We're in this together!

Understanding the dynamics of the eZ Publish Community

Meet the Team

Robin TeiglandStockholm School of Economics

Paul M. Di GangiLoyola University Maryland

Björn-Tore FlåtenUniversity of Agder

Elia GiovacchiniStockholm University

Nicolas PastorinoeZ Systems

Director Community

Presentation StructureStart

Finish

Recap

Tension Points~ Goal Pursuit ~

~ Decision-making ~~ Community Development ~

Interview Protocol

Lessons Learned

Recap

Research team and eZ Share Director Community discuss opportunity for partnership to explore ways to create “killer” community.

Launch of eZ Questionnaire to solicit feedback from eZ Share Community.

Research team analyzes questionnaire responses and presents results to Director Community.

Research team conducts interviews with members of eZ Community, eZ Systems, eZ Partners.

Results summarized and presented.

Oct ‘10Nov - Dec

Jan ‘11

Feb - Jun

July ‘11Thank You!

Background Story

How it all fits together

Multiple types of actors (key players) affect development of eZ Publish Community.

Early Finding

3OA

CM OA

OE

3OA

CM

eZ Employees within Community

3rd Party Organizational Agents

Community Member

eZ

OECM

The end points of the diagram interact within the community on a regular basis, while eZ Systems, the

organization, occasionally interacts within the community but largely affects the community via external activities.

Early Finding

3OA

CM OA

eZ

OECM

Interviews

Interview Protocol

Invitations to Interview

Interview request based on selection criteria sent to individual members of eZ Publish

Community.

Pre-Interview Planning

Copy of interview guide sent to interviewees prior to interview.

Conduct Interviews

20 interviews conducted– all transcribed verbatim

123

Summary of Findings

Tension Points

Goal Pursuit

Decision-making

Community Development

Goal Pursuit

Our analysis indicates that tension can arise among the actors when pursuing goals due to the following:

1) actors’ goals/needs and 2) information asymmetry.

Goal Pursuit

“If you are doing something for the community, then the main drawback is that you lose time directly, but in the end it is a win-win situation because what we do is build credibility as a very experienced, very knowledgeable company. We try to work globally, and some potential clients will google

us or the community and see that a few of us from our company are actively giving to the community, meaning that we know things – this is the main

reason why we do it.”

~ Entrepreneur using eZ Publish for personal business

Actors’ Goals/Needs

Goal Pursuit

"It is a challenge to know what should be kept within the company and what can be provided to the community."

~ eZ Systems executive about information sharing

Information Asymmetry

Decision-making

Our analysis indicates that tension can arise among the actors when pursuing goals due to: 1)

authoritative structure and 2) decision democracy.

Decision-making

“It’s harder to give confidence to an open source community driven by an editor than a community driven by a democratic or autocratic authority

because the editor of the CMS can always be suspected to promote its (sic) own interest, and not the community one. I often ask myself: ‘What *long-

term guarantees* does eZ Systems give to the eZ Community?’”

~ 3rd Party Organizational Agent expressing

Authoritative Structure

Decision-making

“It would be fair for those who are active participants ….. to influence development .. this is a high motivation factor for any community member.”

“In the end it is the company itself that decides what is happening and even if they show to be more open, this is not really happening, this is an outside observation.”

~ Community Member & 3rd Party Organizational Agent

Decision Democracy

Our analysis indicates that tension can arise among the actors when pursuing goals due to: 1) role of eZ in community development and 2) transparency in

eZ’s strategic direction.

"This is a challenge because as a community they want as much as possible, but if you give them the little finger, they take the whole hand – they want more when you give them something, and if they don't get something, then they get irritated. We have to

educate them on this...we are a company and not a charity, so we have to make money – but this is a challenge and you have to differentiate between what you give away for

free and what you sell.“

~ eZ Systems executive about stressing difference between eZ Publish Community and traditional open source communities

Role of eZ in Community Development

“We don’t have any real information. Are they going to continue like this? What is the policy they have for their company? Can we rely on eZ systems or not?”

"It is not easy for the community to see what we are doing or prioritizing."

~ Community Member & eZ Systems executive

Transparency of eZ’s Strategic Direction

Lessons Learned

Active Conflict Management

Open Communication

Dialogue Management

Continuous Evaluation

Lessons Learned

Active Conflict Management

Maintain a general attitude that focuses on positive conflict to ensure mutual

goals are achieved. Focus on task conflict and mitigate

relationship conflict.

What eZ is doingActive Conflict Management

Meeting physically creates stronger bonds, faster than via online exchanges. The

Event Planner initiative, led by the share.ez.no team, as

well as a solid events calendar will make sure most of the conflicts are avoided by "preventive" (and fun !)

live exchanges.

Lessons Learned

Open Communication

Ensure that two-way communication is encouraged and

transparency is maintained in dealings with the community

(e.g., Community Project Board).

What eZ is doingOpen Communication

All community teams ( Community Project Board, and share.ez.no team ) are openly showcasing

their activity, through minutes of meetings published on their

respective blogs. Atop, all mid to large-scope project directly or

indirectly related to the eZ Community's life are publicly

confronted through an open RFC process. Examples are the

share.ez.no design contest, and more recently the Event planner

and Job Board projects.

Lessons Learned

Dialogue Management

Focus on selecting and training employees that engage directly with the

community possess skills that foster dialogue, relationship-

building, and trust among members.

What eZ is doingDialogue Management

The collaboration between the community developers and eZ Engineering is increasing, as

testified by the soaring curve of submitted pull-requests on

github.com. The latter tool was preferred to all other open-

source development platform for it is tagged "Social coding". This

tool makes open-innovation more than a mere exchange of code, it

becomes a beautiful dialogue.

Lessons Learned

Continuous Evaluation

Remember to solicit feedback and re-evaluate operations to ensure new tensions are not

present and community/ organization needs are

currently being met.

What eZ is doingContinuous Evaluation

Open RFCs and eZ Roadmap are prominent tools for continuous

evaluation and feedback gathering. Open RFCs/surveys concern various topics ranging

from platforms enhancements to major event location. On the

software development side, eZ Roadmap is the pure expression

of what an open-process in managing a product is.

Action items to improve communication relations, the decision making process, and member development.

Benefits

eZ Publish Community represents a new form of organizing and network of relationships. Results can help researchers and

practitioners understand how to operate this model effectively.

Uniqueness Value

The eZ Publish Community is a complex network of relationships that is driven by multiple motivation factors

that are dependent on the individual actor’s goals.

Overarching Finding

Thank You!At this time, we would like to thank all individuals who participated in this research and eZ

Systems for allowing us to engage with the community directly. If you would like to comment on these findings or have suggestions on how we can improve our analysis, please feel free to

contact one of our lead researchers:

pdigangi@gmail.comrobin.teigland@hhs.se

To learn more about the researchers managing this study, please see our websites below:Paul Di Gangi: www.paulmdigangi.com

Robin Teigland: www.knowledgenetworking.org Björn-Tore Flåten: twitter.com/bjorntfl

Elia Giovacchini: twitter.com/eliagh