Preso from WordCamp Utah 2010

1. Collaboration
Competition
Joshua Strebel
Founder
Thursday, September 9, 2010 1

2. Thursday, September 9, 2010 2

3. Thursday, September 9, 2010 3

4. Competitors
or
Collaborators?
Thursday, September 9, 2010 4

5. Competition
• Animals compete
over water supplies,
food, and mates, etc.
Thursday, September 9, 2010 5

6. Competition
• Humans compete for
water, food, and mates.
• When these needs are
met deep rivalries often
arise over the pursuit of
wealth, prestige, and fame.
What’s up with Jersey?
Thursday, September 9, 2010 6

7. Competition
• Necessary and Healthy for business, but...
• Us vs. Them
• Silo’s of Information
• Zero sum game
• Marketing Charades
• Scarcity Mindset
Thursday, September 9, 2010 7

8. Collaboration
• Collaboration is a recursive process where
two or more people or organizations work
together in an intersection of common
goals — for example, an intellectual
endeavor that is creative in nature — by
sharing knowledge, learning and building
consensus
Thursday, September 9, 2010 8

9. A Story
• 8 years in the business
• The Phoenix Skulls
• Gangplank (http://gangplankhq.com)
Thursday, September 9, 2010 9

10. BE DANGEROUS
Thursday, September 9, 2010 10

11. Gangplank Manifesto
• collaboration over competition
• community over agendas
• participation over observation
• doing over saying
• friendship over formality
• boldness over assurance
• learning over expertise
• people over personalities
Thursday, September 9, 2010 11

12. Thursday, September 9, 2010 12

13. 1/3 actual size | total space is 16,000sqft
Thursday, September 9, 2010 13

14. Thursday, September 9, 2010 14

15. Thursday, September 9, 2010 15

16. Thursday, September 9, 2010 16

17. Let’s Work Together
• 90% of patents are improvements to
existing products (I made this up)
• Sometimes you must invent something
new, but most of the time you can improve
what is there.
Thursday, September 9, 2010 17

18. Let’s Work Together
• Pair Programming
• Side-by-side, or long distance teams.. 4 eyes
are better than 2.
Thursday, September 9, 2010 18

19. Let’s Work Together
• WordPress forked b2
• b2 was a good product but inactive.. forking
made sense to build upon what was there.
Thursday, September 9, 2010 19

20. Let’s Work Together
• 10,968 plugins in extend, most of them
crap.
• Do we really need 110 (Tweet button)
plugins that do virtually the same thing?
Why not work with an author and improve
existing code.
Thursday, September 9, 2010 20

21. Let’s Work Together
• More themes than you can shake a stick at,
most of them crap. (and now frameworks)
• Why not design themes that are
compatible with existing frameworks.
• Guarantee framework developers would
promote your theme for you
• WooThemes has done a good job of
bringing in outside designers
Thursday, September 9, 2010 21

22. Thursday, September 9, 2010 22

23. What’s Worked for me
YMMV
• Competitors can be your allies.
(obu + drawbackwards + forty)
• Engage the tribe and tribal elders early.
(page.ly + SP + Woo + Press75)
• Partner with specialists that do it better.
(9seeds, wphelpcenter)
• Leverage existing products and services in a
win-win-win. (you, them, and the customer)
(page.ly + akismet, page.ly + themes, page.ly + firehost page.ly + vaultpress), mojothemes
Thursday, September 9, 2010 23

24. Speak up, we can’t hear you
• How are you Competing?
• How are you Collaborating?
Thursday, September 9, 2010 24

25. Who wants a free iPad?
• Goto http://page.ly (upper right corner of site)
• Tell us why you love WordPress
• Ends September 6th
Thursday, September 9, 2010 25