Friends,
It sucks that I have to write this blog post.
After several months of working with whurley and Dan Rumney to organize the largest tech camp in history with almost 100 cities committed by over 1,000 organizers and volunteers, I am leaving my role at préDevCamp.
whurley, Dan and I started organizing this event back in January with the expectation of creating a community around a brand that has been on life support for several years. We hoped to help breathe new life into the mobile development marketplace via a grassroots effort by building a developer ecosystem around the first mobile device, The Palm Pré, to generate widespread excitement in and out of the tech press since the iPhone.
None of us are Palm fanboi’s. We all love and work in tech and are fans of the mobile space in general. Dan used to build apps for the Palm independently, but that is the extent of our relationship with the corporate entity.
During the planning phases of the event we agreed that the community would live and thrive with or without Palm, Inc.’s support or participation. To that end, we assumed we’d get no support from Palm. We didn’t want to set ourselves up for failure in the event that Palm chose not to participate in the event. During our talks with Palm, I let my guard down. I was personally excited that Palm was actively talking with us. Lesson learned.
After we launched http://préDevCamp.org we immediately saw developers and mobile fans line up to commit to local events. We saw 10 cities sign up in the first week. As a point of comparison, we were hoping to match the success of the iPhoneDevCamp events. They had 5 additional cities host events along with the main event in San Francisco.
So, we were off to a roaring start. Fast forward to today and we have a camp that is scheduled to host almost 100 events around the world. This is testament to the huge, sleeping community/fan base that Palm has been ignoring over the past several years.
So after the first couple of weeks while we added features and functionality to the website and communicated with local organizers, we determined that it was time to see if Palm was interested in what we were doing. I reached out to Palm’s PR contact on their website, Leslie Letts.
A couple days later Paul Cousineau, Director of Product Management for WebOS called me and we had a great conversation about the community. After getting past the expected “do you work for Palm?” and “why are you doing this?” types of questions, Paul seemed to be genuinely excited about the real, grassroots community that had sprung up around the Pré. At that point in time, we only had 28 cities signed up to participate and we were all quite excited about the event.
A few calls after this first introduction between Paul and I resulted in us (whurley, Dan and I) agreeing to put a banner on the predevcamp.org website that made clear that we were in no way affiliated officially with Palm, Inc. (a prerequisite from Palm’s legal counsel for continued contact). Paul also asked for a detailed email from us listing the ways we thought Palm could participate and support the effort.
After this last email, the connection with Palm essentially went silent. We had a few emails asking for an update which were responded to with “hang on...we’ll be in contact.” For us as organizers, this signaled that they just may not have been at a point where the product was close enough to launch to have an ongoing conversation. Fair enough. We waited.
The community asked us what was going on...and we asked for patience. Mostly, the community responded with just being happy that Palm was engaged. A few instances got ugly, but we kept those conversations and opinions under wraps. Thank you to those of you who used us to channel your frustration and let us drive the relationship in the best direction vis-a-vis the community at large.
Our next contact came with @Chuq (Von Rospach) on twitter publicly chiding @whurley and @palmwebosblog for pushing him on information about the product. Keeping in mind that @Chuq is Palm’s official ambassador to the community, this seems especially strange. It's important to note that after 60 days beyond the point when we announced the community and launched the site Chuq had not reached out to us a single time to introduce himself. Even if he hadn't found us on twitter, plenty of folks in the press were covering the event. Granted, it’s his prerogative to speak to whoever he wants. My opinion here: I personally just thought it was a bad move, as head of community relations, not to say “hi” to the largest active developer community on the planet focused on your product.
So @Chuq dumps on @whurley and @palmwebosblog, on twitter no less, and the community doesn't take kindly. Typical bashings of “the man” and calls that “corporate suits don’t get it” were the norm and whurley, Dan & I put the call out to Paul to have a discussion about the crisis.
We got on a call with Paul and Chuq and quickly went passed the current issues, exchanged virtual hugs, and moved into “how do we move forward.” At the end of the call Palm agreed to be actively supportive of the group in a number of ways (to be determined at a later date and time) and we agreed to make sure we were supportive of Palm (sell out? perhaps). The end goal was to play nice with each other and send a clear message to the community that Palm supports the independent developer community of over 1,000 developers that have come together to build apps for the PalmPré.
Fast forward to May, 1. I receive an email from Aaron Hyde, Developer Marketing from Palm, Inc. It’s an introduction email asking for some background on préDevCamp. Great, a new contact, closer to the right group we’d be targeting. Looks like we’re moving along nicely.
Aaron and I agreed to speak on the phone on May 6th. During the call, Aaron acknowledged the email I had sent to Paul three months previous regarding the ways Palm might support the préDevCamp community. However, he also needed a primer on the event, camps in general and the general “why are you doing this” stuff.
We have now developed a theme at Palm... “why would you do this if we’re not paying you to?” Each time, I have to explain that the event is not about Palm. It’s about the community. The brand is a vehicle to rally a number of like-minded people around, but it’s not the reason for the event. We do this because we want to build community, connections, cool products, make great software, solve problems, meet new friends. For all practical purposes we could, (and in hindsight should) have been creating the largest single day grassroots developer event in history around Microsoft’s Windows Mobile or RIM’s Blackberry platform.
So...song and dance with Aaron over, he offers to finally cross the threshold and work directly with us on préDevCamp. Specifically, he’s ready to give us the release date of the phone so we can start planning events in earnest. One more caveat: We had to agree not to divulge the date to the public and sign an NDA to that effect. I told him we’d only agree to sign a non-disclosure regarding the DATE of the release of the product. Nothing else. We would not agree to any other terms unless it could be evidenced to us that said information was not already in the public and it would cause damage to their plans to successfully launch the product.
Great. Aaron agreed and sent over the NDA. General stuff, vague and mutual. whurley, Dan and I signed the NDA and we set a date for our meeting. When? Wednesday, May 20th. Remember that date...more on this later.
So, in alignment with our earlier commitment to Palm to use our influence and channels to show the community that Palm was actively working with us, I commenced to communicate to the community that Palm was actively working with us with one single tweet:
Whurley, also in an effort to show the community we were being supported by Palm retweeted the same message.
Five and a half hours later, Aaron sent me and whurley an email entitled “Have to cancel meeting”
I've been instructed to cancel our meeting next week because of this post on Twitter.”
A new person from Palm was on the email thread - Jon Zilber. Apparently he is on the online communications team with Palm. I have no idea if he was not aware of the planned meeting and was the one to call it off...or even his role on the marketing team at Palm. In any case, he had sent an email to Chuq Von Rospach with the subject of “Do you know what this is all about” and asked Chuq “And does it need to be silenced?”
Apparently, it needed to be silenced.
Last round...I sent out a second email to all the Palm folks we’ve been in contact with (Paul, Jon, Chuq, and Aaron) that is written by all three of us (whurley, Dan, and myself):
préDevCamp is approaching over 1000 developers in 100 cities worldwide and we find ourselves at an impasse.
While you should be actively involved, you seem only capable of distancing yourself from what is undoubtedly the most vital component required for your success; a strong developer community. With each day that we continue the two steps forward three steps back dance that has come to define our interactions this relationship becomes less of an asset, and more of a liability. From a community viewpoint it seems that the right palm doesn't know what the left palm is doing.
We need to know from your executive leadership where Palm stands once and for all. Please let us know if you are in or out by Monday noon, PDT. We have planned accordingly for either outcome, but a non-response will be taken as an indication that your relationship with our community is over.
Respectfully,
Giovanni Gallucci
whurley
Dan Rumney”
In response, Pam Deziel, VP, Software Product Management at Palm, calls me and offers to talk about the situation. I refer the call to whurley because I’m on the road and could not make a call when it was convenient for her.
So, I’ll let whurley recount his conversations with Pam. Suffice it to say, all three of us (whurely, Dan and I) were unimpressed. The twitter message from me and retweetted by whurley was enough, in their judgment, to claim that we broke the NDA.
In my opinion, Pam could not have been more short-sighted or dismissive of the community. If the intent of introducing Pam to the conversation was to get us to simmer down it didn't work. Her call with whurely and subsequent email had the effect of throwing kerosene on an open flame. Clearly, Palm doesn’t get it. Why they even created the positions of community and developer managers is beyond me at this point.
In her last email, Pam decided to cancel the NDA we had signed with Palm:
Additionally, Pam played the “veiled threat of legal action” card by carbon copying Palm’s General Counsel, Mr. Kahn, on the last email she sent to us.
I confirmed my understanding with the following response:
I agree that we are no longer working under an NDA.
Mr.Kahn, please note that I am canceling my NDA with Palm, Inc.
I wish you all luck on the launch.”
In essence, the relationship between préDevCamp and Palm, Inc. is over. Actually it was never real to begin with in my opinion.
One last point on the timeline: Remember the date for the meeting, covered under NDA, when Aaron was going to let the préDevCamp community know what the release date was for the pré? Wednesday, May 20. When did the news hit about the release date of the pré hit the general press? Tuesday, May 19th. One day after they were going to entrust us with the date under NDA.
It appears to me, again my opinion, that the relationship was a ruse from the beginning. At least when Apple screws the community, you know they’re going to screw you. Apple left no room for misunderstanding. The iPhoneDevCamp organizers knew they would get no support from Apple.
Palm, on the other hand... You can make up your own mind about Palm. I think the timeline and their public and private behavior speak for itself.
In the end, I can’t in good conscience be a part of préDevCamp now. I love the community as evidenced to the dozens of events I’ve created and co-organized over the past several years. I have a bitter taste in my mouth for the Palm brand now. I'm going to grab a mint and sit this one out. I want no part of building a brand that has such contempt for the influencers and developers that want to support it from the ground up.
Now, we set up the events from the beginning to be self-supporting and self renewing. This is by design. So any one person's lack of participation will have no impact on the local events.
We will leave it up to each local organizer to make a decision about whether or not they want to go forward with their local event. We will give organizers the capability on the http://predevcamp.org website to “unregister” their event and show that the event was canceled if they choose. Another option, since Apple will be holding WWDC that week, and everyone assumes, introducing the next generation iPhone, would be to hold an iPhoneDevCamp in its place. Further, maybe you would just want to hold a MobileDevCamp and have developers building apps for multiple platforms. It's your call.
Local event organizers: Feel free to contact me for anything you may need. I’m here to support you.
Paul, Chuq, Jon, Aaron, and Pam... Good luck on the launch.
More reading:
preDevCamp Date Announcement from PreDevCamp.org
Palm's Missed Opportunity from Dan Rumney
Whurley, Exit Stage Left from whurley
Microsoft or RIM...interested in launching the largest active mobile developer network in the world? Give us a tweet @giovanni & @whurely
