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preDevCamp Fail

I've been reading over the drama of preDevCamp this evening and just can't shake a certain feeling that most of it could have been avoided with a little bit less ego.

Sure Palm isn't the most savvy company, but it is a company that is releasing a platform that people want to develop for. What's the best way for a large group of early adopters to get Palm's attention and possibly support from? Obviously it's not showing up one day on Palm's doorstep demanding they pay attention to you because you're the "he largest active developer community on the planet" and work with you. Reading the blog posts from the organizers of the event you get the distinct feeling that their arrogance may have brought this down on them.

The tldr; version is this: a couple of folks put together a very, very large community of developers to come together to develop for the Palm Pre. Said organizers reach out to Palm to ask for their support, and seeing as how "Palm just doesn't get it" were nearly brushed off but eventually came around and offered to help in exchange for NDAs. Now I've signed quite a few NDAs in my time, and the one thing that they all have in common is that you don't talk about the NDA. One of the organizers did just that on Twitter and quickly as they came, Palm pulled out of the partnership. Touchy? Yes. Douchebaggy? Absolutely. But playing devil's advocate here, I can sort of see where Palm was coming from. Here's a company that had no idea who or what preDevCamp was prior to January, nor had they fully or perhaps even at all fleshed out their developer plans. I think you'd be a little bushwacked at that as well.

Following company protocol and promising essentially nothing, you offer an NDA which is then talked about in a very public forum (Twitter). As a company trying to keep tight control of information, I'd be a little scared as well. Obviously responding to this with a mandate that includes the quote:

"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."

really isn't going to gain you any brownie points. The takeaway is that Palm does not know these people from Adam, and has no obligation to support preDevCamp in anyway.

That being said, Palm wasted a golden opportunity as well. They have developed the Pre upon an open source platform without any regard to fostering a community for their product. Palm surely doesn't "get" it but then again the preDevCamp organizers don't "get" how to deal with companies like Palm.

There's absolutely too much ego in software development, let's cut the crap guys.

http://blog.gallucci.net/2009/05/palm-doesnt-get-it.html

Dan Rumney has a more level headed view of the fiasco here: http://www.danrumney.co.uk/2009/05/21/predevcamp-palms-missed-opportunity/

Posted May 21, 2009
May 22, 2009
giovanni said...
James, To be clear, on the one hand Palm asked us to be active in the community when it came to informing the independent developers who were part of preDevCamp that Palm was supporting the movement. On the other hand, they want to distance themselves from us when we inform the community that we have a meeting with them. Perhaps some miscommunication internally but we were very clear about what we would agree to under the NDA with Aaron. Not talking about what they asked us to talk about was not covered ;-)

As for "and the one thing that they all have in common is that you don't talk about the NDA" is simply not true. After over a decade in the tech and marketing industries I've not only seen countless instances where folks openly mention that they have NDA's in place with other entities, I've never had a single instance personally where my public pronouncement about having an NDA caused the other party to claim default. This has not been the case for me with Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, Apple and several other companies I have NDA's with. In fact, it's quite common to clarify a relationship with a partner to others to inform them that your dealings are covered under so they are aware that there a limits to the topics you can openly discuss.

As for your comment about egos...well, I must admit there have been some egos on the calls from both sides. :-D

The good, not great news out of all this: These events are set up to be self-supporting and self-renewing by design. That's the beauty of what we've created here. From the infrastructure to the events themselves, this is about the community. It goes well beyond any company or individual, as it should. If the community wants this, it will live on. I personally hope the community grows and flourishes.

In any event, hopefully you'll be able to make it to the Dallas event. The guys at Improving will, no doubt, throw a great party on the 13th.

Enjoy your pré.

May 22, 2009
James West said...
@giovanni Thanks for the comment. I tried to be as fair as I could while staying true to what I felt. As a disclaimer, I hadn't been paying much attention to preDevCamp before the fiasco so my gut reaction may be mostly off base however none of us besides you guys and the Palm people really know what went on on those calls. You guys tried your best to make something awesome with what you had, but it didn't work out.

My comment about the ego thing wasn't a personal slam against anyone, it's just something I've noticed in software development lately.

Anyway, thanks for the clarification. Good luck with devCamp in the future.

May 22, 2009
whurley said...
Hi James, I see @Giovanni's blog has brought us down yet again ;)

Seriously, I think you bring up some great points. As I said on my blog this news elicits a wide range of emotions from the preDevCamp community, and undoubtedly many at Palm as well.

However, you have to keep in mind that the event was designed to run independent of Palm from the get go, and that the personal opinions we're kept off of the site and posted only on personal blogs.

I don't share @Giovanni's level of frustration or @dancrumb's continuing optimism. That's why we we all posted separate opinions. Still, I think you're going to see that the design of the event will allow it to be a success completely independent of any individual's opinion or corporation's bureaucracy.

Thanks for allowing me to respond to your post. And thanks for helping continue the discussion so that everyone can try and understand each other's viewpoint and hopefully, with any luck, get along better in the future.

Respectfully,
whurley