I look back at the Joomla project's more than five years of history as something that could be the makings of either a great book or at minimum a documentary on success and challenges in open source leadership.  We've been through it all, the highs and lows, and we continue to keep moving forward.

So when I sat down last week to make some changes to my presentation for Open Source Days 2011 at the Copenhagen Business School, it quickly moved from a little refactoring to a full rewrite.  A ten hour rewrite.

The topic for the session was something I'd always wanted to write about for the open source community:  leadership lessons learned from a large volunteer-based open source project.  While I've only been president of Open Source Matters (OSM) for less than a year, I've spent nearly four years on the Board of OSM, and have my share of stories to tell.

My goal for this March 5, 2011, session was to give fellow open source project leaders a grab bag of success stories, pitfalls to avoid, and an uplifting approach to embracing change.

My session followed a great presentation lead by Noirin Shirley titled "Open Source: Saving the World".  With my open source roots in disaster relief work, I was excited to see this right before my session.  I received a spoonful of open source love when Noirin used the Snowmageddon websites I helped create for the snowstorms in Washington DC as an example.  Here I am, an American in Denmark, listening to session by an Irish woman living in Switzerland speaking about using open source software created in Kenya for a crisis in America.  Only in the open source world.

Her session reminded me of a dinner discussion I had with Miikka Kukkosuo and Ugur Kaner in Sweden a few weeks ago, the two of whom are the passionate leaders of a project that enables Joomla sites to be more user-friendly for mobile users.  I remember thinking then:  what if a Joomla-based site could be deployed, customized, and managed entirely from a mobile phone to share citizens' local ideas and stories…in the developing world.  I'd be stoked to see that happen.

Noirin's session definitely gave my jet-lagged mind the energy needed to deliver my presentation.

I've embedded my presentation to Open Source Days 2011 below, which I hope will be the first of many iterations.  To be honest, I could probably speak for days about the lessons I've learned from the Joomla leadership, so I'm looking forward to continuing refining this presentation.  Unfortunately, my presentations tend to be image-based, so you won't get the same value viewing the 127 slides (gulp!) online without an accompanied speech.

Thank you to Sidsel Jensen and others that did an amazing job organizing this terrific event, and inviting me to share my thoughts from the Joomla project.  I hope to have the opportunity to do more cross-training at events like this outside our Joomla community, since there's amazing stories to learn from other projects that we can adopt and adapt to our project.

We have a lot of great stories and lessons learned that we can share with our fellow open source friends.  As an open source project, I think it's our duty to the larger movement to help contribute to the larger narrative of open source software.  I'd be happy to see this happen in the form of more presentations or even a Joomla movie…so long as Aaron Sorkin focuses on open source education rather than drama.