 Hello. Welcome to my talk about non-code contribution to open source. I've been contributing for a while now. It's like seven or eight years and I am not a developer, so I'm not able to code. But how did I get there? What could I achieve and what did I get back? I'm going to share my story of imposter syndrome, personal growth and open minds. So hi, my name is Ulrike. You can find me on Twitter and on LinkedIn. Please feel free to reach out to me no matter what question you have because I'm more than happy if I can support. In my professional life, I'm working as a requirements engineer and scrum master at Cloudflite. We are a company with about 400 employees and we develop tailor-made software solutions. I'm also vice chair of Drupal Austria. For those who don't know Drupal, that's the content management software and it has by members the largest open source community worldwide with 1.3 million members. I'm also founder of Open Minds, an event with more than 400 participants to highlight and celebrate Austrian open source heroes and heroines. What can you expect? I'm going to tell you more about how I got into open source, some types of non-code contribution. I'll also share some benefits of contributing and there's going to be a quick summary and if we have the time I'll tell you how you can get started yourself. So we have to go a few years back now when I didn't know much about open source and all was new and scary. So before working at Cloudflite, I was working in a Drupal agency and I was doing project management and client consulting. There was this local Drupal camp and I was not very sure if I would belong there if I could go there because I'm not a developer but fortunately I had some developer colleagues and they kind of dragged me with them. They told me that I really should go there and I could benefit and also that the community would be happy if I would go there. So I ended up at my very first talk after the keynote on my own because my friends they would go to my technical talks and there was some guys sitting next to me and we were talking, you started a chat and at some point they showed me the name badges and it had written project managers on the name badges and they told me that this was a bad joke by the boss who registered them as project managers. I told them that I was a project manager myself and they kind of stopped talking to me and so, wow, that was really an awkward situation. It didn't really help my imposter syndrome as I already doubted if I should go to the conference but luckily my developer colleagues picked me up again and we went to the next talks together and they were really great and also the rest of the camp was really great. I really met very inspiring people and I also had a good take home value from the talks because they were really interesting and then there was the after party. So at some point I ended up with my drinks and my friends and a very well known community member, Drupal community member from abroad stood next to me and she was asking if I would come to the sprints the next day. I laughed and I answered that I was not a developer and I thought that she too, just like in the morning the guys would walk away but something quite unexpected happened because she almost begged me, please, please come. We need you even more. We have plenty of developers. Wow, that moment quite changed a lot in my life and it laid the foundation of my career in open source. So why is it that open source needs developers and non-developing skills alike and what could someone contribute if they are not able to code? Here in AFTER I always prepared two slides. The red one shows you some examples of what you can do, how you could contribute so it's what you do and the white one will show you what you get back, how I benefited so it's why it is what you get. What could you do? You could volunteer at events, help organize and meet up a camp. In a picture you can see me packing swag bags, that's something that every organizer is happy if you can help with that because one or two days before the event you have hundreds of materials that you have to put into bags that you would hand out to the participants later on. So this is a great way to connect to the community also if you travel abroad for a conference and as I said before the organizers are really, really happy if you help and you meet the community members in a really nice atmosphere. What else could you do? You could sit at the registration desk and hand out name badges or t-shirts. You can help the organizers with finding sponsors maybe in a company that is willing to help or maybe you know some location that is offering a place for your next meet up or you might know a speaker that has an interesting topic to share so you could help with inviting speakers or maybe you have design skills and you help design some signs or invitations that are always needed for events. So actually I never went to that sprint in Vienna I told you before but there was the next event where I went to and this was in Dublin it was the Drupalcon Europe and I went there as a participant but I read on Twitter that they were still looking for volunteers so I took all my courage and I went to the registration desk the next morning and I asked them just if they were still looking for volunteers and if there was something that I could help with and actually yes there was and the tasks were actually also really easy because I had just had to visit the sessions which I had visited anyway there were several sessions in several rooms at the same time so they were looking for people to say hello to the speakers and ask them just right before the talks if they needed something or if everything was all right and that's what I did I went there for like five minutes early I asked the speakers if everything was okay another task was that I had to count people in the room for statistical reasons and during the question and answers sessions I should just ask the people to step up in front of the microphone because the sessions were being recorded and so that the people who would watch the recording later on would be able to hear the question also not only the answer so although doable not much risk on my side because if the speaker would have had any problem which nobody had then I just would have well I wouldn't have had to fix it on my own because I wouldn't have been able to probably but I had a telephone number a technician that I could call so all easy all fine what did I get back yes I got something back which was unexpected but I got something back first of all I got this really cool t-shirt a t-shirt in a special color because you have to know at community events the people who make it happen they are very much appreciated so I was wearing this t-shirt in the special volunteer color and I was also I had been visible in the session rooms like talking to the speakers and asking for the use of the microphone all of this got to me known amongst the participants and I received some random thank yous during the social events at night or the next days that was surprising but was really cool the photo you can see here on the slide is from a volunteer thank you Demina also something that you normally get back which is also really cool thing and also you get to know interesting people just right after the event and you get good food normally what I realized only later is the importance of the speaker contact because they did remember me because I was the one who helped them and in a situation where they also felt a bit uncomfortable just right before their talks and normally it's not that easy that you talk to the speakers because they are the knowing ones the famous ones within the community and everybody wants to talk to them so this is really cool and helpful for my own future it also helped me in my fight with imposter syndrome because I realized that the speakers the speakers they are also normal people just like just like us they have the same fears they're also nervous what else could you help with you could create content because do you know a hyper communicative extrovert programmer so marketing and writing are often not the typical strengths of a developer that's why communities are really thankful about your help in these fields like you could help with social media providing content on the website and use that maybe you have ideas and could create marketing material for your project or you could write a press release and believe me you don't have to be the perfect writer you really no worries if you're not a pro because you can learn and experiment and you're in a safe environment everybody knows that if you don't do it there's gonna be nothing I think I'm in charge of about eight social media channels at the moment and at least two websites and yes when I did the first posting in the name of Drupal Austria I really was scared and I felt insecure and well actually it's still not perfect but I can see myself improving I am learning by doing and I think this is the most powerful way to learn anyway I got a lot of knowledge about Drupal and open source because you know I don't have to invent everything that I post myself it's like it's more like people are kind of throwing stuff at me and ask me could you could you make up a post about this topic could you maybe so I'm always up to date upon the latest Drupal Austrian news and everything very interesting so yes everything was new and crazy and I just gave it a try and my confidence grew with every tiny step I took out of my comfort zone and speaking of comfort zone um if you look at the picture on the slide it's from the stage of Drupal Khan Europe in Vienna and during the pre-note I was invited on stage and I was dancing the Git song in front of like 1600 folks which was a crazy experience that I never would want to miss what else could you do please share your knowledge the success of others leads to the success of your own project and supports your own success so it comes back to you it's like a circle did you ever hear a developer over explain tech stuff please try and help people succeed with your software from beginner to expert from developer to user if you're looking for a special information yourself and you can't find it easily you could provide a prepared and provided for the next one because for sure there's going to be someone else looking for the same thing you could answer questions raised in the forum in issues on stack above low on social media you might think that you don't know much but think back when you were self were yourself getting started and what you know right now it's probably already more than you did back then so this information is already helpful to somebody else that is getting started you could also think about translation of your of your software that's what we did we we helped to localize Drupal and so the pictures that you can see here they are from translation sprints that we organized what you get back is visibility I also get back knowledge because you might yourself look up some answers you might get feedback upon your answers you might get different answers so that's something that helps your own knowledge group and yes as you can see the translation sprints that we did doesn't make probably sense for every software project but as in our case it was true that we wanted to have a journal translation and we paired up a developer and somebody that felt feels comfortable writing and what we discovered only later that this resulted in a great know-how transfer and I did gain even more fundamental knowledge about my own project we also had to find a developer process that scales so find people that would contribute to the translation and find guidelines to and have people follow the people follow the guidelines in order to have a consistent translation because German is also like three countries involved like Germany, Austria and Switzerland so I did find out what helps to create an excitement and a commitment towards a shared goal how you could educate the mentor others and what is not working out or what is bad for such a spirit and that's something that is really helpful in my in my professional life in my work as a project lead or scrum master what else could you do well you could spread the word obviously you could hold a talk but really you can start more easily by just saying thank you by retweeting and sharing content by appreciating the work of others making it visible so you have to remember that open source projects normally they don't have this huge marketing budgets so the value of spreading the word can't can't be underestimated in my opinion and but what will you get back I called it confidence and growth you really meet like-minded people and the people are really thankful if you like and share their content you might end up as a contact worth following because you're spreading interest interesting info about some project I got a lot of appreciation and the need of something to be done better than nothing this kind of really lured me out of my comfort zone and I ended up with something that I now can write into my TV the the contribution to open source it really helped me in my struggle with imposter syndrome and at this point I'd really like to give a special mention to Jill Beiner and her diversity speaker workshop diverse in .tech because this workshop was brought to me by the Drupal community again something I got back and it really helped me find the topic in the courage and propose a talk and stand here in front of you today the pictures on the slides they have been taken from a Drupal con Europe thank you Dina and I think everybody on the picture is from a different European country I think also US people are here so this was a great way to connect in a great atmosphere meet inspiring people and you know if you need something later on use is it's more easy to just get in contact with somebody that you met at such an occasion so please give back give back your knowledge think about donating money for a software you use doesn't need to be the huge amount if you can't afford it every tiny thing helps like I for myself I use this password managing software and from time to time I just offer the amount of peer to the developer who maintains it and please mentor others be a role model yourself something else that we invented like me and three friends of mine it is we called it open minds and because we created an award for open source projects and contributions from Austria and it has a cool aftershow party a Viennese wall another traditional one more fun weird technology event with more than 400 participants we had last time the goal was to provide a stage for open source in Austria to make it more visible also to say thank you for the people in the hard work and connect communities and people so it was also about networking and celebrating the main categories were open software open data open hardware and when I look back at the pictures I myself always again amazed on upon what's possible because you remember it was like four people the organization team and we did everything in our spare time and we ended up with such a great event it's it's really amazing what you can achieve what am I getting back this is my last slide about about getting back well actually really regularly some companies approach me and have job opportunities for me also I found the courage to get me a job at cloud flight where I'm working today I have been invited to the advisory board for speaker selection for the VIA developers world congress in 2018 it's an event with 8000 attendees in Vienna and it was quite interesting to sit on the other side and judge anonymous talk proposals I've also been invited as a jury member for the Swiss splash awards so how to judge the best Drupal project worldwide was very interesting also interesting context to like other judges both events like a free ticket to the con great and last but not least my contribution provides me with the topic and the courage to speak at conferences such as here today also have been two woman tech makers and VIA developers and open source summit so really great quick summary so we have a bit of time for a question and answer as well give back make an impact build your career do it for the right reasons and it will come back to you I never imagined any of this would happen really I just saw that help was needed and I thought I could do a little thing and step by step I kind of dive deeper into I really think this is an opportunity for everyone especially young people and career changers because you devote time but you don't need monetary investments like expensive courses and certificates you can try and find out if the death scene is the right thing for you you can learn and improve really your coding and your social skills and again why open source needs you because developers usually want to focus on one thing and that is code of course some programmers have fun organizing doing marketing stuff and so on but the overall majority just wants to code so you might be able to imagine how important knowledge you bring is thank you