Episode 84: Jono Bacon on Building Sustainable Communities

Guest Jono Bacon Panelists Justin Dorfman | Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we have as our special guest, Jono Bacon, a self-employed Community and Collaboration Consultant, author, speaker, and Founder of Jono Bacon Consulting. Jono tells us about his interesting journey with his career, the diversity of his clients, a concern he has with chat channels, and why community is the most important thing in open source. He talks about developers and how to help them see their value and potential to achieve their goals. We learn more about some of the things Jono wrote, including his most recent book, People Powered: How Communities Can Supercharge Your Business, Brands, and Teams, _and how he got the _“star power” behind it. Also, he also shares an awesome story when he worked at XPRIZE, and something that made him realize how unique the open source world really is. Go ahead and download this episode to hear much more! [00:01:46] Jono tells us how he ended up doing what he does. [00:03:36] We find out the type of clients Jono has and how he gets them often through referrals. [00:06:34] Jono talks about how he feels about Discord, Discourse, Gitter, and the open source IRC replacements that are going on right now. [00:09:42] Richard asks Jono what he thinks the value is of having these side conversations, and how does that help community members have better engagement and build value for them. [00:13:28] Jono shares his opinion on one of the flaws with individuals in open source and why community is the most important thing. [00:16:46] Richard wonders how Jono balances the needs of emotionally connecting to everyone in your group and how he makes sure that developers know there is a balance to be met to have the community thrive. [00:20:30] We learn about some things Jono wrote and he tells us about his most recent book, _People Powered: How Communities Can Supercharge Your Business, Brands, and Teams. _Justin wo