MySQL Meeting at Sun Japan
Takashi Shitamichi, Yoko Suga, Natsuki Wakabayashi, Jim
Grisanzio,
Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Satoshi Kawai,
Kaj Arno, Toshiro Umetsu, Takanobu Masuzuki
One very interesting point that Kaj made was that community building is
not necessarily a marketing function or an engineering function. It's different. It
serves both
organizations at the company, surely, but it's a separate
discipline. Fascinating. I had been thinking all along that the best
home for community building is engineering (which is where I live).
Marketing participates
fully, of course, but the core comes from engineering since the core
involves code and direct engineer to engineer interactions across a
firewall. Others feel that
community building is basically a marketing function since it involves
events
and communications and large numbers of people and such. Now, Kaj's view may stem from the fact
that MySQL is primarily a user community, but still, many people I know would
probably see that as more of a marketing function of engagement as well. But
not in the MySQL case. Regardless. It's an
interesting issue to explore, and I learned a great deal from the
conversation. Thanks, Kaj. At Sun, community building functions are spread out all over the place. :)
