Open Source and Open Eminence

Open Eminence, at its heart, is a tool to help organizations facilitate individual growth and career investment. Organizations engaging in open source gain access to skills, diversity of thought, and experience beyond their own internal teams. Individuals find opportunities to develop new skills that foster growth and to build community relationships that enable personal engagement and future career opportunities.

The key challenge for both organizations and individuals working in open source communities is understanding how to take ownership of the engagement through a focused strategy that shows a clear return on investment. For an organization to see continued value in open source engagement, individuals working on open source and managers working with teams of open source contributors must show how their value fits into the larger organizational goals.

The purpose of Open Eminence is to provide the means for individual growth through an open source engagement framework built on trackable performance goals. The application of the framework from each perspective is detailed below.

For Individuals

While the tone of this framework speaks of organizations and managers, as an individual you do not need to be officially paid to work on open source to take advantage of this framework. In fact, this framework could even help in convincing your employer to let you officially engage in open source work. Regardless, open source software is an excellent way to develop your career. A key advantage of working on open source is that your reputation and visible body of work remain in the public domain. You can continue to do that work and can keep those community relationships regardless of your official job title.

  • Set and achieve personal growth and performance goals with a focused strategy
  • Show the value of open source community engagement in terms higher-ups understand

For Managers

As more organizations embrace the necessity of open source engagement, managers are faced with the challenge of advising agents working in external ecosystems over which they may have little control or influence. Achievements, recognition, and access to projects are highly volatile and community-dependent. Use this framework with your reports to set tangible, measurable goals. Taking an analytics approach at the micro level will also help to gauge the effectiveness of their work in the community, allowing for more insightful advice and testing different strategic approaches. If engaging with a community is particularly challenging for your team, you have insight into how and why.

  • Evaluate the team’s overall engagement strategy and efforts
  • Support the team where it needs help and celebrate achievements

For Organizations

Organizations are in the early stages of open source engagement and while many understand that this engagement is valuable, most have a hard time pinpointing exactly why. The Open Eminence Framework gives you the means to tell that story.

  • Foster good reputation by showing company intent and competence
  • Access to mind-share without the overhead of maintaining a large team
  • A stronger, happier work force

Relationships and Social Capital

Relationships are the currency of open source communities. These relationships are built on Social Capital.

Traditional capital is a one-for-one exchange of goods and services for other goods and services. It results in a direct accumulation of wealth that is immediate, tangible, and quantifiable.

Social capital is a little more ambiguous. A social capital transaction can be seen as a one-way transfer without intent of repayment. Relationships are ultimately created through a feeling of obligation to the giver. In fact, the identity of giver is part of the resulting gift or favor. Reciprocation is not immediate nor is it direct. In fact, over the long-term, these types of obligations tend to build trust over time.

Accumulating Social Capital

While the concept may be a bit abstract, we all have a fairly intuitive understanding of it. Here are some other ways to think about social capital:

Has anyone ever done you a favor?

  • Did they expect anything in return?
  • How did their expectations affect your appreciation of the favor?
  • How did their expectations affect your opinion of them?

Do you volunteer or donate to charities?

  • Who are the most respected members of these groups?
  • How do you know who the most respected members are?
  • Why do you do it? What do you get out of it?

In the case of charities or volunteer organizations, often it is the most altruistic givers that are the most respected. A person who is held in high esteem can be seen as rich in social capital. This is what we mean by “Eminence”.

Eminence: Social Capital in Practice

Eminence is a position of distinction conferred by members of an external community, market and/or the public at large to an individual for their expertise and practical mastery in one or more bodies of knowledge and accomplishment. 1

Expertise is not the same as eminence, nor does a high level of expertise guarantee eminence. The distinction of ‘eminent’ is earned through authentic human relationships. It is not an entitlement, nor is it guaranteed.

Expertise is demonstrated through what you put out into the world.

Eminence ultimately comes from the value others place on your expertise.

Open Source Expertise

Expertise in open source is developed through community engagement. Open Source community engagement means participating in open source communities through significant contributions.

Contributing to communities includes:

  • Consistent, tangible contributions to the community (doesn’t have to be code)
  • Participation in community meetings (online) and conferences (IRL)
  • Becoming an expert in a collaborative area of the project (not some side project that’s all IBM’ers that no one cares about)
  • Becoming a key member within that area of the project (core, lead, owner of initiatives)
  • Blogs and Conference/Meetup presentations on that area (don’t show how much/what you did, show the impact – how did these activities help the community and the project to further its goals? How did it help people to use the project or to participate in the community?)

Eminence is more than just acquiring expertise, it’s about providing value to others through authentic human relationships. Expertise gives you a broadened context, allowing you more ways to connect with community members.

Eminence Potential Dimensions

Social capital and eminence are abstract concepts, heavily dependent on variables beyond our control (and often our understanding). So how do you go about setting personal goals or developing a concrete strategy?

Open Eminence proposes the following Eminence Growth Framework based on previous work proposed by IBM’s Institute of Business Value. 2

Expertise (What you offer to the world) can be broken down into 3 overlapping areas:

  • Body of Work - Artifacts you produce
  • Visibility - Publicizing your artifacts
  • Credibility - Recognition of knowledge or status

Note that these areas are not mutually exclusive and some suggested actions may be appropriate for multiple categories. Each of these sections will be addressed more specifically in the section on creating a personal progress report.

Rules of Eminence

  1. Do not talk about Eminence!
  2. Keep it real
  3. Make it personal
  4. Own it!
  5. Do it for the love

Create an Eminence Activation Plan

So far we’ve discussed the benefits of open source community engagement and the nature of eminence and social capital. We’ve also provided an example of someone in the midst of activating their own eminence potential. The next step is for you to create a plan for activating your own eminence potential. Creating this plan will take some thought and it will continue to evolve over time.

Build a Narrative

Whether you have experience with open source communities or they are completely new for you, to get the most out of your efforts you’ll need to do a little ethnographic fieldwork and some self-reflection.

The following is an outline of research questions you should seek to answer about your community of interest and yourself. A worksheet is available to help you to get started. This worksheet focuses on the core aspects of the community and makes it easier to set personal goals around community engagement.

Customize this to make your own version and share it!

What’s this community about?

Communities are complex social hubs that can take some time to figure out. Rather than barging in, take some time to lurk and get a sense of the overall community culture. Find out answers to the questions below and consider sharing them with others in your community! An instant win would be to turn these notes into a blog post, presentation, or even a document for new contributors!

  • What channels does the community use to communicate?
  • What books has everyone read? What podcasts and blogs do people follow?
  • What are the major conferences? How do people find out about them?
  • How is the community organized? What are the major groups and projects?
  • Who are the most eminent people? Why are they so well-respected?

What’s my sweet spot?

Identifying the overlap between external needs and your interests is the foundation of an authentic point of view. This also has the advantage of making your work feel more rewarding (and less like “work”)!

  • What do you care about (include personal interests and hobbies)?
  • What does your employer care about?
  • What does the community care about?
  • What do I have to offer? Where can I make a difference?

How do I make friends?

They key to a fulfilling open source community relationship is developing meaningful connections with other people in your community. In Step 1, you identified different ways the community interacts. Use that information to consider the following questions.

  • What events can I attend? Who do I want to meet there?
  • Who do I want to interact with on Twitter? Who do I want to add on LinkedIn?
  • Who can I help? How can I help them?
  • Who can help me? How can they help me?
  • Who else do I share common interests with (e.g., “sweet spot”)? How/why should we connect?

How do I build trust?

Just like when someone does you a favor, your opinion of them ultimately comes down to their intentions. To build trust with others in your community, show consideration for their interests.

  • How do I help the community?
  • How can my actions show my commitment to the community?
  • What committee or SIG’s could I be a member of?
  • What contributions can I make to what projects?
  • What social media and blog posts can I create and share?
  • What are some key community skill areas? Which ones am I already good at?
  • What classes can I take? What certificates or degrees can I earn?

Check your Motivation!

“Look at what I’m doing!” vs “What can I do for you?”

Where can I step up my engagement?

While you may not see yourself as a leader or have a desire to run things, you can still show your personal commitment to the community by championing a cause. Associating yourself with a clear message focuses your engagement and demonstrates your intentions with the community. Committing to a community cause also shows a level of personal engagement that is of particularly high value.

  • What community issue/s do I care the most about?
  • What local user groups could I organize?
  • What committees could I chair?
  • What projects or initiatives could I propose?
  • What community organization boards could I become a member of?

Set Measureable Goals

Once you have a sense of the lay of the land where you can fit into the community geography, it’s important to call out specific things you have the ability to achieve. In addition to setting qualitative goals tied to our values, concrete goals with quantities help us to further focus our efforts and evaluate our progress.

Write a Personal Mission Statement

Write a personal mission statement to understand your core values and motivation. 3 Knowing and sharing your personal intentions fosters a great deal of trust. Read some examples of personal mission statements for inspiration. [^mission-statement-examples]

Passion

  • I am happiest when I:
  • I am the most frustrated when I:
  • At work, I feel the most fulfilled when I can:
  • In my personal life, I really love to:

Abilities

  • What am I naturally good at?
  • What have others said I’m naturally good at?

Quest

  • If your life was a classic hero/heroine story, what would your quest be?
  • Why are you doing it? Who are you doing it for?
  • What is the result of your quest?
  • My quest is:

Possibilities

  • If you were financially and socially independent, and you could do anything you wanted without risk of failure, what would you do?
  • What do I consider to be my most important future contribution?
  • What do I want to be remembered for?

Values

Imagine you could hang out with three people who have had the most influence on you (past, present, fictional, non-fictional). Write their names and one thing you particularly admire about these folks.

  • Value 1:
  • Value 2:
  • Value 3:

Write a Community Engagement Statement of Purpose

Once you’ve written a personal mission statement, consider what you’ve learned about the community and the possibilities of where your interests intersect. Write a sentence (or two) that answers the following questions:

  • Why do you want to engage with this community?
  • How could this community support your personal mission?

Set High-Level Milestones

Set 3-5 high-level milestones for yourself regarding your community engagement. Try to have a good balance of short-term (6 months) and long-term (12-18 months). Each of these milestones should be based on things you can do and achieve. For example, a milestone of becoming a core committer is too dependent on the community itself. However, meeting the criteria for becoming a core committer is something you can most certainly achieve.

  • Short-term Milestone #1 (6 months)
  • Short-term Milestone #2 (6 months)
  • Long-term Milestone (12-18 months)

Milestone Success Stories

Once you’ve figured out what you want to achieve, describe what the end-state of that would look like.

  • What does “success” look like for each milestone?
  • What are the criteria for having reached each milestone?
  • How will you demonstrate that you’ve achieved each milestone?

Milestone Actions

Think about how to get to the end-state you’ve envisioned for each milestone.

  • What Actions are needed for each Milestone?

Roadside Assistance

It’s OK if some things seem beyond your control or ability. Think in terms of possibilities rather than absolutes!

  • What obstacles can you identify for each Milestone?
  • What help do you need for each Milestone?
  • Who can help you?

Commit to a Periodic Progress Report

A periodic progress report helps you to track your own progress, reflect on the effectiveness of your plan, and allows you to share your progress with others. Even if it’s not something you plan to share with a manager, a progress report can provide encouragement as you see your own progress towards your goals over time.

Your progress is even more impactful when framed as steps towards a larger goal. In the previous step, you proposed actions for each of your milestones and described a success state. Can you break those down even further into smaller actions you can do on a periodic basis?

Consider sharing your progress report publicly! There shouldn’t be anything super secret about what you are doing, and it will set a good example for others.

How often will I check in?

  • How often do you want to share your progress?
  • What is an ideal time frame for completion of your short-term actions?
  • Example: Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly

How do I structure my progress report?

In the previous section where we defined Eminence, we suggested that expertise can be broken down into 3 facets. These three facets are a good place to start with structuring your report. You can use whatever works best for you, but this a good starting place to get a feel for the process.

  • Body of Work, Visibility, Credibility
  • Highlights (Pick 1-3 things to talk a little more about)

What goes in my report?

Define activities that you can set quantities for each period. These should be fairly specific and concrete things that are easily trackable and that you have some control over.

  • Example: (Body of Work) Contribute code to projects
  • Example: (Body of Work) Write blog entries
  • Example: (Visibility) Present at a Meetup
  • Example: (Credibility) Earn Course Completion Certificates

See the Measuring Your Progress section for more ideas.

How will I deliver my report?

The simplest format for creating and sharing a report is a spreadsheet or text document in the cloud. Depending on your skill-set, you could design a web application or use a Jupyter or R notebook. However you decide to publish your report, keep an archive of your monthly updates to see your progress over time!

See the Measuring Your Progress section for more ideas on specific metrics.

Measuring your Progress

Now that you’ve come up with goals and actions to take towards achieving them, quantitatively tracking them is the next step.

Expertise vs Eminence Potential

Earlier we discussed the difference between Expertise and Eminence Potential. Expertise is what you put out into the world; think of it as your “push”. Eminence Potential is the value others place on what you’ve put out into the world; think if as your “pull”. Marketing methods for measuring social media engagement can provide an effective way to gauge your “pull”. You can experiment with different types of content and see what of your efforts is generating the most pull.

That is not to say you should only do things that have a high return in terms of these numbers. Rather, use these metrics to guide your strategy around how you invest your time and energy. Also remember that humans are highly variable creatures and there is no one-size-fits-all score. You must determine your own baselines depending on your goals and your qualitative understanding of relationships in a given community.

Examples of Push

  • Blog posts
  • Pull Requests
  • Tweets

Examples of Pull

  • Comments + Linkbacks
  • Code Reviews
  • Retweets

A Note on Quantities

  • Establish a realistic baseline (use your own intuition based on the research you’ve done on the community)
  • Use numbers to guide (and test) your strategy – the numbers don’t define it
  • Tell a story! Each metric must make sense in a meaningful sentence.

Expertise (Push)

Refer back to your Goals. What actions did you define to accomplish each one? What smaller actions did you identify?

Each month, decide how many things you can commit to producing. This will change each month. If you were too ambitious one month and didn’t meet your target, do less.

There’s an old idiom that says “it’s better to shoot for the stars than to shoot for the mud.” Mud is great stuff, it’s the foundation on which we all live. Setting a goal and achieving it provides a great endorphin and confidence boost! If you find yourself shooting too high too often, ground yourself with more modest commitments.

Body of Work

Pick 3 things from your Body of Work category above to commit to this month. How many of each can you do?

Visibility

Pick 1-2 things from your Visibility category above to commit to this month.

Credibility

Pick 1-2 things from your Credibility category above to commit to this month.

Eminence Potential (Pull)

Response

  • How well-seen was your content?
    • How many Impressions, Clicks, Likes, Linkbacks, Comments did you get?
  • How long did it take you to respond to commenters/engagements
  • How long did commenters take to respond to you?
  • How are your posts being shared? What’s the sentiment?
    • Linkback tags/topics
    • Sentiment analysis of re-post text and comments
    • Linkback host summary (where is it being shared)

Relationships

  • Who commented the most? Who repeatedly comments?
  • Who repeatedly links back to your content (e.g., retweets)?
  • What kinds of people are engaging with you?
    • Profile keywords
    • job titles
    • Skills (tags)
    • Geographic location
    • Most often used hashtags
    • Other membership affiliation (e.g., meetup groups)
  • Who are you connected to?
    • Who did you sit with at lunch at a conference? Who do you seek out to sit with? What do you talk about?
    • Who helped you? Who did you help?
    • Who did you meet? What did you talk about?
  • How are you connected?
    • What do you talk about?
    • How do you maintain the connection?
    • How long have you known them? How well do you know them?
  • Who else are they connected to?

Reflection

  • When is the best time to post?
    • When do you get the most Impressions, Clicks, Likes, Linkbacks, or Comments?
    • When do your activities get the quickest response?
  • What activities had the most engagement?
    • What generated the most discussion (>1 comment and/or commenter)?
    • What are the best events for you to present at?
    • What code contributions resulted in the most response?

Acheiving Eminence

So, If I do all of these things will I be Eminent?

The first rule of Eminence: Don’t talk about Eminence.

While you can activate your eminence potential, eminence designation comes from others.

Focus on your goals!

When you have developed a strong sense of purpose and compassion, your contributions and relationships will be meaningful for you and for others in the community. Trust is built through authenticity. Authentic passion is infectious!

  1. From the IBV Eminence Activation Hub↩

  2. IBM Eminence Activation and Advocacy Program↩

  3. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People↩