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→Site Building Extravaganza - Emma Jane Hogbin
She found that writing these manuals were no easy task. Some of her students had zero skill in web developing so she had to make her manuals detailed and easy to follow. That’s when she realized that building Drupal site was “time consuming”… after she has written down the steps.
Emma suggested that it was a risky selling the program before she had a program to sell, but Emma also pointed out that it was what was so great about it. By not having the program, she can test the market with zero effort on her part. (Unlike the book, which she spent a lot of time on but turns out to have made very little money)She also stated that her program was successful because it provides the community that her students were desiring. Her students took up the course because they wanted to be with 100 other people that they can share their experience learning Drupal and discuss their problems. They wanted the support community
I got the feeling that Emma was more of a business woman than a software developer. This quote of her view on open source developers stuck with me. “Open source developers are great at making new technology, but are very bad marketers.” Her quote and her shared experience made me realize it’s really hard to be a proper software entrepreneur and be good at both making desired products and selling the desired products. I was surprised that Emma shared all her income broken down by the products she sold, which included books, workbooks, sites, and her teaching programs. I was able to take a peek at what is involved to properly market a product like price points, group buys and popularity. This gave me an insight on how tough it was to be a successful open source developer, if being successful would mean good at making money.
==Conclusion==
I would definitely say that attending FSOSS 2011 was an “enabling” experience. I enjoyed being there. Even though I was dreading to attend, I am happy to say I am converted! It is hard to express how educating it was for me to attend the symposium and no brainer for the open source class, DPS909, makes students attend FSOSS. If I was asked what the most important thing was that I gained from FSOSS, I would answer that I learned open source is about the community. Strong community is what drives programmers to help out and reach a common goal. It provides developers with comfort while they develop the next level. Even though FSOSS was not my first conference, I have to say it was the conference where I learned the most. Having a chance to hear from such a variety of speakers who have such broad and different experiences is what makes FSOSS so exciting. You can count on me to be at FSOSS 2012… All three days of it!
