4 ways to measure success in open source communities

We also answer: Was this blogging challenge a success?
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This week wraps up our monthly blogging challenge with an appropriate topic: How do you measure success? As I wrote in my post below, I think the first step to measuring success is to know what your goal is.

But first, let's ask:

Was this blogging challenge a success?

My goal for the blogging challenge was not only to get people blogging but also to offer people a topic to write about. As I sat down in front of my computer each day, I found myself wanting someone to give me a meme. So I gave myself a meme and decided to share it because what I really wanted to hear was what other experts had to say on the topic.

I was impressed by the response! Every week we had people participating. Every week, I had people asking what the next topic would be. And I’ve had a few people express disappointment that the challenge is ending. They assumed I would keep on asking questions! So despair not! Keep an eye on Twitter where I will continue to post weekly blogging challenges.

If you have community management questions you've always wished someone would answer, let me know! I’ll add them to the list.

Overall, I think this was a success and a weekly blogging challenge is a great way to gather thoughts. I think the next evolution should provide a way for us to have more of a group discussion, so I'll be working on what that might look like next. Stay tuned!

Previous week's themes

Week 1: Ways to recruit new community members

Week 2: How to maintain existing community members

Week 3: How to deal with difficult conversations

Week 4: Measuring success

"What you measure is what you get" is a common refrain in open source communities. So what should you measure in your community in order to be successful? Here are some of the best practices shared for our final theme last week:

Choosing the right metrics for your project by James Faulkner

When metrics go wrong by Dave Neary

3 important things to consider when measuring your success by Stormy Peters

Measuring success of your open source community by Moin Shaikh

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Stormy Peters leads the Community Leads team at Red Hat. Stormy is passionate about open source software and educates companies and communities on how open source software is changing the software industry. She is a compelling speaker who engages her audiences during and after her presentations.

1 Comment

Thank you Stormy for bringing in this collaborative idea. I personally enjoyed writing under this weekly challenge and am hoping to see weekly prompt coming in so we all can keep up writing and sharing our thoughts on open source communities.

I am confident that something more interesting and more challenging is on the way! I look forward to what you bring up next!

Moin

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