Abstract for PSU Tech Talk, Feb 1, 4pm

I’m doing a tech talk at PSU about open source community:

TOPIC
Collaborative chaos: what it means to write code, manage projects and work with people in open source communities

SUMMARY
Working in software and with computers means wildly different things depending on who you talk to. In open source, the work spans every aspect of software development — from the marketing and documentation to the troubleshooting end-user systems.

The “community manager” or “organizer” role in open source communities is probably the least-well defined in our industry, but is seen as a crucial part of open source software development. 

Selena will talk about her work as a serial user group starter, open source conference circuit speaker, conference organizer and contributor to PostgreSQL — all roles considered part of community management. She’ll also talk about other kinds of community management roles available at small and large companies, or as a volunteer in an open source project. 

SHORT BIO
Selena is a major contributor to PostgreSQL, she founded and runs the Postgres Open conference and keeps chickens. Selena has been working with open source software for over 15 years.She’s keynoted at SCALE, DjangoCon and LISA, and regularly gives technical talks about Postgres, open source and trolling. She is currently a data architect at Mozilla, makers of the Firefox browser.