Sandro Mancuso on Community Building and User-group Organizing | SCNA 2013
Hi, it's Mike with UGtastic. In this conversation recorded on-site at SCNA 2013, I sit down with Sandro Mancuso to discuss community building and user-group organizing. Hi, it's Mike with UGtastic. In this conversation recorded on-site at SCNA 2013, I sit down with Sandro Mancuso to discuss community building and user-group organizing. In this interview, Sandro Mancuso discusses the challenges and growth of the craftsmanship community, highlighting the importance of embracing criticism and fostering a diverse, polyglot approach to building user groups.
The Interviewer
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
The Guest
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
[Music] Just kind of get that started. Hi, it's Mike with UGtastic . I'm here at SCNA 2013 and I'm sitting down with Sandro Mancuso, who did the talk this morning, the craftsmanship, a few years on. Thanks for taking the time to sit down, Sandro. A few years on is kind of a funny theme for our interview because this is actually our third year of doing an interview. I've done more interviews with Sandro than any other human being, which is three. And what I find interesting is that you're continuing to be an active part and you're also growing in the community. You've come here. You were the first SCNA and you're in the audience and now a couple years later you're up and doing a major presentation, which I think is very interesting to see somebody who's come up in the community. And your talk was about that we have this bubble, that we see our community as being big, but that's only because we're inside of it. We don't realize it. But I mean, you have more details. I'll let you. I'll let you talk about those details, about the numbers that you were and how you got, how you came to the talk of craftsmanship a few years on. Yeah, basically, because, of course, as you said, like we when we are within the communities, we think that maybe when we have like big numbers like we have in London, for example, like more than thirteen hundred now. So we think that craftsmanship is everywhere. Right. But then as soon as we start looking at the size of the population of developers all over the world. You see that you are tiny. Right. And also the way that we see ourselves is not exactly how it's being perceived from outside our little bubble. And when we have guys, for example, I didn't give the names and during the talk, but you have guys like Dan North, Ted Newhart, some some of the XP guys in London that, as Brian was saying in his talk, they are one of the pioneers of the XP, extreme programming. They are not part of our movement. Right. But they have their critiques and and that's what made me write the talk about these a few years on, because I think that we are not portraying the right image. Well, having the critics, I mean, I don't know if I just wonder if that's necessarily a bad thing. There's there's that old English saying of taking the piss out of someone that's the that a Dan North type person who is. Known to be a little bit more of a controversial question or of of why you're doing things. I mean, is it is it bad for us?
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
Well, I I speak to them quite often and we exchange a lot of like we talk in person with a lot of emails recently. I sat with Ted Newhart like for almost two hours. It's not bad. Like, it's actually very helpful as soon as you get all these criticism. It's helpful because it help us to realize our mistakes and what we can improve. But but they are very smart people and they in theory should see what we see, but they don't. And I think that is our fault. So I think that we should fix that because they are just like two voices. But remember that normally people don't go out there and say what they think.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
So for me, when I see one person saying that thing, I imagine. I imagine another thousand sharing the same field. And also, I mean, I did an interview with Dan and we talked about how he created this this idea of the BDD, which has now become dogma. And I thought it was funny, these anti dogmatic. But what he's put out is dogma. And then I think about even what I think was Charles Barkley said, I'm not a role model in both of those positions get taken wrong. Or get because they're such well known people that both of their positions get taken out of context that BDD for Dan was an idea that he put out and he wanted to talk about and have conversations, but people have turned that into a rule. And with Charles Barkley, people took what he said and said, No, of course, you're supposed to be a role model when what he was saying is, I don't look to not that I he wasn't he was against anybody ever looking at him, it was just that he said don't. That you should be your own role model, and then you should find your role models in your, in your own life, in that people look at what a Dan North says, who are in the craftsmanship movement, maybe looking at it, and the first exposure might be this criticism, and because they've already attached to something he said, might not give it a fair shot. Yeah, but but I work with some some very good developers, and not all of them like to associate themselves to the craftsmanship movement. And, and they're awesome developers, they are just not international speakers, but they share some opinions, like I don't want the label, I don't like to be when people say that I'm not professional, when I share the same values as you do, I, I'm as proficient as you are in the practices that you create, I just don't go out there and do certain things. So but I don't want to be called like that I'm not professional or that I care, I just don't treat as a religion and if I find a different practice, I will use it. And I think that I've seen more and more, I think that we've got a lot of people joining the craftsmanship movement, but more and more, some people now are looking at it differently, and I think that it's our fault, I think that we're not perpetuating what we see, so, yeah. Well, going into this image that people have with the craftsmanship, and then tying that into the user group community. You know, a little while, over a year ago, Justin Searles posted an article about that we're, we shouldn't be writing language specific, or we shouldn't be writing, creating user specific, language specific communities that we should be thinking more polyglots or craftsmen being a good way to approach building a community, but if you're, if we're dealing with this criticism of the craftsmanship community and people seeing that brand as being negative, if you go off and create a craftsmanship community, people might write that off entirely because they associate it with this negative. Now, I mean, I know that the, the craftsmanship group in, in London is pretty big, but have you dealt with anybody who's come to it and either had preconceptions or had a resistance or criticism that wasn't based on their own observations, but somebody else speaking? I heard that there was one guy that definitely a craftsman.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
And he left our community, and when he left, I was, so why is that?
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
And, and then we spoke to him and he said, like, you know, I don't really like the way that he's being portrayed anymore. I think that I joined for a reason. I love doing the cathars and coming and joining and sharing with people, but I'm not sure if I want to keep associating myself with that. So maybe some of the craftsmanship leaders going to conference saying certain things, I'm not sure if I want that. On the other hand, I'm not saying that it's one person or two people. I think that it's all of us. And like, like you said, BDD started with one idea. It moved to different ways. Agile had one ideology in there, but like it was portrayed in many different ways by many different people. As the thing grows, many different people have different interpretation, and then they will tell other people that you have different interpretation. And that keeps going and going and going. And so the message is just muddled.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Exactly.
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
So, so to date, I remember because I worked for a consultancy before where we used to sell Agile projects. And it reached the point where we didn't, as a marketing strategy or speaking to clients, we wouldn't use the word Agile anymore. Because there were so many companies resistant to the whole agility or Agile thing. I said, let's say everything that is good about Agile. Talk about all the principles, but just not mentioning the name.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
Just, yeah, don't say that word.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Exactly.
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
So, and I think that in a way, I don't think that we are as bad the way that it's worth saying. I just don't want to be there.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
I'm just trying to raise the flag right now that I've seen some people having a very different understanding. People from outside the crossmanship community having a very different understanding that we have from the inside.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
So before we get to a point where when people mention crossmanship. No, I don't want that.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
We need you to do something. So that's what I'm trying to say. One of the points you had towards the end of your talk was about starting communities. And that you have some experience. You were with the Java community. And that was a very large presentation. I mean, a very large population of, in the order of 1,000 plus. And now the craftsmanship is 1,000 plus. So over the last couple of years of being involved in these communities, is there any particular advice you might want to give to somebody who's considering starting a community or just wishes they had a community in their own neck of the woods? Two people is a community.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
That's how we started. Two people in a pub.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
So start simple. I know that for something you ask, there's all the thing of providing food and having food. And having a sponsor for this. You don't need any of that. None of that. What you need is a Starbucks. Or a pub. Or your office. Like if you work for a company that are willing to let you use the office from 6:30 in the afternoon until 8:00. That's what you need. And no need food. People eat at home if they want.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
So you need a space that can be a public space like a Starbucks. Invite a few people and start. Then keep it simple. Keep all the overhead because we are all busy. We all have kids and families and work a lot and travel and all sorts of stuff. So remove all the overheads.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
What it means?
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
Make the meetings very simple to organize. Start with a round table. With an open space. People come along and decide what they want to talk about. There's no preparation for that. You just need to find one spot. And it needs to have a rhythm. So that means that, for example, we are going to have our round table or our group discussion. Whatever name you want to give to that. Every second Tuesday of the month in this Starbucks or in this company. So as soon as you have a rhythm, the members of your community, they can plan themselves.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
So, okay, I have a meeting in two weeks' time. So I will move my things so I can attend that meeting. So that's important. And as I said, for example, use a website like meetup. com, for example. They handle all the registration. Notification. Like they send you reminders that there's a meeting. So they know who is coming, who is not. If you have a waiting list, they handle that for you. So all these things that you would struggle to do, just pay. Put some money in there. Just pay from your pocket. Because all these things are reasons for you not to do something. So if you remove all of them, it's much easier. So that's what I normally recommend. And try to make the meetings fun. Don't focus on growing your community. Just focus on having quality meetings. Because the people coming, they will bring other people if the meeting is good. But don't focus on advertising everywhere. Yeah, I could go on forever talking things that you can't do. So, I mean, if you were to say pick a topic, pick a place, pick a schedule, meetup. com, and just keep doing it. Yeah, and keep it simple. At least at the beginning. Because the advice is, like, those are the advices for people starting a brand new community. But there are many other things that we can talk about as the community grows. Because, like, the problems change. Everything changes. But we can talk about that. Yeah, because what you listed, and it in a way validates. I've been doing a little talk, a lightning talk. I didn't get to do it today. But teach yourself beginning community in 24 months. You know, it's a play on 24 hours. But you do those five things. You pick a topic. You pick a place. You pick a schedule. You just get it out there. And I say meetup. com. But also that means Twitter, Facebook, create a page, tell people, tell people, tell people, tell people. And then make it available. That's why meetup. com. And then repeat it. But give it time. You know, don't say, oh, we did it one month and nobody showed up. So, you know, and some of that is self-limitation that I expect I have to have five people at a group meeting. No, like you said, two people talking. That's already. The community. Yeah, you have collaboration. I mean, you have communication already. And you're sharing. But give it, you know, a little bit of time for you to get into the flow of it. To understand it. To start to allow the benefits to, and allow for it to even grow and give people a chance to schedule for it. There is one thing that is very important that I saw that it varies from community to community. For example, I would, we made a commitment in London that every single meeting we have would be language agnostic. We don't run any meeting that would alienate any person. But I know other communities where they run various technology-specific meetups. So, for example, in one month you come here and we are going to do airline. And then in the other month we are going to do something else. This is very cool. However, you alienate people. Because, like, if, for example, I'm not interested in airline, that means that it would take two months for me, like from my last meeting to my next one. But I come back. And as long as you don't choose, I don't know, something weird. So that's third month. So that was our problem. So we wanted to run some technology-specific. But the problem is that you alienate people. So we preferred not to do that. So everything that we do, we don't alienate anyone. So all our hands-on sessions are, we give katas, we give problems, but it can be done in any language. So we always focus and bring your own language, do whatever you want. That's very interesting. So you're staying away from here's a specific tool and here's more core concepts to think about, ideas, patterns. We're going to talk about singleton pattern. And it doesn't matter. Let's try to find some of the ways you can get yourself into a hole in Ruby or in C, whatever you do. And then maybe even those two groups can then talk about, well, you know, we have the singleton object.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Exactly.
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
So we keep the discussions at a very high level that everyone can discuss or even write code. And the technology-specific, I don't know how different cities will be, but London is special because every technology has a community there. So if they want to know more about JavaScript, they go to the JavaScript community. If they want to know more about Haskell, they go to the Haskell community and so on and so forth. So we leave all these things to the local community, the specialized communities. And I think they're extremely valuable. But in the cross-industry community, we prefer not to do what some other communities do because I probably wouldn't be interested in to go to certain meetings. And that means that it would take a long time for me to go to a meeting again.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Right.
Sandro Mancuso
community building and user-group organizing
▶ Speaking
And then the whole point of being in a community gets lost.
Mike Hall
Interviewer, UGtastic
▶ Speaking
Thank you very much for taking the time to sit down with me. My pleasure. Appreciate it. My pleasure. Maybe see you next year. Absolutely. You do the keynote. All right. Thank you. Thanks. with lots to say, interviews and more. No way. Sharing great ideas in the tech community. Fascinating conversations, a plethora of information. Find out for yourself today at UGtastic.
Critical Insights
durable
"Criticism is a valuable tool for self-improvement and should be embraced rather than avoided."
durable
"Creating communities that are inclusive and open to diverse practices can lead to greater growth and innovation."
durable
"Perpetuating a negative brand image can limit the reach and impact of a community."