Why Skype is Important
By
on September 17, 2006 in Developer Blog.
At VON in Boston last week, Lou Guercia of Unyte asked "Why Skype is Important". He presents a compelling business case for Working with Skype. At the same time, Lou's colleague, Gershon Goren, was at the Tallinn beta testers days to keep on track with API development. Gershon said
"now I start to understand the roots of Skype's success - [Tallinn is a] great creative environment"- another reason why Skype is important. A third reason why Skype is important is because it is founded on sharing a revolutionary technology that allows the whole world to talk for free. The beta days brought together people who share with Skype; beta testers, translators, and developers who give their time and talent to improve and enhance the Skype experience. Sharing is good.
The developer strand at the beta days included formal sessions on roadmaps, the forthcoming plug-in framework, Skype for Business, components, and the Skype4Java API. As usual, it was the question and answer sessions that proved most valuable. There was criticism but it was constructive and we explored ways to resolve our issues. There were also great ideas and innovative contributions. And there were valuable networking opportunities in the evening, both with developers and people in Skype.
Developers came from as far afield as Argentina, USA, Taiwan, Israel, and various points in Europe to share their knowledge and learn from us and each other. Their products and focus range from visual expression to collaboration to IVR and conference calling.
For me, these community get togethers are the best of times in Skype. People who are in daily communication in group chats get to meet each other in person - this is such a buzz. You already have so much in common there is no need for ice-breakers, it's like meeting old friends. The bleeding edge can be a lonely and scary place; meeting and collaborating with the Skype developer community stimulates creativity and provides reinforcement and strength.
International gatherings cost time and money - for attendants and for Skype. None of us can afford to have as many of them as we'd like. We are working on other ways to enrich communication in our community - newsletter coming soon, Skypecasts, conference calls, wiki.
If you can suggest useful ways to enrich networking in our community, please let us know.
Comments
Hi, Triona. I wish I was there.
I'd urge you to look to the needs of the people outside the room. For every attendee, there are thousands, if not tens of thousands, who would be there if they could. Some strategies for addressing this.
First, record everything. Have audio recorders running in all meetings. Buy cheap video cameras and tripods and have volunteers or staff record the sessions, preferably from more than one angle. Take cams to the hallway conversations, the parties, the whiteboards. Designate scribes to take comprehensive notes of every meeting. Use screen-capture software to record demonstrations and presentations. Get it all.
Second, push it out. Stream live where you can and publish the rest. Create an event blog and push all your collected media out the door. Video, audio, notes, sample code, documents, presentation files. Be sure to configure your site for podcasting and vlogging. Make your rich media feeds available through iTunes.
Third, add context. In the blog posts, add your commentary, point to the highlights, tag your entries, describe the rich media, make sense of it all, make meaning.
Fourth, get those outside the room to participate. Before the event: invite comments on blog posts, start and promote an IRC channel, project the latest IRC backchannel and blog comment feed on walls. Designate someone in the room to act as voice for the IRC people to ask questions.
This is a lot of transparency. But the benefits to your developers, the loyalty and engagement it promotes, completely obliterate and outweigh the alternatives of having the great ideas and knowledge sharing pass to the 25-100 people in the room and not in the 10,000 people who are or who should be part of Skype's ecosystem.
evanwolf | Tuesday, Sep 19