free software license.
[03:09.040 --> 03:10.960]  And I'll say these first few steps.
[03:10.960 --> 03:13.080]  It's really like the basics of setting up your community.
[03:13.080 --> 03:15.480]  They'll be, you'll know a lot of these things.
[03:15.480 --> 03:19.480]  I think after the first three is when it gets to really interesting stuff that I think a
[03:19.480 --> 03:21.080]  lot of people could benefit from.
[03:22.080 --> 03:26.000]  All right, so now that they've heard about your project, why do they reach out and actually
[03:26.000 --> 03:28.000]  start participating?
[03:28.000 --> 03:33.160]  And I find that most people like actually like join a mailing list or sign up for something
[03:33.160 --> 03:36.120]  because they're really excited about the vision of the project or the mission.
[03:36.120 --> 03:39.040]  Like they're excited about what you're doing and they want to join in.
[03:39.040 --> 03:43.160]  So making sure that you've written that down clearly and like having as concise a vision
[03:43.160 --> 03:46.880]  as possible is helpful because then they can remember what they heard in your talk.
[03:46.880 --> 03:51.800]  Go home and then go join that and like look it up.
[03:51.800 --> 03:56.000]  Also having communication channels makes it really easy for people to first contact you.
[03:56.000 --> 04:00.120]  I know it's hard if someone just writes, oh, if you're interested in contributing, send
[04:00.120 --> 04:01.120]  me an email.
[04:01.120 --> 04:07.000]  And sending an email is such a high bar compared to like, oh, you can lurk in our, I'm a little
[04:07.000 --> 04:09.320]  jet lagged so my words are missing.
[04:09.320 --> 04:11.320]  But lurk in our IRC channel.
[04:11.320 --> 04:13.200]  And then finally like have this stuff in the read me.
[04:13.200 --> 04:16.520]  Have a nice welcome mat for your project.
[04:16.640 --> 04:22.240]  Okay, so now that they've gotten in contact, why do they actually participate?
[04:22.240 --> 04:25.200]  And this one's interesting from volunteerism research.
[04:25.200 --> 04:29.040]  They found that people are four times more likely to volunteer if they've had a personal
[04:29.040 --> 04:30.320]  invitation.
[04:30.320 --> 04:34.120]  So if you meet someone who you think would be a good contributor, if you personally invite
[04:34.120 --> 04:40.160]  them that makes them so much more likely to actually come and do things on your project.
[04:40.160 --> 04:41.960]  The next thing is be responsive.
[04:41.960 --> 04:45.160]  We found this at Mozilla especially depending on cultures.
[04:45.160 --> 04:50.440]  A lot of people like to request permission to join before actually joining.
[04:50.440 --> 04:53.840]  So we, and we were sort of ignoring a lot of those requests.
[04:53.840 --> 04:56.520]  So just being responsive to things, even if it's something that you don't think is that
[04:56.520 --> 05:02.680]  important, really gives them a nice signal that people like want to participate in this.
[05:02.680 --> 05:05.360]  And then the next year around setting expectations.
[05:05.360 --> 05:09.800]  So having things like your contributed guidelines, a code of conduct, those public issues and
[05:09.800 --> 05:14.360]  pull requests so people can understand how they're supposed to contribute to this and
[05:14.360 --> 05:18.800]  what happens if they, like, the different ways that they can contribute.
[05:18.800 --> 05:21.920]  So with the code of conduct, making sure you also have enforcement, that usually means
[05:21.920 --> 05:24.240]  like good governance that works.
[05:24.240 --> 05:27.520]  And with the public issues and pull requests, they can see how the work is actually happening
[05:27.520 --> 05:28.760]  and how it's being built.
[05:28.760 --> 05:29.760]  So people can see that.
[05:29.760 --> 05:33.800]  They'll be much more likely to actually participate than if it's behind like a black box.
[05:33.800 --> 05:37.840]  All right, so those first three, again, those who are like setting up the project, I think
[05:37.840 --> 05:40.000]  a lot of people have gotten really good at those three.
[05:40.280 --> 05:45.600]  But then when it gets to sustained participation, how do you keep people coming back?
[05:45.600 --> 05:47.280]  A big one here is recognition.
[05:47.280 --> 05:49.000]  So just saying thank you.
[05:49.000 --> 05:53.440]  So this could be as big as like an award ceremony or giving out like your annual, I know like
[05:53.440 --> 06:00.920]  Google gives out like grants to different, yeah, I'm really jet lagged, different contributors
[06:00.920 --> 06:03.280]  for their open source projects.
[06:03.280 --> 06:05.920]  But it's really don't forget a simple thank you.
[06:05.920 --> 06:09.120]  So just saying thank you to people makes it makes a big difference and makes them much
[06:09.240 --> 06:11.680]  likelier to come back and participate again.
[06:11.680 --> 06:14.120]  So if you get a good pull request, say thank you.
[06:14.120 --> 06:16.680]  And then, yeah, hopefully they can come back.
[06:16.680 --> 06:19.560]  And then I like this one connecting to the mission.
[06:19.560 --> 06:21.800]  So Marshall Ganz, he's a political theorist.
[06:21.800 --> 06:25.000]  So he talks about this in terms of like political campaigns.
[06:25.000 --> 06:29.360]  So say you volunteer to Canvas, your neighborhood, and you go and do all of the houses in your
[06:29.360 --> 06:33.440]  street, you go to maybe 20 homes, and you go back to headquarters, you give them your
[06:33.440 --> 06:35.120]  clipboard, and they say, oh, thanks.
[06:35.120 --> 06:37.680]  And they like put it in the pile with the rest of the clipboards.
[06:37.680 --> 06:42.480]  And it's not as motivating as if you go back to headquarters and they say, oh, well, you
[06:42.480 --> 06:43.480]  got 20 houses.
[06:43.480 --> 06:44.760]  Let's add those 20 to the board.
[06:44.760 --> 06:45.760]  They do little tick marks.
[06:45.760 --> 06:47.520]  We're like, oh, look at this.
[06:47.520 --> 06:49.880]  We reached 1,000 people today.
[06:49.880 --> 06:51.280]  You help us reach our goal.
[06:51.280 --> 06:56.280]  And then connecting that small work that the volunteer did to the broader mission makes
[06:56.280 --> 06:59.560]  a big difference of people actually coming back and being excited about what they're
[06:59.560 --> 07:02.440]  doing and seeing that they're actually making a difference here.
[07:02.440 --> 07:04.520]  So whenever you can connect to mission is really good.
[07:04.520 --> 07:06.800]  And then matching skills with interests.
[07:06.800 --> 07:10.920]  So try and understand why people are coming to your project, what do they want to be doing,
[07:10.920 --> 07:14.480]  and helping them actually get that kind of experience that goes a long way with sustained
[07:14.480 --> 07:15.480]  participation.
[07:15.480 --> 07:16.480]  All right.
[07:16.480 --> 07:23.120]  The one I was excited about, the network participation, here's the, I think, formalized mentorship
[07:23.120 --> 07:25.800]  is one of the best ways to get network participation.
[07:25.800 --> 07:30.040]  I know with mentorship programs, we're often really excited about the mentees, like these
[07:30.040 --> 07:33.800]  new people coming into open source, but I think it's just as important to have more
[07:33.800 --> 07:36.320]  mentors in your open source project.
[07:36.320 --> 07:40.920]  Because these mentors are people who are onboarding others, and they're taking a lot of the, they're
[07:40.920 --> 07:45.920]  starting to get into these leadership positions, so actually giving them a role where they're
[07:45.920 --> 07:51.320]  bringing others in and helping onboard them, yeah, it goes a long way.
[07:51.320 --> 07:56.180]  And then also professional development opportunities, if you can give them certificates or like
[07:56.180 --> 08:00.120]  LinkedIn recommendations, that's really helpful for that network participation.
[08:00.120 --> 08:03.120]  People get excited about this and tell others that they want to come.
[08:03.120 --> 08:07.880]  And then hackathons and socials are just like a low bar way for people to bring their friends.
[08:07.880 --> 08:11.280]  So if you have like a fun social, you can just invite, people can invite their friends
[08:11.280 --> 08:15.760]  too and just encourage people to invite their friends that helps them start being that networked
[08:15.760 --> 08:19.340]  participant in the community.
[08:19.340 --> 08:22.760]  And then finally, it's leadership, getting up to the top there.
[08:22.760 --> 08:25.720]  And again, I think personal invitation goes a long way here too.
[08:25.720 --> 08:29.400]  A lot of people are in a community and they're just waiting to be asked to be a leader.
[08:29.400 --> 08:32.840]  So depending on how your project governance works, you can be asking someone to run for
[08:32.840 --> 08:36.760]  leadership, asking them to become a leader.
[08:36.760 --> 08:41.120]  But yeah, really taking the initiative to reach out because a lot of people don't want
[08:41.120 --> 08:44.560]  to step up themselves, especially if they're from underrepresented groups.
[08:44.560 --> 08:46.360]  So making sure you're getting invitations out.
[08:46.360 --> 08:50.200]  And then having that clear governance, so people understand who is making decisions,
[08:50.200 --> 08:54.040]  how do you become a decision maker, how do you stop becoming a decision maker, and like
[08:54.040 --> 08:55.680]  how are decisions made.
[08:55.680 --> 08:59.600]  If those are written out, it makes it a lot easier for people to become a leader.
[08:59.600 --> 09:04.080]  And I'll say leader doesn't mean you're on that decision making group, it can be something
[09:04.080 --> 09:08.120]  else in the project, but governance is still really helpful for people who want to step
[09:08.120 --> 09:10.080]  into leadership.
[09:10.080 --> 09:14.000]  And with this, I think just having that good value exchange, especially if you have volunteers
[09:14.000 --> 09:17.400]  as leaders, making sure that it's worth their time.
[09:17.400 --> 09:22.040]  And I'm a huge fan of time boxing volunteer acts, asks.
[09:22.040 --> 09:27.120]  I've definitely been asked to be a maintainer for something, I say yes.
[09:27.120 --> 09:31.600]  And then three months later, I'm like, oh, I don't want to do this anymore, but then
[09:31.600 --> 09:33.400]  it's hard for me to back out.
[09:33.400 --> 09:36.160]  But if it was time box, I just wouldn't be renewed.
[09:36.160 --> 09:42.080]  And I've just been the worst maintainer for years because it just was never ending.
[09:42.080 --> 09:45.400]  So making sure, I like that time box piece and just making sure the value exchange is
[09:45.400 --> 09:49.840]  there, that people are getting what they want out of this experience, whether it's that
[09:49.840 --> 09:54.560]  professional development like we talked about, the connections experience, yeah, to get that
[09:54.560 --> 09:55.560]  there.
[09:55.560 --> 09:58.200]  So here's an overview of the whole mountain.
[09:58.200 --> 10:03.280]  And I find a lot of people, a lot of maintainers especially, like when you're starting a project,
[10:03.280 --> 10:07.960]  you're focusing a lot on those early steps, but then they often don't get to that like
[10:07.960 --> 10:11.800]  networked participation step.
[10:11.800 --> 10:15.720]  And I find you can get really burnt out just like saying thank you to all the people or
[10:15.720 --> 10:18.280]  like doing those personal asks to everyone.
[10:18.280 --> 10:22.080]  But if you have more mentors on board or more people in leadership in your project, they
[10:22.080 --> 10:25.080]  can take on a lot of that early step work too.
[10:25.080 --> 10:30.720]  So that you don't get as burnt out as your community scales and as it grows.
[10:30.720 --> 10:36.360]  So this is the mountain, so four minutes left.
[10:36.360 --> 10:39.920]  All right, so here's a link to that blog post.
[10:39.920 --> 10:43.400]  You can read this in written form and it links to a lot of the references I talked about.
[10:43.400 --> 10:46.920]  So I had the research on the volunteerism stuff and Marshall Ganz's work.
[10:46.920 --> 10:51.640]  And then it's a link to some of the materials that we put together at Mozilla that we use
[10:51.720 --> 10:53.320]  this in.
[10:53.320 --> 10:55.560]  So oh yes.
[10:55.560 --> 11:01.020]  We just launched maintainers.github.com, so we're reigniting the maintainer community
[11:01.020 --> 11:02.680]  at GitHub.
[11:02.680 --> 11:06.160]  So if you're interested in this kind of stuff, if you're a maintainer and you want to be
[11:06.160 --> 11:10.520]  talking about this with other maintainers, there is a private community so you can go
[11:10.520 --> 11:12.160]  there and join.
[11:12.160 --> 11:15.720]  There's a bit of a, it does a little check to see if you're a maintainer and if you
[11:15.720 --> 11:20.400]  are then you'll get an auto invite or you can fill in a few questions and then I'll
[11:20.440 --> 11:23.760]  review it and probably let you in.
[11:23.760 --> 11:25.360]  So huge thanks.
[11:25.360 --> 11:27.160]  Are there questions in Lightning Talks?
[11:27.160 --> 11:28.160]  No.
[11:28.160 --> 11:31.440]  I don't know, okay.
[11:31.440 --> 11:32.560]  But hi, I'm Abby.
[11:32.560 --> 11:37.840]  You can find me on Twitter or on Macedon.
[11:37.840 --> 11:38.840]  Thanks for your time.
[11:38.840 --> 11:42.120]  And I put stickers on the edge of the stage if you want to grab some.
[11:42.120 --> 11:45.520]  They're in like little individual packets because I didn't feel like taking them out.
[11:45.520 --> 11:49.120]  So you're welcome to take a whole packet or you search through and like take a sticker
[11:49.200 --> 11:50.200]  that you like.
[11:50.200 --> 11:51.200]  But thank you so much.