Community building, cohesion, and retention for meetups, conferences, and open source communities. TL;DR: "Go where the people are already talking and seek quality content." ## GOALS * self-sustaining communities * cohesion in the face of fragmentation ## CHALLENGES * use of proprietary tools within FOSS * fragmentation of communication channels * building momentum in order to distribute the burden ## TACTICS * quality content! empowering people, especially newcomers, to get engaged and take ownership, as speakers, volunteers, or organizers * find the existing channels/watering holes and make them official * cross promoting channels * round of introductions or new comers session and greeting to make people feel welcome * forums for communication *ahead* of events * separate channels for noise vs important comms ## RESOURCES * [Libre communications BoF](/wiki/conference/birds_of_a_feather_sessions/libre-unified-communications)