There was a thread in a walled garden recently asking the question: “Why can’t we all just get along?” This was in response to a difficult parting of ways between organizations in Portland trying to run a couple events cooperatively.

Unfortunately, the thread was deleted, so even if you were to join the group at this point, the conversation is lost. Fortunately, I saved a copy and can quote from it in the future as needed!

The situation, as I saw it described, is that some people think of the grass-roots organized groups as obstinate. As unwilling, and possibly opposed, to compromise. The phrase “stubborn demands of individuality” was used to describe the problem the original poster brought up.

In any growing, functional organization or community, there will be conflict. What matters is how we handle that conflict.

I plan on re-posting my original comments here in my blog because I want the thoughts and conversations that were started inside a closed space to come out into the open.

There’s certainly an opportunity in Portland for the many lovely, energetic and productive volunteer groups to pool our talents and resources. Some of that energy has certainly been pooled to produce Open Source Bridge, for which I am enormously grateful.

So, the question in my mind is should we also be doing something else? And if so, what would that something else be?

And by something — I mean just about anything. I’ve never counted, but I’d guess based on the groups and events that I’ve attended that we have well over 1000 volunteers in our technology communities in Portland. Add in the larger professional organizations, and I’m sure we’ve got over 10,000 people in the Portland area (and Vancouver!) whose involvement we could count on.

Let’s hatch a plan.

There’s a push to look outward, and to speak outward. To get “press attention”, which to some, means success. I don’t agree.

We need a different vision. Our communities are ones of people who *do* things. (I’d even go so far to say we have a ‘do-ocracy‘.) We make things, we share them and then we make more things. Certainly there’s room in our communities for people who help us share what we’re doing. But we can’t talk about things we haven’t done.

Anything that enhances our community, must help us do things. Change must make collaboration easier, sharing better and involvement in our communities even more rewarding than it already is.

So, help me. What does success look like to you? What do you wish that you could get out of our technology groups, but don’t?