User-driven Innovation: That’s What It Is All About

whurley, Chief Architect, Open Source Strategy, BMC Software (Photo by: alexmuse/Flickr)

I recently found myself in innovation alley in San Francisco enjoying the fun at the first ever iPhoneDevCamp. 400 developers, artists, users and technology innovators had assembled together to hack and invent cool ways to use Apple’s new gadget. This DevCamp, flowing with constructive energies, was choreographed as a BarCamp. I had a chance to talk with one of the key organizers of this event, William Hurley. “Whurley”, as he is affectionately known, is an open source die-hard and leader in the “BarCamp” movement, redefining the way technology conferences are held. I asked him all about these “BarCamps” and “Unconferences” that have become so popular and here’s what he told me.

Q: What is a “BarCamp”? What is a “Mashup”?

Whurley: A BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from a desire to share and learn in an open environment. The price of admission to a BarCamp is participation. They’re intense, with discussions, demos, and participant interaction. Very successful BarCamps have been held around the world, as excitement around “unconferences” grows.

Mashups are different by nature. During a mashup, developers take multiple APIs and merge them to form new, oftentimes innovative, applications. Though there are wild predictions about the future of mashups, they aren’t that different from what the open source community has been doing for years. Calls for “10 new mashups per day by 2007″ (by ZDNet Executive Editor David Berlind) seem a bit extreme. First, it should be obvious that as new capabilities are presented to developers, they will use them. Second, the reality of the situation is that the software industry in general is moving towards greater openness and collaborative innovation. However, even with all of these factors in favor of “mashups”, the fact remains that there will only be a limited number of APIs available and therefore, a limited number of potentially useful combinations that can be derived from them.

Q: What do you see as advantages to the “BarCamp” format vs. a “Conference”?

Whurley: The ease with which BarCamps can be pulled together by the community and the limited resources needed to make them happen are among the BarCamp’s chief advantages. The key advantage is that they are inclusive – anyone can participate in a BarCamp. At a conference I have to have a pass, be assigned to a track, and am fairly limited in how I can participate. As a BarCamp participant, I can do as much of anything as I want: add new sessions, lead roundtables, join panel discussions, etc.

Q: You have an interest in open source which is a movement that is naturally self-organizing and serendipitous. Is there a connection between the open source movement and the bar camp phenomenon?

Whurley: BarCamps and open source share some common lineage, but neither are as open as they should be. The technology industry is transitioning to the next phase in its constant evolution. Openness is a natural conclusion driven by users and customers as they become more knowledgeable. Software was considered a black art in the 80s. Today everyone has access to the tools and techniques needed to build basic Web-based applications. More educated users demand more access to the engine of the applications they depend on. Conference attendees often spend thousands of dollars to discover the most useful part of the event happened not during the sessions, but in the hallways. So BarCamps take those hallway discussions and make them the centerpiece of a free event.

People need to realize that open solutions are usually initiated by under-served users and customers. You can’t take today’s savvy customers for granted; they will innovate around any obstacles that you inadvertently or purposely place in their way. They could commoditize a market if the environment was ripe.

Developers hacking at iPhoneDevCamp 2007 (Photo by: blakeburris/Flickr)

Q: What’s the difference between a BarCamp and just a technology users group meeting, like a LUG?

Whurley: LUGs usually recur monthly. BarCampAustin – which I founded – is held once a year. LUGs follow the same form at every meeting. BarCamps are driven directly by the participants, and are far more dynamic than almost any other form of technical gathering. I’m working to spawn BarCampTexasMonthly, a BarCamp that occurs with LUG frequency.

Q: Do you see a clash of cultures between the open source community vs. the Web API crowds who don’t necessarily care whether the software is open source?

Whurley: No, I’m asked this open source vs. industry developers question frequently. There are few open source developers who aren’t industry developers by day. As more and more open source companies are seeking venture capital and more commercial open source solutions become available there’s a natural blending that is taking effect. In the end, we all need to realize that software is software is software. The differences between open source and proprietary software were few to begin with. Today, those differences are becoming even harder to distinguish as open source becomes more and more integrated with how we practice software development.

I don’t see a ton of confrontation as long as people practice what they preach, i.e. even the most proprietary of vendors can be a good open source citizen if they follow the community’s lead and play by the rules established by the community.

Q: What attracts active developers, creators and contributors to these camps? Is it the lure of cool, bleeding-edge technology? Or is it the social networking? Or is it the RedBull?

Whurley: While the RedBull is probably a factor, I think the sense of community is the biggest draw. Who doesn’t want to work openly with their industry peers to explore new ideas in a creative setting?

Chris Allen speaking at iPhoneDevCamp 2007 (Photo by: eschipul/Flickr)

Q: You just concluded a very successful DevCamp for the iPhone in San Francisco. What were the highlights of the 3-day camp and what would you like to have done better?

Whurley: Well, much if not all of the credit goes to Raven Zachary, who did a fantastic job of pulling everyone together. The camp launched without a hitch and in the end, there wasn’t much that needed improvement. We ran into the typical issues – t-shirt sizes, badge quantities, etc. – but there weren’t any complaints and everyone involved enjoyed themselves.

Q: What do you see as other technologies or other topics around which enthusiasts can organize a BarCamp or Mashup in their city?

Whurley: Google and other Web APIs are obvious candidates for Mashups. I see a trend of DevCamps focused on emerging technologies and platforms, especially mobile devices, unless proprietors can catch up with the speed at which consumers now demand applications for these new technologies.

Q: What would your three most important tips be to other BarCamp organizers across the world?

Whurley: Don’t try to do everything by yourself, seek help early and often. Don’t try to over structure the event. Be fluid before and during the event and focus your energy on facilitating rather than organizing or controlling.

Q: Which places do you want to be doing the next BarCamp at?

Whurley: I’m not the person to ask. That’s a question for the community, and an answer they will make happen. Though several experienced BarCampers have traveled around the world for events, BarCamps are more about local community. I publicly offer my help to anyone who wants to take charge and start a BarCamp in their area, regardless of geography.

Q: In your other life as an open source strategist at BMC, what do you see as major challenges to open source adoption in your company.

Whurley: There are none. BMC consumes and supports open source technologies. We use open source internally in many of our systems, and our management products support many open source technologies including Apache, JBoss, and others.

Q: As chairman of the Open Management Consortium, what do you see as opportunities for greater adoption and integration of open source systems management software.

Whurley: Systems management is moving up the application stack in the form of business process management, out across the development tools and applications, and down into the infrastructure. Customers who no longer want to have to rip and replace solutions within their infrastructure will increasingly demand interoperability, and BMC is taking a lead in this area via the open source integrations on our developer network site.

Q: Who do you see as the top 3 leaders (organizations or individuals) making a difference in the open source world. Why?

Whurley: I like what Greg Stein is doing at Apache, as well as his “License Pressure” theory. I think he’s dead on when it comes to several key issues looming in the future of the open source community. Plus he’s just a nice guy.

Ethan Galstad (Nagios) is the best example of open source and community leadership out there. Ethan has a great relationship with his community, and the community is his focus and the foundation of Nagios’s success. He’s also a fine example of open source citizenship, as evidenced by his handling of a recent situation in which outsiders built VC-funded corporations around his project, excluded him and his community, abused his trademark, and made false claims. Ethan’s done a fantastic job of staying focused on his community and their needs during this time, and not falling into the trap dramatic situations like this always create.

Ross David Turk also comes to mind. He’s reinventing SourceForge.net and providing open source projects with a way to offer their customers support via a new ecosystem called SourceForge Marketplace. The Marketplace will help projects to stay independent – they can offer direct user support without having to build a support infrastructure themselves.

Q: What’s the next big trend you think we should all watch for in software and hardware?

Whurley: The return to user-driven innovation. Too often companies build features without consulting customers. Put your users first in all things software and hardware. Openness and open source are great ways to create new dialogues that will result in better hardware, software, and services.

Open source and Unconferences complement each other. Innovation starts with the user and ends with the user, completing a full circle. That’s what make BarCamps tick. That’s what makes open source tick. That’s also what makes whurley tick