The Role of IT for Social Change
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IT teams, particularly in open-source projects, have developed various innovative tools and concepts to support their particular needs. These teams are often very large, globally distributed and mostly consisting of volunteers. We will introduce some of the tools and concepts, discuss how they can be used by teams and organizations in other fields and illustrate some successful examples.
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The Role of IT for Social Change
- 1. The Role of IT for Social Change Corsin Decurtins, Netcetera 2015-10-31 /Zurich SocialInnovation Sum m it
- 2. Notes About Me I’m a Software Engineer Don’t panic, don’t be scared On first thought, probably not the obvious choice for a conference entitled “Social Innovation Summit” On second thought, probably a pretty good fit We are in the middle of the Digital Revolution IT is shaping our lives like nothing else at the moment
- 3. Don’t Panic
- 4. Notes About You A couple of questions for the audience
- 6. Who works in the software industry?
- 8. Who loves IT people?
- 10. Notes Information Information is our “building material” We develop technology and build infrastructure, platforms, systems, applications, solutions
- 12. Notes Customers Our customers are businesses, organisations, communities, consumers, citizens Or short: People We must not forget that. IT does not have an intrinsic value It’s about how people can use it and what they can do with it
- 14. IT and Social Change
- 15. Notes IT and Social Change Data is extremely powerful, IT is extremely powerful Big potential for very good things There is also a dark side IT has a huge impact on our lives Some impact is deliberate (use IT to drive Social Change) Some impact is not deliberate (IT-driven change) Some people talk about the Digital Revolution
- 18. Notes Industrial Revolution Had very positive effects on humanity Also had negative effects on humanity and our planet Changed how we live and work together Changed how we think, what we value
- 20. Notes Inspiration from Prior Art IT is still a very young discipline Organisation of IT projects We looked at other fields for inspiration Over the years, these concepts have been adapted and extended to suit the needs of software development
- 21. Neal Ford When Geek Leaks http://www.infoq.com/presentations/keynote-geeks
- 22. Notes Neal Ford, When Geek Leaks Conference Talk “Geek” culture leaking into the real world Context of IT is special, unique challenges IT has interesting things to offer Not just in terms of its output, but also in terms of how IT works
- 23. Open Source
- 24. Free Software (as in “free beer”)
- 25. Notes Free Software Open Source software is normally free (as in free beer) You can use it for free You can actually distribute it for free Huge driver for innovation Great for people and organisations with little money Start-Ups, people in developing countries
- 26. Free Software (as in “free speech”)
- 27. Notes Free Software Open Source software is not just free (as in free beer), but also free (as in free speech) You are not just allowed to use software for free and distribute it for free You can build stuff on top of open source software You can change, extend, customise open source software
- 28. “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants” popularised by Isaac Newton
- 29. Free Content (as in “free speech”)
- 30. Notes Free Content Literature, photos, videos, music, curriculums It’s not just about getting the stuff for free It’s about using free resources to build new things
- 33. Notes Open Source Architecture Architecture and Design Inspired by Open Source Software Create open source architectures and designs for buildings Shelters, simple houses, schools, community buildings Easy to manufacture, easy to build, durable, modular, safe, robust, easy to fix, easy to extend, modify, customise Architecture/Design is free (as in beer and as in speech)
- 35. Notes Open-Source Teams Global teams Distributed teams Volunteers (private individuals, sponsored by companies) Diverse and heterogeneous Open teams Constantly in flux Transparency (to the inside and to the outside)
- 36. Notes Open-Source Team Challenges You cannot force anybody to do anything Different cultures, backgrounds, working styles, languages, ages, levels of commitment, expertise, experience Overhead has to be absolutely minimal People can leave any time … and take a copy of the product with them
- 37. Notes Open-Source Team Challenges Common cause is one of the main drivers But creating and maintaining a great product is the secondary goal Main goal is to have a community of contributors that are happy, satisfied, fulfilled, proud and get a sense of achievement If you loose the contributors, the product becomes worthless
- 38. Notes Applications in Other Domains Why are “open-source” teams so interesting? Other global volunteer organisations Face very similar challenges in different domains Businesses People are not volunteers; main motivation is the salary Benefit a lot from happy, satisfied, fulfilled people Ideally, the salary is not the main motivation to work
- 39. Organisation
- 40. Notes Organisational Forms Democracy cannot be directly applied Who is “everybody”, who would get a vote? What if the community votes for something, but nobody volunteers to do it? What if the community votes against something, but somebody has already done the work? Democratic structures (flat hierarchy, voting, 1 person, 1 vote) Inner Circle structures Meritocracy Benevolent dictator(s) Distributed Organisations (strong hierarchy with lieutenants)
- 41. Democracy
- 42. Inner Circle (Core Committers) Contributors (potentially everybody) Users (potentially everybody)
- 43. Meritocracy
- 44. Notes Meritocracy The more work you are willing to put in, the more you have to say. Contribution is more important than opinion.
- 46. Notes Benevolent Dictator Community puts its trust into one (or a few) people Community tolerates one (or a few) dictator(s) It’s not as bad as it sounds You can always walk away and fork the project Benefit is a clear vision and strong consistency in the project
- 47. Tools
- 48. Notes Tooling IT people are in a very comfortable position in terms of tooling We use software to produce software We can change and extend our tools, particularly if they are open source We can create new tools if necessary Chat rooms, text-based communication, Wikis, ticketing systems, compilers, source code management systems, …
- 51. Notes Source Code Management Text Files History, Variants Requirements, Bug Fixes Releases Software for Managing Source Code Versions of Source Code Dependencies
- 52. Legal Texts Constitutions, Laws, Treaties, Regulations
- 54. Notes Laws Constitution, Laws, Treaties, Regulations Evolution, History Variants, Proposals Ratification
- 55. Waterfall Model
- 56. Notes Waterfall Model Phase model for building stuff, for example a house Think about it (collect requirements) Design it (architecture, design) Plan it (think about how to build it) Build it Verify it and fix if necessary (something will have gone wrong) Use it Extend it, update it Demolish it
- 57. Notes Waterfall Model This is how we built software Lots of companies still build software like this Building software is different from building houses Houses: Construction phase is very expensive and irreversible Software: Construction phase is very cheap (fully automated) and endlessly repeatable
- 60. Notes Continuous Delivery Build the whole chain first Think -> Design -> Build -> Verify -> Use Experiment, Measure, Observe Much more suitable process for non-physical construction Applications in other areas
- 61. Notes Software Development Complex, distributed task that is performance by a team Technical challenges, but also domain challenges, efficiency, user interaction, bugs, … Various metaphors for what software development is Here is a way I sometimes think about it…
- 62. The Job of a Programmer Explain a complex task to the most stupid employee of an company, so that this employee can perform the task efficiently, correctly, reliably and autonomously for all its possible variants and for all edge cases.
- 63. Notes The Job of a Programmer The employee is of course the computer The computer is stupid It is very hard-working, reliable, precise, but very stupid No intuition, no ability to generalise, to learn, to extrapolate It does exactly what you tell it to do If you have some ambiguity, it will exploit it and do the wrong thing … eventually Developers have to think of everything, every possible (and impossible) edge case
- 64. Correctness
- 65. Completeness
- 66. IT people are social animals
- 68. Notes IT people are social animals IT people might have the reputation to be socially challenged A few might actually be Not my experience in general In lots and lots of cities all over the world, there are hundreds of community events Zurich is an excellent example Multiple IT events pretty much every day of the week IT people love to share, collaborate, exchange experiences and war stories, learn and teach IT people are among the most enthusiastic people that I know
- 70. Notes Digital Revolution We live in the dawn of the digital age We live in the middle (or at the beginning of the Digital Revolution) IT is changing the world … fundamentally It’s not just the new gadgets that you get IT is changing the way we live, the way we think, the things we value, what we want from live on this planet, … You can like this or you can hate this You cannot stop this
- 71. IT People
- 72. Notes IT People IT people are at the centre of this revolution But they are not the owners of this revolution Get to know IT people, talk to them, learn from them, like them But do not let them alone determine how the story goes
- 73. That’s IT
- 74. Corsin Decurtins, Netcetera Chief Technology Officer corsin.decurtins@netcetera.com @corsin
- 75. The Role of IT for Social Change Corsin Decurtins, Netcetera 2015-10-31 /Zurich SocialInnovation Sum m it