Celebrating an Amazing 2015 for Pivotal Big Data Communities

In 2015, Pivotal released more than 6 million lines of code into open source, and we launched 4 major new open source projects:

• Apache Geode
• Apache HAWQ
• Apache MADlib
• Greenplum Database

This was a significant accomplishment by Pivotal in terms of engineering, legal, product development, and marketing efforts.

 

Since then we’ve seen quite a bit of interest in these nascent new communities in 2015.

 

2016 is our year to build them to critical mass of members with first official releases, simplifying the path to adoption and contribution, and driving awareness.

 

Here is Happy New Year message from Pivotal to the Pivotal Big Data Community.

The Ambitious Apps at Amazing Scale Hackathon

In late June and through July 23, we held a virtual hackathon for Apache Geode with the help of the folks at DevPost.  Entitled: “The Ambitious Apps at Amazing Scale” hackathon, the goals were to:

1. Introduce new contributors to the Apache Geode community
2. Test a wide scope of new features and APIs being contributed to Apache Geode
3. Provide example applications to help inspire users how to use the Apache Geode technology

This video provides an overview of the contest:

Two eligible submissions were entered.

The winning submission, Dynamic Geode Warping was downright impressive.

Their video gives you a good overview of their work:

Bringing Commercial Software to Open Source

The following is a presentation I made with my colleague Cyrus Wadia to Pivotal’s Meetup group in June 2015 about what it took for us to spawn open source projects out of our long standing commercial products for big data.

And here’s the actual presentation:

Become A Founding Contributor of “Project” Geode

Cross posted from The Pivotal POV Blog…

Today, Pivotal announced the creation of “Geode”, the new in-memory distributed database that will form the open source core of Pivotal GemFire.

It is my pleasure to announce the really fun part of this: the beginning of “Project Geode” – the community of users of and contributors to the Geode technology.

As part of this announcement, we stated that Pivotal has submitted a proposal to The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) to establish and incubate Project Geode through collaborative development.

What Can Companies Expect from Crowd Funding and Crowd Sourcing?

[SOURCE] Crowds gathered in a Mall in UK.

Originally posted at SAPHANA.com.

Whenever new Internet-based business models are invented, some quickly create new kinds of companies – like Amazon, Google, Facebook and Twitter.  Others mature more slowly such as in the case of crowd funding and crowd sourcing. Crowd funding is finding funding for projects, products and companies from strangers on the Internet with companies such as Kickstarter, IndieGogo, and AngelList helping crowd funding mature. Crowd sourcing is sourcing work or creative ideas from strangers on the Internet with companies such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and 99 Designs successfully showing different models of crowd sourcing.  These concepts have been around since the beginning of Web 2.0, but enterprises are still trying to understand how these might fit into their existing businesses.

Having been involved with SAP’s first crowd sourcing programs, the SAP HANA Idea Incubator, and the SAP Idea Place, I’ve run firsthand into the many different expectations that people have about these concepts. Most understand some of the benefits they might receive, but not the corresponding duties they have to making their project a success. Similarly, I think involving a crowd has some far reaching benefits that only some have set up their campaigns to fully realize.

 

Labor is Obsolete

“He who works with his hands is a laborer.
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.”

St. Francis of Assisi

Labor as we knew it is obsolete. It has been for a while. Sure, vestiges of its greatness still exist in certain sectors, especially in civil service. We all still enjoy many of the workforce customs and regulations that organized labor helped put into place – people-friendly perks governing how employers treat workers. But the sway Labor enjoyed from the 1950’s until the 1980’s has lapsed.

Female workers in an H. J. Heinz can factory stamping out end discs (the discs that fit on either end of each can).
[SOURCE] Public domain.

Before the Social Media Marketing Settlers Arrived…

My first blog on this site, and one that still characterizes my approach to marketing – nurturing and building the community around your company or cause.

The Geek Marketing Blog

I am a marketer that engages in social media and blogging professionally. I figure the occasion of Social Media Week in San Francisco is as good a time as any to launch my own personal blog.

Let me start off with a rant that you might hear from your grandfather who had to walk to school in the snow, uphill both ways:

Back in the old days, before blogs were called blogs, before the term Web 2.0 had been coined, and back when social networking seemed useful only for illegally downloading copyrighted music, we called the precursor to social media “community building” or “community marketing”.

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Why Bad Robots Bring Bad Hygiene to Your Twitter Account

Originally posted as a guest blog at vTricity.com

One of the worst mistakes that newbies to Twitter do is choose the wrong robots to “help” them out. They accept these services in response to three fears:

1)   I need to hide from spam.

2)   I need to know if people are unfollowing me.

3)   I lack “social credibility” because I don’t have enough followers.

I’d like to discuss these perceptions, point out why they are unfounded, and why the usual “remedy” in fact makes the problem worse.

[SOURCE] (c) Sebastian Lund, used according to Creative Commons License.

Hiding From Spam By Using a SpamBot

How Community Marketing Creates High Value Relationships

One of the most potent marketing programs a company can run is to foster and engage with the community of customers and partners that surrounds their company. Done right, this can create high value relationships for everyone within the community, and with the company.

Before the Social Media Marketing Settlers Arrived…

I am a marketer that engages in social media and blogging professionally. I figure the occasion of Social Media Week in San Francisco is as good a time as any to launch my own personal blog.

Let me start off with a rant that you might hear from your grandfather who had to walk to school in the snow, uphill both ways:

Back in the old days, before blogs were called blogs, before the term Web 2.0 had been coined, and back when social networking seemed useful only for illegally downloading copyrighted music, we called the precursor to social media “community building” or “community marketing”.