Meditation is quite relaxing and something I should do more often I guess. It provides a stable basis for the beginning of the day. As I already mentioned yesterday, wednesday, will not be a full TYPO3 day I need to do some administration in the morning hours I have at my disposal. Bills to pay and invoices/declarations to write.

So sitting in the train, speeding through the dense fog, to Amsterdam I write my morning summary. What is easy to summarize is that things hardly ever go as you expect. I answered a lot of mails, had my coffee break and tried to get something together to host an etherpad solution. We still have a Debian VPS hanging around we initially intended for our Big Blue Button conference server. There is an ubuntu package for etherpad so that should not be to difficult. The morning is over before you can say "TYPO3 rocks". I spent some time on the train answering mail and reviewing a document a friend of mine wrote concerning opensource Software. 



The Hub is the venue in Amsterdam where we will organise the European Community Leadership Summit. Greg Zysk and me went to check it out in the afternoon. Greg is a management consultant, living in Amsterdam, mainly involved in opensource projects with a focus on starting sustainable businesses through the use of opensource software as a platform. The Hub itself is suitable for hosting like 100 people and located in the center of Amsterdam, which is perfect. The organisation itself is very open-minded in dealing with the facilities surrounding the event like catering etc. Their whole attitude is very cooperative. They also show a personal interest in the event. The Hub features a central space and a number of smaller spaces. The central space offers the possibility to host a number of groups. Sustainability is a central theme for The Hub. Last year I planned to take a course in sustainable leadership at The Hub that unfortunately got cancelled. Maybe another opportunity will arise to do a similar kind of course at The Hub once. Sustainability is something I think is going to be a central issue for communities in the coming time. So now we know where we are going to host the summit we need to start organising the rest surrounding it. One of the most important parts will be a general description we need for sponsors. ECLS will be unconference style. Entrance is free and we will be looking for sponsors to cover the full event. CLS Portland for instance was sponsored by the likes of Google, Microsoft etc.

In the evening we met up with Marc Vloemans, also living in Amsterdam, for sushi. Marc is well-known in Dutch opensource country, working as an opensource consultant for, among others, governmental organisations and is chairman of the Dutch Opensource Suppliers Organisation (OSSLO). A lot of ideas where exchanged concerning the opensource eco-system and specifically about professionalising communities. Many OS software communities are  developer-focused and aspects like community management and marketing tend to be underrated. Both of them are necessary to keep communities thriving, especially in this time where adoption of opensource seems to be declining.

So we are half way through "A Week With The Community Manager". I hope this gives a bit of an insight in what I generally do. I realise some of the stuff might not be that interesting, but for once I wanted to sketch what a week usually is for me. I must say it also is a good excercsie for me personally as it increases my awareness of my daily business.