Attending conferences is one of my favorite parts of being a Developer Advocate. There is something special about the combination of informal hallway discussions and a thoughtfully designed program that creates an environment where partnerships and collaborations flourish. These events provide incredible learning, networking and collaboration opportunities and give projects like Zephyr an opportunity to demonstrate our technology and community to a wider audience.
All summer, I have been looking forward to next week’s Linaro Connect 2018 where I will be presenting a keynote discussing the mechanics and methodology behind one of the fastest growing communities in the IoT ecosystem – the Zephyr Project. It was such an honor to be asked to speak about my experience building and participating in open source communities as part of Community Day on Friday, September 21 at 8:45 am. Leading into the event, I wanted to take moment to give a sneak peek into what I will be talking about and why.
My journey here was unexpected but a wonderful surprise. I am part of the growing community of people joining the embedded and IoT ecosystem from other parts of the technology industry. What attracted me was a desire to invent and the understanding that all the tools and knowledge I needed to build the things I wanted were readily available. When I began building, I quickly discovered what most new developers find, its not that simple. While I didn’t find any one tool that solved all my issues out of the box, I found something better. I found a community of like-minded people who were all talking about and working on the features and functionality that mattered to me. I found a structure I could participate in and I found a tool that empowered me to create. I found the Zephyr Community.
Here are a few of the guiding principles I’ll discuss that are foundational to the Zephyr Project, which had a tangible impact on my experience, and empowered me to build embedded and IoT devices.
- Documentation opens doors
- Technical diversity can drive other types of diversity
- Effective collaboration requires dedicated effort
- Community infrastructure isn’t optional
- Transparency and governance matters
If you want to hear more, you can register for Linaro Connect here. Click here for more about my keynote. We’ll post slides and videos as available. If you are attending the event, please feel free to tag us in your social media posts @TheaClay and @ZephyrIoT.