[EuroPython] Social Skill Track / Project Management Talks

[Beatrice]

On Tue, 2003-10-07 at 10:43, Laura Creighton wrote:
> In a message of Tue, 07 Oct 2003 10:25:48 +0200, "Andrew Smart" writes:
> >Hi,
> >
> >I would like to know if there is any interest on a follow
> >up to my last talk on the EPC on teams and social skills
> >and comparable stuff.

YES! Now that Martijn has caught me by the nape of my neck, I have to
butt in although I really have little time this particular week. Anyhow.
What I am interested in is social skills, work organisation (schedules,
deadlines, etc), business negotiation, business administration and sales
arguments. Since I work together with a "real" geek in a two-person biz,
I can sing songs of what it's like to coax customers (often of the end
user type rather than of the fellow geek type) into trying out Open
Source solutions - mostly Plone/Zope/Postgres, lately.

> >
> >Andrew
> >
> 
> There's lots of interest.  Do you want to chair this thing?  Iknow
> 2 people who want to give talks in such a track.  send them to you?
> (I don't think tehre is another chair already.  if there is, sorry
> for stomping on your toes, whoever you are ....)
> 
> Laura

heh. I had mentioned that if there was a lot of interest and no
precedent (i.e. no one else had staked a claim long before I came), I
would offer to take the chair. My toes remain unhurt.

I would like to have some certainty that a critical number of people
want this one to happen. I am thinking of an interactive type of
workshop, with discussions of critical incidents, maybe even role plays
and such. It would be good to have people who dive in at the deep end
(selling solutions that keep several people busy for a long time to a
very tech-orientated customers) all the way up to those who paddle
(just-in-time solutions for small customers).

Martijn mentioned the track had to be related to Python specifically.
That is a critical issue. Nowadays, I have to fight against PHP just as
much as against ASP when I try to convince people to use Zope. If you
fight that with geek arguments of the type "Guido is cool" or "PHP
sucks", you drown. That may appear superbly polemic (be honest: hands up
who didn't cringe...), but you need to have reasons that people can
actually follow all the way, such as "the Brazilian government uses
Plone now", as I recently read. You may think that that is too cheesy
for words, but it gets people's attention much more than "why is Python
good for education programmers" when it comes to actually trying to make
a living with it. People want "standard" applications because they have
been brainwashed into believing that they will be smitten by Thor if
they don't. Try to convince an outsider (sitting on a chest full of
gold) of the opposite without becoming insulting. You have 2 minutes to
come up with a strategy.

So. This is my angle, flippancy optional. Let me know if more than 5%
made sense to any of you. I am ready to give parts of it, help to
organise it, take the chair (or not), stay out of it entirely, whatever
makes most sense.

bea


-- 
Beatrice <bea at webwitches.com>