HornCologne saysJekyll2017-03-17T14:01:40+00:00//horncologne.github.io/Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire//horncologne.github.io/horncologne@gmail.com//horncologne.github.io/blog/open-source-beyond-code-hros-with-ambrosia-vertesi-2-of-22016-01-13T18:30:00+00:002016-01-13T18:30:00+00:00Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire//horncologne.github.iohorncologne@gmail.com
<h1 id="what-the-geeks-got-right---hros---ambrosia-vertesi-part-2-of-2">What the geeks got right. - #HROS - Ambrosia Vertesi part 2 of 2</h1>
<p><strong>Part 2 of 2 - Sharing is good for business.</strong> Ambrosia Vertesti, Global VP Human Resources at Hootsuite, and I sat down to talk about how open source models are spreading to human resources and other, non-code parts of business today. In <a href="https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/open-source-beyond-code-hros-ambrosia-vertesi-1-2">part one</a>, I strove to understand HR’s needs, terminology, and perspective and what drew Ambrosia and her peers to open source. In part two, our conversation moves on to how open source values like sharing and contribution are helping human resources and a lot more about <a href="http://hros.co/#what-is-hros">#HROS</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The How isn’t competitive intelligence. That should be baseline.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I learned about the #HROS movement watching Ambrosia and Lars Schmidt <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGqrp3FWNXs">co-present the keynote address at LinkedIn’s 2015 Talent Connect conference</a>. Check that video out!</p>
<h2 id="interview-video---22-min">Interview video - 22 min.</h2>
<p>
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SByjbvo8urg" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<h2 id="hros---sharing-the-how">#HROS - Sharing The How</h2>
<p>The sharing and contributing aspects of #HROS–the stuff that makes it “open source”–came about out of necessity, just like so many open source software projects and tools. When she was hired as the 20th employee, Ambrosia was the sole HR person at Hootsuite and she was responsible for four other departments … Welcome to startups! She lacked time and resources and turned to her network for help. “I was in Vancouver. We weren’t in the epicenter of innovation and startups. We were in a place that the ecosystem was just growing around us. We needed to collaborate. I was empowered by our founder to take risks and find a different way to do HR. This was my opportunity to see if this thing is real!”</p>
<p>“It started out of necessity and being empowered to take a risk. That was me reaching out to people. ‘I’m the only person here. I’m trying to find a way to do things.’ I explained the problem I had and asked, ‘Do you have The How?’ Because a lot of times, people talk about why you should do something and what you should do. If you read Forbes articles about best workplaces and all that kind of stuff, like ‘Performance Management Should be Dead!’ And I say okay, but how are you going to ensure that you have a high-performance culture that is fair and equitable? So The How is missing from anything you read online. And in safe-safe circles, behind closed doors, people were telling me The How.”</p>
<p>“The How isn’t competitive intelligence. That should be baseline.” Ambrosia recognized that this practical information–what she calls “The How”–is like the code in open source software. It doesn’t give you a competitive advantage over others, that all lies in other areas, just like we can all use Linux or Drupal to level the playing field and then compete on other areas of differentiation. “Competitive intelligence is me taking that and making sure it fits with my organization … I’ve probably combined it with 4 or 5 other Hows … It’s alchemy. There are things I see as competitive intelligence: compensation, stuff like that.”</p>
<h2 id="opening-up---asking-for-help-giving-help">Opening up - asking for help, giving help</h2>
<p>I wanted to know how Ambrosia’s peers reacted when she opened up to them about her needs, problems, and challenges. She told me, “I found they were very collaborative. My experience has been that anybody I ever sent a Bat-Signal out, asking for help, people have come and helped me. And then I’ve reciprocated when I was able to.” Ambrosia could swap, for example, her expertise in the world of social media for someone else’s experience of policy scalability at large corporations. “It was really about equal value propositions. It wasn’t just about solving a need. I felt as though we could give something back and that every HR practitioner would have something they’re up against,” this sounds so familiar to me from the development and website-building world, “and that they could give an equal-value reciprocity … if the got over themselves and the stereotypes and the reputation.”</p>
<p>#HROS isn’t the first time HR practitioners have ever shared or collaborated, but Ambrosia explains, “My thought was that we could bring this out into the practitioners’ space instead of it being a group of people who were … sharing because we know each other. What if you’re an emerging practitioner? It was a way to even the playing field and a way to showcase that HR is very innovative and they are very collaborative and they do want to support each other. And that nobody does have the perfect answer, so let’s all work on it together … and openly.”</p>
<h2 id="partnerships-external-and-internal">Partnerships: external and internal</h2>
<p>At Hootsuite, Ambrosia is extending this idea to collaborating with employees to improve internal systems and processes, too. “For me and a lot of HR practitioners, the stuff that is servicing people’s daily jobs and removing roadblocks and empowering them should be done in collaboration, it should be done openly, and it should be up for debate.”</p>
<p>“As HR practitioners, you need to be connected to your employees because they’re your customers. So if our team sees us saying ‘We did this thing and here’s the parts that we missed,’ now I’ve been humanized to them. Now, they’re able to come and tell me when things might not be perfect because I’m not projecting and I’m not posturing and I’m not guarding against it. There are things in your job HR that are very serious, very regulated, very compliance-driven, but there are sandboxes where you can have a lot of fun and you can really connect with people. And we want to put some of those things out there to educate not only HR people, but employees, because the more they understand about our profession, the more they understand how we can work together to build a culture and a company that we both want to be at.”</p>
<h2 id="what-are-the-geeks-getting-right">What are the geeks getting right?</h2>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>“What are the geeks getting right?</strong> High level: The mindset of ‘We’re all in this together. Let’s work on this together. Let’s support and share.’ … Those are things that business should be taking into their practices. We’re all intellectual capital businesses, those fundamental practices create amazing workflows and better businesses. The engineers got that right. At the very highest level, that is the right mentality to build your business on.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="more-from-ambrosia-vertesti-and-hros-on-the-web">More from Ambrosia Vertesti and #HROS on the web</h2>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://dev.acquia.com/podcast/open-source-beyond-code-hros-ambrosia-vertesi-1-2">Open Source Beyond Code: #HROS with Ambrosia Vertesi</a> - 1 of 2</li>
<li>What the geeks got right. - #HROS - Ambrosia Vertesi part 2 of 2</li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGqrp3FWNXs">#HROS: Open-Source Comes To HR</a> Ambrosia Vertesi & Lars Schmidt, Talent Connect Anaheim Keynote</li>
<li>Open Source HR - #HROS - <a href="http://hros.co/#what-is-hros">hros.co</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/employers/blog/when-open-source-and-hr-collide/">When Open Source And HR Collide</a> - Glassdoor</li>
<li><a href="http://www.techvibes.com/blog/insight-on-culture-brand-and-ego-2015-06-16">Insight on Culture, Brand, and Ego from Hootsuite’s Ambrosia Vertesi</a> - Techvibes.com</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="guest-dossier">Guest dossier</h2>
<ul>
<li>Name: Ambrosia Vertesi</li>
<li>Work affiliation: <a href="https://hootsuite.com/en-gb/about/leadership">Global VP, Human Resources, Hootsuite</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/hambrody">@hambrody</a></li>
<li>LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ambrosiavertesi">Ambrosia Vertesi</a></li>
<li>Current projects: <a href="http://www.singitfwd.com/">#singitfwd</a> “Music changes lives. Pass it on.”</li>
<li>About: Over the past five years running HR for Hootsuite–and growing it from 20 to 1000+ employees!–Ambrosia Vertesi has had to figure out how to keep up with Hootsuite’s enormous growth. Dealing with the challenging realities that many of us face at startups, like limited resources, budgets, and (perceived) talent shortages, forced her to get creative. Along the way, she and a group of her peers noticed that software professionals had institutionalized the way they benefitted from swapping favors, and connections to get things done: Open Source HR (#HROS) was born!</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="//horncologne.github.io/blog/open-source-beyond-code-hros-with-ambrosia-vertesi-2-of-2/">What the geeks got right - HROS with Ambrosia Vertesi part 2 of 2</a> was originally published by Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire at <a href="//horncologne.github.io">HornCologne says</a> on January 13, 2016.</p>
//horncologne.github.io/blog/open-source-beyond-code-hros-with-ambrosia-vertesi-1-of-22016-01-05T15:00:00+00:002016-01-05T15:00:00+00:00Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire//horncologne.github.iohorncologne@gmail.com
<p><strong>Part 1 of 2 - Getting beyond the talent war.</strong> I was thrilled to have the chance to sit down and have a conversation with Ambrosia Vertesti, Global VP Human Resources at Hootsuite. It’s part of my exploration of how open source thinking and practices are spreading beyond the world of code to influence and improve the businesses and cultures around them; in this case, to HR practice and what has become <a href="http://hros.co/#what-is-hros" title="HROS.co">#HROS</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I am fiercely competitive, but I am collaborative before I am competitive.”
–Ambrosia Vertesi</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Over the past five years running HR for Hootsuite–and growing it from 20 to 1000+ employees!–Ambrosia has had to figure out how to keep up with Hootsuite’s enormous growth. Dealing with the challenging realities that many of us face at startups, like limited resources, budgets, and (perceived) talent shortages, forced her to get creative. Along the way, she and a group of her peers noticed that software professionals had institutionalized the way they benefitted from swapping favors, and connections to get things done: Open Source HR (#HROS) was born!</p>
<p>Apart from being fascinated to learn more about Ambrosia’s world, I was exploring, peeling back the layers and trying to understand her terminology and perspective–and what drew her to open source. When I get there, I see how and why she and her peers are so keen to apply open source thought and practices to their work. It is for all the same reasons we do it in code and technology: taking advantage of commodity functionality and specializing in what differentiates you saves time, effort, and money. Giving your best back to a community of the like-minded–and admitting what you don’t know–will reward you with receiving the best back from your community in return.</p>
<h2 id="interview-video---21-min">Interview video - 21 min.</h2>
<p>
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DQ7fjYn-fXk" frameborder="0"></iframe>
</p>
<h2 id="the-talent-war">The Talent War</h2>
<p>I heard the term “The Talent War” watching Ambrosia and Lars Schmidt <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGqrp3FWNXs" title="Video: LinkedIn Talent Connect Keynote 2016">co-present the keynote address at LinkedIn’s 2015 Talent Connect conference</a></a>.</p>
<p>I asked Ambrosia about it. “For a long time, the conversation around recruitment was about this ‘war’ for talent,” she explained, “People started thinking about it as a very combative, carnivorous environment. You had to step on each other to survive. I think this idea was very destructive to HR. People are not resources, they are human beings. A rising tide floats all boats and we should be building ecosystems and we should be collaborating on what’s happening in the workforce. I am fiercely competitive, but I am collaborative before I am competitive.” Ambrosia points out the importance of creating more talent rather than simply trying to buy everyone on the market. “This idea of the ‘War for Talent’ … talent won a long time ago. They decide what they want their education to be; they decide what companies they want to work for and what problems they want to solve. I should be supporting and enabling them in that. And supporting and enabling other practitioners about how we get better about being employers that people want to work for.”</p>
<h2 id="no-more-rock-stars-ninjas-and-gurus">No more rock stars, ninjas, and gurus</h2>
<p>I brought up Drupal’s decade-long challenging hiring situation. Ambrosia suggests that if HR professionals thought “about how you see yourselves … ‘There’s a lot of work, we want to build all these amazing things and there’s not enough of us!’ If we thought the same way, we’d look to partnerships with universities, resourcing the next generation of talent, you’d look at mentorship programs (and reverse mentorship programs!). Why are we not telling the story about the core competencies that are needed? Why are we not showing the data about what’s being educated and what’s being hired?”</p>
<p>“I think people are doing that now, I think there is a narrative there. But for a long time it was more like, ‘There’s not enough of you!’ You’re so precious!’ And these words ‘rock stars’, and ‘ninjas’ and ‘gurus’ and all these horrible things. I think it is in mentorship, education and awareness,” where you find the real, sustainable solutions to this problem. “I think you have to get to people really early–elementary school, even–to get people interested. As a business, creating an environment that’s not a brogrammer culture, that’s not based around ping pong tables, and focusing on things like diversity. I want to focus on building those environments so that it becomes more approachable for people who are interested in getting involved.”</p>
<p>Based on my experience, I point out that the more different people–from different backgrounds, genders, geographies, and so on–you have helping to solve a problem, the better the solution will be. One thing that truly surprises me in the tech world is how little focus has been placed on diversity, especially since every other conceivable aspect of efficiency, improvement, and practice has been explored and refined to produce the best possible results. Ambrosia agrees, “We all know that. Especially if you are trying to solve a universal problem. Good luck building a technology if you’re all just people in Silicon Valley, solving your own problems and drinking your own Kool Aid. You need to have everybody represented.”</p>
<h2 id="fix-it-with-data-mentorship-education-and-awareness">Fix it with data, mentorship, education, and awareness</h2>
<p>“I think technology gets that, but it will be solved through education, accessibility, and exposure. I think a lot of people like the idea of innovation and the democratization that is happening, but if you make it not inclusive, but you make it about the cool kids, or the early adopters, or only Silicon Valley … the decentralization of the Silicon Valley is a good thing because then people feel like it is something they could do. I hope that this is where the continued investment goes in order for people to feel like this is something as normal as becoming a nurse or a doctor.”</p>
<p>Technology is actually approachable and learnable. Not everyone wants to be a ninja or a rock star and you don’t need to be one to be in tech. “What I see, having worked in technology for ten years, the people who are creating [technologies] have to have a humility and egolessness–especially if they are working in an open source environment–because people are punching their ideas apart and they want to be collaborative. And those things are required. You see them a lot in technology teams, but as businesses evolve, you don’t see the same level of vulnerability and the same level of humility. I hope in my practice, if we can go, ‘Hey, we’re all trying to solve these problems. No one’s perfect. Stop talking about rock stars and how amazing you all are.’ And lead with a little bit of, ‘Here’s the problem we’re trying to solve … This is what we know. This is what we don’t know. Can you help us?’ … And build more partnerships, that it’ll become a workplace that has a lot more talent at top of funnel.”</p>
<h2 id="more-from-ambrosia-vertesti-and-hros-on-the-web">More from Ambrosia Vertesti and #HROS on the web</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGqrp3FWNXs">#HROS: Open-Source Comes To HR</a> Ambrosia Vertesi & Lars Schmidt, Talent Connect Anaheim Keynote</li>
<li>Open Source HR - #HROS - <a href="http://hros.co/#what-is-hros">hros.co</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.glassdoor.com/employers/blog/when-open-source-and-hr-collide/">When Open Source And HR Collide</a> -Glassdoor</li>
<li><a href="http://www.techvibes.com/blog/insight-on-culture-brand-and-ego-2015-06-16">Insight on Culture, Brand, and Ego from Hootsuite’s Ambrosia Vertesi</a> - Techvibes.com</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="guest-dossier">Guest dossier</h2>
<ul>
<li>Name: Ambrosia Vertesi</li>
<li>Work affiliation: <a href="https://hootsuite.com/en-gb/about/leadership">Global VP, Human Resources, Hootsuite</a></li>
<li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/hambrody">@hambrody</a></li>
<li>LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ambrosiavertesi">Ambrosia Vertesi</a></li>
<li>Current projects: <a href="http://singitfwd.com/">#singitfwd</a> “Music changes lives. Pass it on.”</li>
<li>About (<a href="https://hootsuite.com/en-gb/about/leadership">Hootsuite</a>): “Ambrosia has built and developed top talent and employers for over a decade. At Hootsuite, her team drives our employee-centric culture and Social HR frontiers. She’s also the co-founder of the music initiative <a href="http://singitfwd.com/">#singitfwd</a>.”</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="//horncologne.github.io/blog/open-source-beyond-code-hros-with-ambrosia-vertesi-1-of-2/">Open Source Beyond Code - HROS with Ambrosia Vertesi - part 1 of 2</a> was originally published by Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire at <a href="//horncologne.github.io">HornCologne says</a> on January 05, 2016.</p>
//horncologne.github.io/blog/idealism-and-what-successful-open-source-looks-like2015-11-22T12:10:49+00:002015-11-22T12:10:49+00:00Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire//horncologne.github.iohorncologne@gmail.com
<p>My virtual, mini-keynote at Drupal Camp Cape Town 2015. This is a short talk that includes ideas from the “Idealism as Code” presentations that I’ve given at a few events in recent months. Watch the video (below) to see the slides I refer to.</p>
<p>I was thrilled to be invited to give the keynote address at Drupal Camp Cape Town 2015, the first-ever South African Drupal Camp. Since I couldn’t make it down there in person — I want to be there next time! — we set up a live video connection for my session and limited it to about 15 minutes. Once we got some technical difficulties out of the way, the connection via Google Hangout on Air was great and I was even able to hear the audience reacting to me. If you’ve ever done a presentation without any live audience feedback, you know it can be tough. Dear Cape Town Drupalists, thanks for laughing at the right times!</p>
<p>Watch the video of my session to see the presentation slides and learn more about
the Four Freedoms that define open source software</p>
<ul>
<li>a comparison of working with proprietary v open source software</li>
<li>DRM (digital rights/restrictions management), digital locks, and transparency in the era of the Internet of Things</li>
<li>the power of owning your software</li>
<li>trust v openness and accountability in systems of record</li>
<li>and more!</li>
</ul>
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/B19EGZ0HjC0" frameborder="0"></iframe>
<p>Video of my virtual keynote at Drupal Camp Capetown, 2015</p>
<p>##Idealism as Code
I see open source software — Drupal perhaps especially — in a tradition of idealism and idealistic communities; communities driven by ideals to effect real-world change. We’re in an amazing position now as Drupalists to effect real-world change with technology. We’ve built powerful tools for digital communication, but this comes with responsibilities, too.</p>
<p>We are the empowered practitioners who are building the web and building the next generation of digital, interconnected technology. We can build our products and projects in ways that empower us all. And we are privileged, we’re the gatekeepers and controllers of technology. We should always strive to build safe and secure applications by default. We shouldn’t make things ugly and hard to use. And our project — Drupal — is very good at empowering less-technical users. Even more importantly: Digital rights are human rights in this day in age and we have an opportunity and a responsibility to enable others, less technical than ourselves, to enjoy freedom, privacy, and security.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Digital rights are human rights in this day in age
and we have an opportunity and a responsibility
to enable others, less technical than ourselves,
to enjoy freedom, privacy, and security.”
— Jeffrey A. “jam” McGuire, 2014</p>
</blockquote>
<p>##Successful open source
I want you to be successful at free/libre open source software. That means building safe and secure applications that maintain our privacy and our freedom. And they need to be compelling. We’re living in the iPhone age; we’re living in the world where beautiful, fantastic digital experiences are available to all, and very cheaply. We have to build those, too. Let’s keep that in mind. They — your sites and applications — should empower people to do good, to do well, to realize their own visions. That’s what we’re here for.</p>
<p>To be “successful,” in my opinion, open source projects and products need to be all of the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Safe by default</li>
<li>Secure by default</li>
<li>Compelling by default</li>
<li>Empowering by default</li>
</ul>
<p>##Drupal’s fundamental design decision: empowerment
Speaking of empowerment, I recorded a podcast at the United Nations (here and here) with Angie Byron in 2014. She made a great point about technology and empowerment:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We [as Drupalists] make really abstract, complicated
programming concepts accessible to non-developers …
Available to them by clicking a few buttons without having to
understand all the code that comes underneath it. What I get
excited about is the idea that we create really easily
accessible things to help those people who are on the front
lines, trying to make the world a better place. We can build
technology to enable that.”
— Angie Byron, 2014</p>
</blockquote>
<p>##Four freedoms that drive innovation (and more)
Four idealistic concepts underpin everything that open source is about. They are the so-called “Four Freedoms”:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Use it:</strong> for anything, anywhere, forever (You’re free to use this stuff for any reason. Nobody can take it away.)</li>
<li><strong>Study it:</strong> understand what you are using (You’re free to understand it. Mitigate risk, by knowing it does what it says on the box.)</li>
<li><strong>Modify it:</strong> fix it, make it better (You are free to change it and make it exactly the tool you or your clients need.)</li>
<li><strong>Share it:</strong> redistribute, sell, give back (You are free to pass on your changes.)</li>
</ul>
<p>Each of the freedoms multiplies the others. They form a virtuous circle and produce great software, powered by incredible communities of smart motivated people around the world. We empower each other. Every time you fix a bug it’s also fixed for me. Every time I write an improvement to your module it’s also available to everyone else and by sharing all this, we become an incredibly powerful organism and an incredibly powerful force for good.</p>
<p>People building the tools that they use themselves are incredible forces for innovation because we know exactly what we need and we don’t have to wait for someone else to build it for us.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Users generally have a much more accurate and detailed model
of their needs than manufacturers have.”
— Eric von Hipple, Democratizing Innovation, 2005</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The result? There are around 30,000 active Drupal developers 100,000+ active users on Drupal.org and literally millions of people in the world who touch Drupal every day. It’s incredibly exciting to me.</p>
<p>##In conclusion
I really encourage you to remember the incredibly privileged position that we’re in as technically capable people and that we need to help everyone else out. Drupal is a great place to give that kind of help. Please build safe, secure, compelling, and empowering applications by default.</p>
<p>##Presentation Slides</p>
<iframe src="//www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/9jyL276cK4TcPK" width="595" height="485" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" style="border:1px solid #CCC; border-width:1px; margin-bottom:5px; max-width: 100%;"> </iframe>
<div style="margin-bottom:5px"> <strong> <a href="//www.slideshare.net/horncologne/idealism-as-code-what-successful-open-source-looks-like" title="Idealism as code - What successful open source looks like" target="_blank">Idealism as code - What successful open source looks like</a> </strong> from <strong><a href="//www.slideshare.net/horncologne" target="_blank">Jeffrey McGuire</a></strong> </div>
<p>Originally published on <a href="https://www.acquia.com/resources/podcasts/idealism-and-what-successful-open-source-looks">Acquia.com</a></p>
<p><a href="//horncologne.github.io/blog/idealism-and-what-successful-open-source-looks-like/">Idealism and What Successful Open Source Looks Like</a> was originally published by Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire at <a href="//horncologne.github.io">HornCologne says</a> on November 22, 2015.</p>
//horncologne.github.io/blog/open-it-conference-berlin-20152015-11-22T10:37:08+00:002015-11-22T10:37:08+00:00Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire//horncologne.github.iohorncologne@gmail.com
<p>The German opposition Green Party’s Economic Spokesperson and Member of Parliament, <a href="http://www.dieterjanecek.de/">Dieter Janacek</a> invited me to be a panelist at the 2nd Open IT Summit (<em>Offene IT-Gipfel</em>) at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abgeordnetenhaus_of_Berlin">Berlin House of Representatives</a>. It was held on November 18th, 2015, one day before–and as a contrast to–the German government’s National IT Summit and its goal was “<a href="http://www.gruene-fraktion-berlin.de/offener-it-gipfel">to bring openness to the core of the political debate about the digitalisation of society and the economy.</a>” For me, the day was full of learning, expanding my horizons, and meeting new people. Highlights included finally getting to meet several representatives from the German <a href="http://osb-alliance.de/">Open Source Business Alliance</a>, with whom I have many open conversations to finish :-) and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/markusfeilner">Markus Feilner</a> from SUSE.</p>
<p>##My panel discussion</p>
<p>I was a panelist in a workshop entitled “Open economy–open standards for digital innovation” moderated by MP Dieter Janacek. My fellow panelists were <a href="http://dirkriehle.com/">Prof. Dirk Riehle</a>, Professor for Open-Source-Software at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN-XfTC7LoQ">Lars Zimmermann</a>, Open Source Economist from the <a href="http://openitagency.eu/business-models/">Open.it Agency</a>.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="de" dir="ltr">Open Source senkt Markteintrittsbarrieren. So geht Innovationsförderung! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/2OITG?src=hash">#2OITG</a> <a href="https://t.co/U0LW37HiWU">pic.twitter.com/U0LW37HiWU</a></p>— Dieter Janecek (@DJanecek) <a href="https://twitter.com/DJanecek/status/667032085375418369">November 18, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>I found Prof. Riehle’s analysis and front-line experience with startups and open source business models valuable. He underscored my contention that open source is a powerful risk mitigation tool, pointing out that large companies are facing the need to remove as many proprietary (read “closed and therefore untrustworthy”) elements from their products as possible to retain sales credibility in non-US markets.</p>
<p>Lars Zimmermann’s talk about open source hardware’s place in a less wasteful, circular economy reinforced my belief that transparency is one of the most powerful parts of the open source equation. For example, only with complete and transparent labeling, combined with laws that permit it, can we truly recycle all the different the materials in our consumer goods and make new ones.</p>
<p>Thanks again <a href="https://ar.al/">Aral Balkan</a>, for sharing this gem with me a while back. I quote it a lot:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="de" dir="ltr">»Ehrlichkeit ist der einzige Weg für Transparenz. If I have to say 'trust me', don't trust me. Darum OpenSource.« – <a href="https://twitter.com/HornCologne">@HornCologne</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/2oitg?src=hash">#2oitg</a></p>— Sarina Balkhausen (@sarinabeta) <a href="https://twitter.com/sarinabeta/status/666982494168854528">November 18, 2015</a></blockquote>
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<p>##Initial thoughts</p>
<p>What I managed to take in from the 2nd Open IT Summit–multi-track conferences always make it so hard to choose what to see and hear–led me to thinking about idealism again over the last few days. It’s an area that is key to my understanding of how successful open source and community software work. I know most of us in Drupal and free and open source technologies come from idealistic backgrounds of one kind or another. It is probably fair to say, most politicians and those involved in government in one way or another do, too.</p>
<p>The power of open source “do-ocracies” came up during the day. The freedom that allows anyone using open source to build and improve open source, too. This is a super power. Politicians must need incredible reserves of patience and stamina to keep their good ideas and goals in mind and to fight for them through years of gaining seniority and influence. And it still seems to be a matter of being in the right party at the right time (whether in government or opposition) to make a difference in the end.</p>
<p>Open source practitioners, on the other hand, can often make a difference in a relatively short time (Drupal 8’s 5-year development cycle being something of an exception). During the “Open Office” workshop held by LibreOffice and Document Foundation members, I realized that we can even make a difference to those organisations–governments being a prime example–that may not be able to make effective, quick changes themselves.</p>
<p>We can make a difference because we are free to share what we do, improve the tools at everyone’s disposal, offer lower barriers to entry for better tools … plus guarantee transparency and auditability, all while reacting faster to security problems, continuously innovating and much more without having to wait or ask for permission.</p>
<p><a href="//horncologne.github.io/blog/open-it-conference-berlin-2015/">Open source - Don't ask permission, just make a difference.</a> was originally published by Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire at <a href="//horncologne.github.io">HornCologne says</a> on November 22, 2015.</p>
//horncologne.github.io/blog/vote-for-drupal-and-open-source-at-sxsw-20162015-08-20T11:51:22+00:002015-08-20T11:51:22+00:00Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire//horncologne.github.iohorncologne@gmail.com
<p><a href="http://www.sxsw.com/">SXSW</a> in Austin Texas has become one of the biggest culture and technology events in the world, with enormous scope, scale and reach. I got to looking through the session catalog recently because I was involved in preparing two session proposals for the 2016 edition and because there’s a tiny chance I could go myself for the first time … !</p>
<p>##Community voting for sessions
I discovered that community voting is part of the selection process (<a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/about">30% in fact</a>, more than at many conferences), so I got to looking around for sessions I’d like to see and/or support. What do I think is important? Well … Drupal obviously, and topics that touch on open source in its many guises, too.</p>
<p><strong>You’ll need to register</strong> on the <a href="https://auth.sxsw.com/users/sign_in">SXSW Panel Picker</a> to be able to vote. It only took me a few seconds and the info asked didn’t feel too invasion-of-privacy-y to me … ymmv.</p>
<p>##tl;dr: Vote for Drupal and open source!
Here is a selection of what I found that looks promising, important, or otherwise interesting to me. Below, I explain what each proposal is about and why I voted for each. I make no claims to being comprehensive or impartial :-)</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55586">How Major Labels Build Rockstar-Worthy Websites</a></li>
<li><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55186">Can we save the open web?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/54462">Every Beer Has a Story: SABMiller Tells Them All</a></li>
<li><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55112">Managing Millennials in Digital Media</a></li>
<li><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55778">Large Drupal Site Builds</a></li>
<li><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55467">Automate Your Drupal Setup With Chef</a></li>
<li><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/46408">How To Steal Other People’s Stuff: A Primer.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55536">Microsoft is now open source and x-platform, Why?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/46251">Teaching Open Source in our Schools</a></li>
<li><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/48846">Open Source Data Science</a></li>
<li><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55042">Government 3.0: Rebooting DC with Open Source Tech</a></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote">Search the Panel Picker</a> and let me know what (other) sessions you think are worth supporting in the comments below!</p>
<p>##What I chose to vote for and why</p>
<p>###><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55586">How Major Labels Build Rockstar-Worthy Websites</a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>What:</strong> The role of the website, apps, and the “digital experience” today between artistic expression, merchandizing, fan engagement, investment and cost.</li>
<li><strong>Why:</strong> Warner and Universal both rely on Drupal to power their artists’ digital presences. Preparing this proposal, I was fascinated by the discussions veering between practical and technical considerations and deeply emotional and artistic ones. Powered by Drupal. Awesome.</li>
<li><strong>Full disclosure:</strong> I helped prepare this session for submission, and Acquia is my employer.</li>
</ul>
<p>###><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55186">Can we save the open web?</a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>What:</strong> Drupal Project Lead, Dries Buytaert, addresses the contradiction of the growth of the internet. Founded on open technologies and architectures, and with more and more people coming online all the time, the web seems to be falling into the hands of fewer and fewer aggregators, distributors, and gatekeepers. Can we save the open web?</li>
<li><strong>Why:</strong> Dries is looking at one of the fundamental motivators of the creators and maintainers of open source software. The future shape of information freedom (at minimum) is at stake.</li>
<li><strong>Full disclosure:</strong> Dries Buytaert is CTO of Acquia, my employer and also Project Lead of Drupal, my open source CMS and web application platform of choice :-)</li>
</ul>
<p>###><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/54462">Every Beer Has a Story: SABMiller Tells Them All</a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>What:</strong> A really, really big beverages company with a lot of brands and markets to manage turns to Drupal to manage its web and digital needs.</li>
<li><strong>Why:</strong> Besides yay-Drupal! and yay-beer!, I would like to know more about the challenges a product company at this scale faces, how they plan marketing from small, regional brands, through to global ones.</li>
<li><strong>Full disclosure:</strong> Tom Erickson is CEO of Acquia, my employer.</li>
</ul>
<p>###><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55112">Managing Millennials in Digital Media</a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>What:</strong> Millenials are hitting the ground running in traditional media companies. Those companies are trying to harness their energy and ideas while helping them learn to go deeper into technology than the consumer web.</li>
<li><strong>Why:</strong> The preparation work for this session was fun and interesting. There seems to me to be a perfect storm of digital-native Millenials hitting and influencing the workplace and communication technologies reaching something like full-penetration in our daily lives. This presents challenges for managers, Millenials, and the companies they work for—even ones that are on the cutting edge of the web today!</li>
<li><strong>Full disclosure:</strong> I helped prepare this session for submission, and Acquia is my employer.</li>
</ul>
<p>###><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55778">Large Drupal Site Builds</a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>What:</strong> Workshop covering topics needed to build the ever-bigger websites Drupal is being used for today.</li>
<li><strong>Why:</strong> Learn about scaling, development workflows, monitoring, API-ecosystems, and making big Drupal projects succeed!</li>
<li><strong>Full disclosure:</strong> Session submitter, Robert Ristroph, also works for my employer, Acquia.</li>
</ul>
<p>###><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55467">Automate Your Drupal Setup With Chef</a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>What:</strong> Learn how to go from “vanilla Ubuntu” to a fully functioning Drupal cluster using the Chef automation platform.</li>
<li><strong>Why:</strong> Drupal! Geeky. Useful. Good stuff.</li>
<li><strong>Full disclosure:</strong> I really do like Drupal :-)</li>
</ul>
<p>###><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/46408">How To Steal Other People’s Stuff: A Primer.</a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>What:</strong> Brad Gross, general counsel of the Society of Digital Agencies, talks about one of the pitfalls for the digital creative: “how close is too close” when copying other people’s stuff?</li>
<li><strong>Why:</strong> Copying and imitation have been driving art since … my guess is since there was art and creativity. I’d be really interested to learn more about the ins and outs of digital creativity and the “sincerest form of flattery” as it stands today.</li>
<li><strong>Full disclosure:</strong> I used your hook on that track.</li>
</ul>
<p>###><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55536">Microsoft is now open source and x-platform, Why?</a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>What:</strong> Unthinkable until it actually happened: Microsoft has released .NET Core and ASP.NET 5 as open source and is working on cross-platform implementations for Linux and Mac. Holy game changers, Batman!</li>
<li><strong>Why:</strong> The session description says it will address three questions (1. What does Microsoft going cross-platform mean and how will it work? 2. What does Microsoft going open source mean and how will it work? 3. How can I use Microsoft’s cross-platform and open source to my advantage?) I want to know if and how this puts those of us in currently more established open source technologies at risk. Or maybe I want to know how to properly welcome a new technology to the open source fold and how I can use it to my advantage. :-)</li>
<li><strong>Full disclosure:</strong> We’d better make sure we’re on our game, people.</li>
</ul>
<p>###><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/46251">Teaching Open Source in our Schools</a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>What:</strong> Apparently, open source isn’t being taught much in schools, despite the fact that it is used across the vast majority or companies and governments. This session intends to enable educators, instructors, and mentors to get open source software into school curricula</li>
<li><strong>Why:</strong> This introduction to open source software answers the abstract questions about what it is and puts a toolbox of software and ways to get it into schools into the hands of those who need it.</li>
<li><strong>Full disclosure:</strong> My daughter told her teacher that she was foolish for offering to buy a Photoshop license for her class when all the students could legally download and learn <a href="http://www.gimp.org/">Gimp</a> for free. My kid #ftw.</li>
</ul>
<p>###><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/48846">Open Source Data Science</a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>What:</strong> Data science is a powerful and important tool for business, government, and society in the digital age. It turns out there are some great open source resources for diving into this field.</li>
<li><strong>Why:</strong> This stuff powers all the personalization, targeting, and prediction that we need to run today’s standard of marketing, disaster preparation and relief, and more. Let’s make more data scientists!</li>
<li><strong>Full disclosure:</strong> If you’re good at this stuff, you can get a great job.</li>
</ul>
<p>###><a href="http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/55042">Government 3.0: Rebooting DC with Open Source Tech</a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>What:</strong> Open source is rampant in governments around the world. The presenters f this panel see the opportunity to reboot how government and its citizens interact.</li>
<li><strong>Why:</strong> We need open source, transparent auditable voting technologies. We need a more direct form of democracy in many places. I’d like to hear what these folks have to suggest on the topic.</li>
<li><strong>Full disclosure:</strong> I read <a href="http://republic.lessig.org/">Republic, Lost</a> by Lawrence Lessig.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="//horncologne.github.io/blog/vote-for-drupal-and-open-source-at-sxsw-2016/">Vote for Drupal and Open Source at SXSW 2016</a> was originally published by Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire at <a href="//horncologne.github.io">HornCologne says</a> on August 20, 2015.</p>
//horncologne.github.io/blog/oliver-describes-herb-alpert2015-08-02T12:43:08+00:002015-08-02T12:43:08+00:00Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire//horncologne.github.iohorncologne@gmail.com
<p>Oliver, age 15: “I’ve been listening to this musician from the late 80s or early 90s called ‘Erb’ or something. He went to places like Mexico and listened to their music then he recorded it, but with the instruments we know … and made it more boring.”</p>
<p><strong>People! He listens to it, too!</strong></p>
<iframe width="1024" height="768" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/z_KDPUTyDyQ" frameborder="0"> </iframe>
<p><a href="//horncologne.github.io/blog/oliver-describes-herb-alpert/">Oliver Explains Herb Alpert</a> was originally published by Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire at <a href="//horncologne.github.io">HornCologne says</a> on August 02, 2015.</p>
//horncologne.github.io/linklist/why-the-beatles-are-letting-down-a-generation2015-08-02T10:16:08+00:002015-08-02T10:16:08+00:00Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire//horncologne.github.iohorncologne@gmail.com
<p><em>In which Martin Bryant shows me why I don’t hum any Beatles tunes anymore.</em></p>
<p>The Beatles were still on the radio when I was a kid. We had two or three of their albums on our shelf. I really liked a lot of their songs. Now? Frankly, I never hear them. Why? Maybe it’s because like so many people nowadays, I mostly listen to streamed music and they’re not there.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Yes, the Beatles‘ music has a special place in music history
but now that much of their output is FIFTY years old,
the multi-millionaires who guard the band’s estate (including
surviving members Paul and Ringo) should embrace its place
cultural history and make it available where people – especially
young people who are exploring pop history for the first time
– can easily access it. – <strong><a href="http://thenextweb.com/opinion/2015/08/01/why-the-beatles-are-letting-down-a-generation/">Martin Bryant</a></strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The KLF isn’t there either, but the apparently tortured geniuses behind the KLF removed their catalog from sale altogether in 1992; a move not unknown in the history of Western art and music. I am just glad I have a couple of their CDs that I picked up when they blew my mind just in time for me to still find them in stores.</p>
<p>My mental juggling act here:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Should artists have control of their output and œuvre?</strong> Yes, mostly, probably, yes.</li>
<li><strong>Should we strive to preserve humanity’s cultural heritage and make it available now and for future generations?</strong> Absolutely, yes.</li>
<li><strong>Should copyright extend decades beyond an artist’s death?</strong> No, but that is a different conversation.</li>
<li><strong>Should contemporary profit motivation trump our ability to preserve and archive our cultural heritage, for example with DRM and ill-conceived copyright legislation?</strong> No, but we have yet to find a good balance between benefitting artists, corporate interests, and the non-monetary value of our cultural artifacts.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="//horncologne.github.io/linklist/why-the-beatles-are-letting-down-a-generation/">Why the Beatles [and the KLF] Are Letting Down a Generation</a> was originally published by Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire at <a href="//horncologne.github.io">HornCologne says</a> on August 02, 2015.</p>
//horncologne.github.io/blog/explaining-decoupled-drupal-for-better-and-for-worse2015-08-01T11:52:02+00:002015-08-01T11:52:02+00:00Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire//horncologne.github.iohorncologne@gmail.com
<p>##From the Dutch PHP Conference 2015
<em>“In which two intrepid Drupalists show off Drupal 8 at a PHP conference.”</em></p>
<p>This is a quick summary of the talk Campbell Vertesi and I gave at the 2015 Dutch PHP Conference in Amsterdam. Read our posts about the event:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://ohthehugemanatee.org/blog/2015/06/27/dutch-php-conference-2015/">How the World Sees Drupal - the Dutch PHP Conference 2015</a></li>
<li><a href="http://horncologne.github.io/blog/hello-world-were-drupal-drupalists-in-php-land/">Hello World, We’re Drupal! Drupalists in PHP Land</a></li>
</ul>
<p>##Decoupled Drupal for Startups</p>
<p>Campbell and I presented <a href="http://www.phpconference.nl/schedule#conference-day-2/0-mvp-40-minutes-decoupled-drupal-startups">From 0 to MVP in 40 minutes: decoupled Drupal for startups</a> <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/horncologne/0to-mvp-dutchphpcon">slide deck here</a>. We talked about the world of fast-prototyping tools and application frameworks and had a quick look at Drupal 8 under the hood–<a href="http://symfony.com/projects/drupal">Symfony2 components</a>, OOP, etc. We then demonstrated how Drupal 8 can help transform a demo app to a working minimal viable product (MVP) that ingests real data, transforms and manages it, and outputs it as content to the app. Along the way, we showed off the magic that is the Migrate API and Drupal’s Views module.</p>
<p>In this modular app-creation model, each component does what it does best: Drupal ingests data, manages content and business logic, and functions as a web service. Angular.js (in our demo) provides an app front end and Bootstrap Material Design gives us “the pretty”.</p>
<p>However elegant this may be, this solution leaves us with a number of @TODOs and problems to solve before we have an application that meets the needs of today’s digital experiences: menu routing, layout/editing interface, accessibility and machine readability, login/account management, caching architecture, non-js fallback, localization/translation/multilingual, “big pipe” for REST limits, app architecture/documentation, unit tests, and getting a life :-)</p>
<p>What if there were a way to address all of these issues at once? Hello, Drupal! If you choose to rely on Drupal 8 for data/logic plus the built in Twig template engine, you come very close to solving all of the @TODOs listed above in one stroke. What’s more, you can still use this to feed anything else you need: native apps, websites, APIs, analytics, and more. We rounded out the presentation with a few use cases for each option and an example of a potential best practice: a dynamic, embedded Angular.js app running in real time inside a Drupal website.</p>
<p>##Thank you fubhy
Thanks to Sebastian Siemssen for the excellent summary <a href="http://www.zensations.at/blog/headless-drupal-cake-lie">“Headless Drupal” - The Cake is a Lie</a> of the problems of the “headless” (aka decoupled) approach and the incredible suite of benefits Drupal’s themeing layer offers.</p>
<p>##The Slide Deck</p>
<iframe src="//www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/key/9X8gsYm5lfVhSq" width="1024" height="600" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" style="border:1px solid #CCC; border-width:1px; margin-bottom:5px; max-width: 100%;"> </iframe>
<div style="margin-bottom:5px"> <strong> <a href="//www.slideshare.net/horncologne/0to-mvp-dutchphpcon" title="From 0 to MVP in 40 minutes: decoupled Drupal for startups" target="_blank">From 0 to MVP in 40 minutes: decoupled Drupal for startups</a> </strong> from <strong><a href="//www.slideshare.net/horncologne" target="_blank">Jeffrey McGuire</a></strong> </div>
<p><a href="//horncologne.github.io/blog/explaining-decoupled-drupal-for-better-and-for-worse/">Explaining Decoupled Drupal for Better and for Worse</a> was originally published by Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire at <a href="//horncologne.github.io">HornCologne says</a> on August 01, 2015.</p>
//horncologne.github.io/blog/hello-world-were-drupal-drupalists-in-php-land2015-08-01T11:23:29+00:002015-08-01T11:23:29+00:00Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire//horncologne.github.iohorncologne@gmail.com
<p>Drupal friends! Drupal 8 is almost here! In the last 5+ years, we’ve <a href="http://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/off-the-island-2013">gotten off the island</a>, <a href="http://www.acquia.com/resources/podcasts/acquia-podcast-171-drupal-php-linking-islands-podcast-1">built bridges</a>, and <a href="http://www.acquia.com/resources/podcasts/acquia-podcast-172-drupal-php-linking-islands-podcast-2">linked islands</a>. We’ve made something powerful, accessible, and useful. We’re justifiably proud of what we’ve built and what it’s capable of. But … somehow we’re not getting the word out. Let’s change that. Get out into your open source, tech, and business communities and show them what and who they could have on their side!</p>
<p>##The 2015 Dutch PHP Conference</p>
<p><em>“In which two intrepid Drupalists show off Drupal 8 at a PHP conference.”</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.drupal.org/u/ohthehugemanatee">Campbell Vertesi</a>, Technical Architect at <a href="http://forumone.com/">Forum One</a>, and I presented a Drupal 8 technical/business session at the 2015 Dutch PHP Conference in Amsterdam. We were warmly welcomed by the 500+ delegate-developers and learned a great deal from them about the broader world of Drupal’s “parent” programming language. At the same time, we took the chance to tell our PHP colleagues about what’s been going on in Drupal lately and why it could be relevant and helpful to them. Thanks again to the conference organizers <a href="http://www.ibuildings.nl/">iBuildings</a>, we had a great time at a great conference! Thanks also to <a href="http://forumone.com">ForumOne</a> and <a href="http://acquia.com">Acquia</a> (my employer!) for supporting us at this conference.</p>
<p><strong>Campbell wrote a great post about our conference experience:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://ohthehugemanatee.org/blog/2015/06/27/dutch-php-conference-2015/">How the World Sees Drupal - the Dutch PHP Conference 2015</a></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Read about our session see our presentation slides:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://horncologne.github.io/blog/explaining-decoupled-drupal-for-better-and-for-worse/">Explaining Decoupled Drupal for Better and for Worse</a></li>
</ul>
<p>##We’ve learned a lot building D8, now we need to share it.</p>
<p>Drupal 8 is a great example of what great cooperation between open source projects can look like. Thanks to PHP-FIG, the PSR standards, Composer and several years of hard work, we’ve refactored Drupal to <a href="http://symfony.com/projects/drupal">incorporate Symfony 2 components</a>, the <a href="http://twig.sensiolabs.org/">Twig template engine</a>, and lots of other external libraries. We’ve outsourced basic, commodity functionality to others so that we can specialize in what we’re good at–data ingestion and output, and managing it in between.</p>
<p>In Drupal land, we’ve been really busy and getting really excited about rebuilding Drupal, adopting up-to-date best practices and libraries, and building Drupal 8 to address the coming challenges of the post-browser world. But for all the <a href="http://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/off-the-island-2013">getting off the island</a> we’ve done technically, apparently we haven’t been spreading the word about it very well outside of Drupal.</p>
<p>Campbell and I spent a lot of our time telling other PHP developers about the exciting changes in Drupal 8 and countering some surprising misinformation about our project. I spoke with quite a few people myself who had been so horrified looking at Drupal 4, 5, 6, or even 7 that they thought they could never take our platform seriously. We’ve gotta fix this!</p>
<p><a href="https://ohthehugemanatee.org/blog/2015/06/27/dutch-php-conference-2015/">As Campbell put it in his post</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was surprised to learn about Drupal’s poor reputation among
the more hardcore PHP developers. Many of them had had a bad
experience with Drupal 5 or 6, and never looked back. Some had
tried Drupal 7 and were bewildered by the slew of Drupal-
specific concepts and structures they needed to learn for even
the simplest modifications. Many people I spoke with thought
of Drupal as a pile of procedural code, packed with confusing
workarounds and anachronisms that made it not worth adopting.
Few had heard of Drupal 8’s move to contemporary, object-
oriented coding practices. Many were dismissive of even the
concept of an application framework like ours.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We still have a lot we can learn from the broader PHP community. While we’re out there, we need to make sure we’re also telling everyone we’ve got something great (and that we’re proud of) and how they can use and benefit from it, too.</p>
<p><a href="//horncologne.github.io/blog/hello-world-were-drupal-drupalists-in-php-land/">Hello World, We're Drupal! Drupalists in PHP Land</a> was originally published by Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire at <a href="//horncologne.github.io">HornCologne says</a> on August 01, 2015.</p>
//horncologne.github.io/recipes/pavlova-new-zealands-national-dessert-blog2015-07-20T13:50:26+00:002015-07-20T13:50:26+00:00Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire//horncologne.github.iohorncologne@gmail.com
<p>The Pavlova holds a special place in my heart. It is one of the dishes I associate most strongly with New Zealand, where I grew up. It is also the sometime subject of fierce debate between Australia and New Zealand as to who invented it in the first place.</p>
<p>This recipe came courtesy of a “Derrick of New Zealand” tea towel. I like it because it is simpler to make than some other Pavlova recipes and because it really works.</p>
<p>Tips:</p>
<ul>
<li>I go for a Pavlova meringue that is crispy outside and soft inside, so I spread out the mix 8-10 cm high on the baking sheet. If your goal is a more crispy Pav or you want to layer a couple thin, crispy sheets of it with the whipped cream, spread it thinner before baking.</li>
<li>Don’t worry too much if your meringue is cracked or a bit uneven: A good layer of whipped cream and fruit over the top will cover for any perceived imperfections.</li>
<li>I try to make these in the evening. The advice about leaving the meringue in the oven overnight is sound. Try to resist the temptation to open the oven before.</li>
<li>I can fit up to a triple batch of this spread across a baking sheet 10+ cm high in my oven. However, my KitchenAid mixer can only hold a double batch of egg whites (8) at a time.</li>
<li>Caster sugar is the fine-grained variety. It dissolves faster, so can help the consistency of your meringue mix.</li>
<li>The meringue will survive a tiny bit of over beating the egg whites. The stage after “stiff peaks” is basically “lumpy,” so don’t go crazy :-)</li>
<li>Kiwis would never sweeten or flavor their whipped cream for this. Do so at your own risk. The fruit and meringue are sweet enough.</li>
</ul>
<p>##Ingredients</p>
<ul>
<li>4 egg whites</li>
<li>1 pinch salt</li>
<li>1 cup caster sugar</li>
<li>1 tsp. vanilla essence</li>
<li>2 tsp. cornstarch (or potato starch)</li>
<li>1 tsp. vinegar</li>
</ul>
<p>##Method</p>
<ul>
<li>Preheat oven to 150°C.</li>
<li>Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.</li>
<li>Gradually add the sugar, beating all the time. Ensure all the sugar is dissolved (rub a little of the egg white mix between your fingertips to check).</li>
<li>The egg whites should be thick and shiny at this stage.</li>
<li>Fold the cornstarch, vinegar, and vanilla into the mix.</li>
<li>Turn meringue mixture out onto a baking sheet or tray.</li>
<li>Shape meringue mixture as desired (circle, rectangle) on the baking sheet, based on the result you’re going for (crispy or soft, see above)</li>
<li>Turn the oven down to 140°C, bake meringue 15 minutes.</li>
<li>Turn the oven down to 120°C, bake meringue further 75 minutes.</li>
<li>Turn oven off. Do not open! Leave overnight.</li>
<li>Immediately before serving, cover with whipped cream and fresh fruit of your choice.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="//horncologne.github.io/recipes/pavlova-new-zealands-national-dessert-blog/">Pavlova</a> was originally published by Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire at <a href="//horncologne.github.io">HornCologne says</a> on July 20, 2015.</p>
//horncologne.github.io/blog/imposter-syndrome-is-a-harsh-mistress2015-07-20T13:48:14+00:002015-07-20T13:48:14+00:00Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire//horncologne.github.iohorncologne@gmail.com
<p>##The self-hating Web Developer
<a href="http://joequery.me/code/the-self-hating-web-developer/">“The self-hating Web Developer”</a> is a post by <a href="http://joequery.me">JoeQuery</a> that throws harsh light on something that I have seen in many of my friends and colleagues in technology. I suffer from it myself at times: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome">Imposter Syndrome</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Wikipedia: Impostor syndrome</strong> is a psychological phenomenon in which
people are unable to internalize their accomplishments.
Despite external evidence of their competence, those
with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds
and do not deserve the success they have achieved.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>JoeQuery, despite being empirically a “good enough” developer to support his extended family doing web work in PHP, Python, Django, Drupal, and other technologies, has somehow bought into the notion that this isn’t “real programming.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>JoeQuery:</strong> The consensus on programming forums is that web developers
are the lowest tier of software developers. Web development
is easy, it’s not real programming, it’s just CRUD frameworks
and APIs doing all the real work for you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>##Well so what?
Well so what? It is good enough to create billions in economic value and pay your rent. It shouldn’t matter how imperfect it is from some theoretical standpoint. It does the job. It’s good enough. PHP <a href="http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/pl-php/all/all">runs 80% of the web</a>.</p>
<p>JoeQuery! You and your work are good! Good enough! The web is changing our world; you’re part of that. Go back to learning out of love, not fear (that part of your post was really insightful). You’ve got this.</p>
<p>If you want a refreshing change, you could try hitting some Drupal community channels or events, too. We’re a positive, welcoming community. We’ve got Drupal 8 to show you, too :-D</p>
<p><a href="//horncologne.github.io/blog/imposter-syndrome-is-a-harsh-mistress/">Getting to Good Enough - Imposter Syndrome Is a Harsh Mistress</a> was originally published by Jeffrey A. "jam" McGuire at <a href="//horncologne.github.io">HornCologne says</a> on July 20, 2015.</p>