Today I spoke a bit about why exits matter in startup communities at the DEEP Startup Ecosystem Conference 2021.
My main points were to refresh the audience on the Boulder Thesis, and press the importance of successfully exited entrepreneurs reinvesting their knowledge and money (and also not successfully exited founders reinvesting their knowledge) in the local ecosystem for it to thrive.
It’s now official where and when the Plone Conference 2008 will be held. The winner is Washington DC and the dates are October 8 – 10 preceded by two days of Plone training sessions, and followed by 2-3 days of sprinting.
Congratulations to Alex Clark and the ZPUGDC!
I’d like to openly disclose that I voted for the DC proposal, although it would have been more convenient for me personally to attend a conference in Europe. My vote this year was for a change of continent.
I hope I will be able to attend and see you there!
If there was a general theme to take home at the Plone Conference 2007 in Naples, Italy on the second day of the conference – beside from Plone now being officially trademarked – it has to be that “Plone is a Product” and “Plone is Democracy”.
Now everybody repeat after me… No, seriously – all together now! :)
I think “Plone is a Product” is a very important statement. It really helps to explain that “Plone is not technology” and it’s a helpful ‘tool’ to position and ‘sell’ Plone, both for the community and people new to Plone.
“Plone is Democracy” tells a powerful story with only three words. Plone is open for anyone who wishes to participate. Plone is you.
It’s now the 11th of October and the second day of the conference so I’m sort of lagging, but here are my impressions from yesterday.
The next best thing I took home with me on the first day of the Plone Conference 2007 in Naples, Italy – after meeting a lot of dear new and old faces – was attending the “Top Ten Ways to Get Involved with the Plone Community” speech by Darci Hanning (Scott Paley has an excellent writeup on his blog) and the “How to market Plone the Web2.0 way” by Christian “MrTopf” Scholz.
The Plone community is amazing. It is Plone. That said, we can be somewhat insular. A lot of the time we are preaching to the already converted. I think we are all aware of that. However, we’d all like to see Plone spreading even further and bring more converts into the fold.
What I loved about Darci’s talk was the numerous points on how people who are not software developers can get involved in the community and make great and important contributions, really driving home point that the community is not just for code centric people. I think they serve as great motivational arguments to engage and motivate more people from the “outside” to join the Plone community.
I think Christian’s points about reaching outside of the community and spreading the word of Plone using web2.0 and social media was a healthy dose of long due common sense and I hope it will inspire more members of the Plone community to network on social networks, blog, screencast and podcast more about Plone. He’s also streaming talks at the conference.
You can find the some presentations held at Plone Conf 2007 on openplans.org
More images from me will be up on flickr later today. In the meantime you can see what others have already uploaded on flickr by searching for the official tag ploneconf2007.
