Change in Community Ownership
What’s Happening?
Scott Hirleman – one of the co-founders and the person running/owning the Data Mesh Learning Community – his main goal from the start has been to create a thriving community for people interested in / implementing data mesh to share information and insights with each other. Almost like we are all nodes in a data mesh implementation ourselves. But it’s time for this community to no longer be in the hands of a single person – that centralization has far outlasted its value. So Scott has found a wonderful organization that shepherds/stewards other tech communities to take this community to the next step and will be handing over (for free of course) all community assets to them.
Constantia.io is a tech community company with expertise in open source and data whose vision is to help the world collaborate. They manage other independent end user communities such as the Data on Kubernetes Community. Constantia will be stewarding the community while also relying on an advisory board of some of the community members who’ve made large impacts. The community will still be vendor-neutral – Constantia is committed to making this community about a positive impact on implementers and the overall data community. None of the general rules of engagement or anything else will be changing – this is still a hate-free zone and we should all focus on treating each other with the utmost respect.
Why is This Happening?
Since data mesh as a concept has grown quickly and the DML community specifically has grown very quickly, it’s time for the community to be led by professionals in community stewardship. Scott’s been wanting this for quite a while and it’s coming to fruition – he gets to just be a member of the community again instead of a figurehead in some way. This is super positive news for the community as well because it spreads the burden/responsibility but especially opens up way more opportunities for people and organizations alike to participate! Keep and eye on the Slack and newsletter for more information on opportunities to get involved!
This means we can have much more steady community events like meetups, a community blog, etc. Scott was just far too overwhelmed with everything plus doing Data Mesh Radio. This will again allow him to simply be one of the community members instead of the ultimate decision maker.
Memorandum of Understanding
In reference to the above, Scott Hirleman is transferring all Data Mesh Learning related assets to Constantia to be managed like a foundation. The community shall be run with the express goal of helping those interested in and/or implementing data mesh to interact about and hopefully address their data mesh related challenges. Constantia agrees to continue to run the community as a vendor-neutral entity with a new governance and sponsorship model to enable long-term community growth and industry awareness. You can learn more about that in the membership guide.
The Constantia team would greatly appreciate your feedback in this survey about what the community means to you, and what they can do to facilitate your personal goals for participation.
Communities are about people connecting, learning, and often finding new ways to collaborate. Scott and Melissa, the CEO of Constantia, appreciate everyone who has contributed time and/or resources to make DML thrive – and look forward to bigger and better collaborations in 2023 and beyond.
Want to Learn More?
Join a live call with Scott and Melissa to learn more about the transition and what you can expect moving forward. The call will be held at 5pm UTC on Wednesday, 8 February and will be hosted on Zoom. You can join the Zoom call from this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84249915366?pwd=ZnZkKzNBZVYwdnIrSFNGUzZrZ0lXQT09
Co-signed by:
Scott Hirleman
Co-Founder of Data Mesh Learning
Melissa Logan
CEO/Founder of Constantia.io