Taking Up the Slack: Building Real-Time Community at Autodesk

Building strong, collaborative communities continues to be a critical component to the success of open source. However, too often companies attempt to manufacture community (both internally and extern …

Building strong, collaborative communities continues to be a critical component to the success of open source. However, too often companies attempt to manufacture community (both internally and externally) by throwing technology and tools at the problem. In this talk, Guy Martin will showcase his experience in using Slack as a complement to building a vibrant community, not as a forcing function to create one. Though Slack itself isn’t open source, in Autodesk’s case it was chosen to allow for broader inclusivity beyond just the engineering community. Sales, marketing and even the executive team are now part of a company-wide collaborative community that helps build more cohesive products while using open source principles. Guy will explain why the process and community principles used during Autodesk’s Slack rollout were even more important than the tool choice itself.