Exit whurley Stage Left
Exit whurley Stage Left
If you are coming here from the preDevCamp website, then you already know what this post is about. Perhaps you’ve already read one of the posts written by my preDevCamp co-founders Dan Rumney and Giovanni Gallucci. Things haven’t exactly worked out between preDevCamp and Palm, Inc. I’ll spare you the nitty-gritty. In the end, Palm can spin perception, but they can’t change reality.
This news elicits a wide range of emotions from the preDevCamp community, and undoubtedly many at Palm as well. There have been ups and downs between the two camps, but in the end Palm just doesn’t get it. That’s okay, by the way. As someone with vast experience with these types of events and a day job doing open source and open innovation professionally for a previously 100% proprietary company with a $6.23B market cap, I know the ins and outs of corporate bureaucracy. I also understand that corporations have more power and flexibility than they let on. It’s easy to hide behind policy and process, or to claim that you must operate within certain business parameters, but in the end Rush said it best: “if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”
It’s not that Palm doesn’t get it that has me writing this post. It’s that as a company, Palm simply doesn’t seem to understand your efforts or respect you. That’s where I have a problem. We’re a volunteer community that has created the largest development camp in history. Hundreds of people in 85 cities worldwide have made plans to come together in support of company teetering on the brink of extinction, or at least irrelevance. They are a company that from outward appearance (and based on our experience) is incapable of comprehending the magnitude of the negative impact of their decision to squander one of the greatest gifts I have ever seen a community offer.
Yes, this could sour you all on Palm, but I have to continue to be transparent with you. In fact, each of the preDevCamp founders has agreed to continue the same transparency, openness, and collaboration this event was built on. Most importantly, we know what drove the growth of preDevCamp in the first place: our respect for you, our community.
As a community leaders, we understand the difference between control and influence. When it comes to preDevCamp we set things up so that each community was both a symbiotic part of a larger whole and an autonomous entity able to make its own decisions and function independent of our leadership. The event was designed that way for a number of reasons, the most important that we wanted you not to just participate in an event of this magnitude, but be the architects of its future. Rest assured as you read our blogs that this system will remain in place.
Perhaps it was easy for Palm to lose sight of what communities are about and what they’re made of. I feel like screaming “It’s People!” Soylent Green-style. PreDevCamp is a community of individuals who deserve individual respect. Because of my respect for our community members, I can no longer in good conscience help drive an event whose beneficiary doesn’t understand the gift you’re giving them and has allegedly misled you, in my opinion abusing your good faith and willingness to support them in their time of need. As of today, I’m removing myself from preDevCamp as gracefully as possible.
I ask that you each please leave the decision of whether or not to continue with preDevCamp to the individual organizers and participants within each camp. This is the first time I’m leaving a community event I helped create before its completion in my entire career. It’s necessary, but It’s killing me. You built my career, and I will always choose the good of the community over the good of myself or my co-organizers. Each of you must objectively look at the situation and make your own decision.
I’m available to any of you that decide to continue via e-mail, Instant Message, twitter, or even telephone to help you any way I can. I know many of you have been looking for leadership from us for the last few weeks while we’ve been struggling to make things work with Palm. On behalf of my co-founders, we want to personally thank each and every one of you for your patience and support, and apologize that your long wait has ended in the realization that Palm doesn’t appear to care about much outside of themselves. I still believe “The largest, most active, developer network is going to win, because consumers want applications.” You can decide for yourself whether or not Palm agrees from their actions.
I find it incredibly difficult to remain excited about developing for a platform that doesn’t seem to care about its developers. Say what you will about Apple and Microsoft, but both companies understand the value and necessity of their development community.
Maybe that’s why they’re Apple and Microsoft and Palm is, well, Palm
I have to say that I am not surprised AT ALL. Maybe Samsung will call and reboot the Instinct…
I’m sorry, Whurley. It’s a total bummer that you put so much work into this only to have them not understand that alienating the developer community means less functionality and happy customers.
Well, at least 2 things come of this, one for each of the parties. You get more time. Palm looses time and good will.
While it sounds like this has been difficult for you, trust that you have just freed up some time and can decide where to focus that time; longboarding, or doing the same thing, just for a different platform, or…
Anyway – look forward man. That’s always more fun.
Sigh….
In an effort to control the gift of an enthusiastic community, Palm has aliented theirs. The resulting cost to the company will serve as a lesson of what not to do every bit as salient as the success of Apple’s network of independant developers. With the bookends in place, companies will be able to evaluate their community efforts on a scale versus simply measuring against one extreme. Palm’s utter failure in this venture will serve us all well. Thank you Palm.
My boyfriend recently misplaced his phone in a cab, and was going to wait until the Pre came out before deciding what phone to replace his lost one with, Iphone, or Palm pre. The Iphone is a known entity more or less, and with all the talk of the PreDevCamps and all of the flexibility and cooperation everyone had hoped for he was really excited and hopeful about the Pre! Not so much anymore, it looks like Palm may make the decision super easy, and not in their favor.
Wow, I’m amazed to read of the objection Palm has to the PDC events. While I obviously can’t comment much on Palm’s stance on the PDC events, I can comment on how wonderful Sprint has been in our talks with them so far about a developer event in Kansas City.
In KC we have a group StartupKC (startupkc.com) that hosts free coworking space and hold developer/tech events (such as PDC). When we approached Sprint about being involved in PDC:KC they were ecstatic and immediately invited a few of us out to talk over some ideas for organizing a community around mobile development. They were great hosts and gave us a tour of their campus (nice!). Since then our relationship has turned into Sprint hosting catered development sessions every other Friday at the StartupKC space. They’ve also reached out into our community to hire developers. Needless to say, they’ve gone out of their way to embrace the developer community in Kansas City and we’re embracing them back. I’m really excited about some of the developer-friendly services they’re working on that will hopefully be coming out in the near future.
With open-source and the web standards invading smartphones, we’re at a time when the cell phone carriers and manufacturers can reinvent themselves and get away from their traditional closed “walled-garden” practices. In my mind, the ones who don’t quite get the “open” culture are going to be left behind as they’re replaced by those who do. While I can’t say Apple has botched the App Store (1 billion downloads & counting says a lot), but they’re certainly facing a negative perception issue within the developer community nowadays. Palm is in great position to swoop in and learn from all of Apple’s mistakes. The “open” stack WebOS has is only part of the equation in my mind. It’s worthless as a “feature” if you don’t have the community behind it.
Anyways… we’re definitely going to continue on in KC, and thanks for getting the community together, we all appreciate it.
- Derek
wow. sorry to hear you’re leaving this effort Whurley. I sympathize with your struggle though. Having long served in community groups sometimes things work out. And sometimes they don’t. I’ll be interested to see if predevcamp materializes here in Dallas. If it does, I’ll support it. If not, I’ll support that too.
That settles it, it *is* pronounced “PREY.” The smartphones in the market will make short work of this dumbphone. Ooh, I’m so punny.
Who knows if this will get approved, but here goes.
Quite frankly, this all sounds like crying over spilled milk. The Apple Dev Camps had absolutely no affiliation with Apple, either. The only mistake I can see that Palm made is that apparently they made you think they were interested in the first place. It WAS a mistake for you guys to tweet about a potential meeting if you had previously signed an NDA.
As your site says, there are these Dev Camps in 60 cities worldwide, what exactly did you think that they would do for you? Show up at every single one of these, or what? Pay for/ sponsor them? I mean, seriously, what do you expect?
As for feeling slighted that they announced a release date May 19, when your meeting was May 20, you have no idea what they were going to do then, I’d be willing to bet at the very least you’d have gotten a copy of the SDK.
My understanding was that these were always a grassroots campaign done by people who were excited about the platform. Your whiny blog posts on the subject make it sound like you did it because you wanted to get something out of Palm.
Joe,
For me, it boils down to Palm’s attitude regarding the developer community.
I don’t know about this meeting/twitter controversy, and frankly I don’t care. And the release date? Whatever. What I do care about is the way that Palm just doesn’t seem to care about me and all the other independent developers.
I signed up for the Austin preDevCamp because I wanted to work on an app or two for the pre. I was willing to develop an app for free, for Palm. I’ll say that again: FOR FREE, FOR PALM. And developers all over the world signed up for the same thing.
And what did we get?
A big fat thumb in the eye from Palm.
If Palm has a problem with Whurley or Gio or Dan or WHOEVER, that’s their prerogative. They can choose to meet with whomever they want and tell them whatever they want. But by continuing to ignore the developers that are BEGGING to help, Palm is alienating their largest ally.
I guess I’ll fire up XCode and keep hacking on my iPhone app
.
Thank you Joe. I agree 100%
Mando, sorry, but you’re jumping to conclusions based on half of the coin. Honestly, Apple simply ignored the ipdc and yet there are people here saying how much they respect their developers. I don’t see either one of these companies as fundamentally different when it comes to their products and the people who want to develop for them.
You did not get a “big fat thumb in the eye from Palm.” What you got was a breakdown in communication and from what I’ve seen both sides caused it. Small hint, if you’ve just signed an NDA and got a meeting setup, think twice before tweeting about it to the public world. Unprofessional.
Joe and Taharka,
If you will read Giovanni’s post you will learn that the NDA covered the release date of the Pre, not the simple fact that they were having a meeting with Palm. When they tweeted about the meeting, they didn’t even know the release date, and THAT’S what the NDA covered.
Hope that clears things up for you guys.
Hi Joe,
> Who knows if this will get approved, but here goes.
I always approve all comments and your participation in this discussion is welcome. However, I do need to clear up a few items mentioned in your comments.
> Quite frankly, this all sounds like crying over spilled milk. The Apple Dev Camps
> had absolutely no affiliation with Apple, either. The only mistake I can see that
> Palm made is that apparently they made you think they were interested in the first
> place. It WAS a mistake for you guys to tweet about a potential meeting if you had
> previously signed an NDA.
Disclaimer: I Co-founded iPhoneDevCamp.
Hmmm, my blog doesn’t mention Milk, Apple, or NDAs. Could you please re-read it? I think this comment must be intended for either @Giovanni or @dancrumbs post. Please comment on their post on their websites.
> As your site says, there are these Dev Camps in 60 cities worldwide, what exactly
> did you think that they would do for you? Show up at every single one of these, or
> what? Pay for/ sponsor them? I mean, seriously, what do you expect?
My personal expectation of Palm? That can be summed up in a single word:
gen·u·ine
1 a: actually having the reputed or apparent qualities or character [genuine vintage wines] b: actually produced by or proceeding from the alleged source or author [the signature is genuine] c: sincerely and honestly felt or experienced [a deep and genuine love] d: actual, true [a genuine improvement]
2: free from hypocrisy or pretense : sincere
As I stated above I can completely understand the constraints they are facing. I even understand that the best option for them may have just been to sit on the sidelines and not participate at all. All I wanted was for them to be open and transparent in their dealings with the community. That’s really not that much to ask.
As far as sponsorship goes, we never needed anything from Palm. In fact, we still don’t. I personally think this was one of the issues as it left Palm with little to offer that could be used as leverage. Now that’s not a slam against them, big companies often need the “we did so you should” aspect to participate in a project like this.
> As for feeling slighted that they announced a release date May 19, when your
> meeting was May 20, you have no idea what they were going to do then, I’d be
> willing to bet at the very least you’d have gotten a copy of the SDK.
Sorry Joe, again I don’t see anywhere in my post where I mention the release date, or an SDK. You must be meaning to comment on one of the other founders blogs here:
@Giovanni “Palm doesn’t get it”
@Dan “preDevCamp – Palm’s missed opportunity”
Again in the interest of full disclosure Yes I do have the SDK, and No the SDK had nothing to do with any NDA whatsoever. I received the “Welcome to the Palm Mojo SDK early access program!” email Friday, Apr 17, 2009 at 4:42 PM. I received a copy of Palm’s NDA on Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 2:40 PM. The two are completely unrelated.
> My understanding was that these were always a grassroots campaign done by
> people who were excited about the platform. Your whiny blog posts on the subject
> make it sound like you did it because you wanted to get something out of Palm.
You are correct in that this is a grass roots campaign, and continues to be strong. As far as “whiny blog posts” are concerned I read Gio’s and completely agree
Seriously, I don’t think my post qualifies as whiny. I am simply exiting gracefully. You have made several points in your comments that aren’t even based on my post, but rather on your opinion of a collective of posts of which I am only 1/3 of the equation. You’re certainly entitled to your opinion, and I respect it, but perhaps this comment would have been more relevant if posted to the preDevCamp announcement today:
http://predevcamp.org/2009/05/21/predevcamp-date-announcement/
As far as your comment about me personally wanting to “get something out of Palm”, it’s offensive at best. Perhaps you should have read my bio to learn a little more about me before you threw that one out. In all, that’s really the only part of your comment I take issue with. The rest of it is very relevant to the overall discussion; but not this post.
I strongly encourage you to post your comment, unedited, on the preDevCamp website and on post by @Giovanni and @dancrumb as appropriate. Thanks again for sharing your opinions. I just want to make sure that they are addressing the right audience, and not just creating a flame war here.
Whurley, I’ll start my reply just about the same way I started off my reply to Gio’s post…I’m so sorry that you’ve had to go through all this trouble to wrangle information for us from Palm. PreDevCamp wouldn’t be where it is today without your leadership. I can see where your conflict is, and respect your decision to share your honest opinion.
However, I’ve been talking with Pam (VP of Developer Marketing) all night, and she has been very willing to help. We still have to play by their rules and deal with some uncertainties before the phone is launched, but they’re 100% committed to this community and will do right by us if we give them time.
I think part of Palm’s attitude comes from the fact that the community team is so eager to work with us but CAN’T until things are 100% finalized. The best course of action in this case is not to scold them for what they can’t do for us, but work together and adjust expectations accordingly.
I just want to reinforce with the community that even though whurley and Giovanni are leaving, communication has NOT broken down between preDevCamp and Palm. I personally have every reason to believe they’re 100% committed to helping preDevCamp achieve the success it deserves.
For a consumer, there is a level of commitment involved when choosing a platform and hardware one will interact with on a daily basis. A relationship is formed between the consumer, manufacturer, and involved service providers.
Palm == FAIL by not entering into an open healthy relationship with a ready and willing developer community who are essentially, involved service providers. This does not bode well for how they would potential manage their other realtionships including that with the end consumer.
I _was_ excited about the Palm Pre and now am decidedly not. At least with Apple, you know what you’re getting. Their relationships are pretty clearly defined; take it or leave it. Given Palm’s inconsistency and capriciousness with such a large developer community, I have no desire to relate with them as a developer, consumer, or otherwise.
Too bad.. too bad..
I appreciate your honesty and condor. The Palm community could have been something awesome… and maybe someday still will be. As an iPhone user, I welcome the competition. No doubt the announcement of the Pre is most of the reason iPhone OS 3.0 will come out as quickly as it will and with so many new exceptional features. I hope Apple’s developer community stays vigilant as well.
Racquel, try to understand Palm’s situation. They are trying the manage an overly important product launch and keeping some things secret at the same time. Once that veil of secrecy is lifted, which will probably happen during the next two weeks, Palm will 100% support preDevCamp efforts, as Lisa explained.
I know how much work you, Dan and Giovanni put in to making preDevCamp happen, it is really unfortunate things turned out like this. I’m waiting to see what you, as an evil genius, come up with to do with the momentum you’ve created. In the end your evil usually results in lots of good.
Taharka,
I should have been more clear: I don’t really care about what happened with the meeting and the NDA and all that. Here’s what I do care about: SDK access.
Here I am, willing to spend my limited free time to develop an app or two (or maybe more) for the pre – but Palm doesn’t care. The SDK hasn’t been made available, and my HOPE was that someone at Palm would see the value in providing software development tools to the HUGE community that is preDevCamp.
But no: for whatever reason, they seem to believe that hundreds of developers world-wide that are chomping at the bit to develop for the pre just aren’t important.
@whurley,
Maybe I am the only one but I feel a little lost. You seem to think that by the communications breaking down, Palm believes we are unworthy.
Don’t get my wrong, what you guys have done with PDC is remarkable. I applaud you for your efforts.
However somewhere things broke down between you and Palm. Is there something we are missing, that none of your (plural) blogs or the PDC post covers?
If it really is as laid out then I would say Palm is far from denying the community. True it may have flubbed this situation, however if nothing else it shows they want to interact (or at least some of them.) I think the fact that they even made a position of community relations must at least give them some forgiveness.
Could they have done more? Sure. Have they disrespected you three? Possibly, but from what I have seen not on a pre level, but on a personal level.
I think we have to wait to see what happens once the reins are loosened (and how quickly if Apple is anything to compare to.) This was a rough patch, but as one of you said this was meant to stand on its own anyways. I don’t think one bad interaction can be used to spoil a community.
Now like I said if it was more to it, dissregard my ramblings and I will stand beside you to defect to other platforms.
you guys have some sympathizers within Palm (esp. the developers). Be a little patient, it’s been a while since we’ve had a product to introduce to a new developer community. Lisa B. is on the right track … good luck
[...] today, some news broke about a big disconnect between the organizers of the Palm PreDevCamp and [...]
Just saw this on the Palm Developer Network Blog this morning… actually, I had no idea preDevCamp existed until Pam Deziel’s “optimistic,” “Palm supports preDevCamp 100%” post…
http://pdnblog.p…a-predevcamp-update/
Ever considered just not violating an NDA?
It’s not that developers are not important — it’s that they’ve proven themselves to be untrustworthy with the violation of NDA.
Hi Q,
Just re-read my own blog to make sure. Funny thing, I’m like 98% sure it doesn’t mention ‘NDA’ anywhere in it. Could you please re-read it and double check for me?
In all seriousness, I think your comment must be intended for either @Giovanni or @dancrumb’s post; both of which discuss the NDA. Please comment about the NDA on their websites where it is a point of contention, cause it’s not here.
@anne “you guys have some sympathizers within Palm…”
That just sounds WAY too political. Palm has shown disdain for developers before. It’s almost like the people at PALM think no one can write good software except companies that get in bed with them (think: logos on background at webOS announcement). Hell, the Jews had sympathizers in Germany…
[...] was pointed to this link that @whurley(who is a kick-ass community leader in texas) posted about his experiences with palm. [...]
[...] our challenges with Palm, whurley and gio have opted to move on to other things. We wouldn’t be where we are without them and [...]
[...] your new organizing team To fill in for whurley’s and Giovanni’s unfortunate departures, Greg Stevenson and myself will be stepping in to help co-ordinate the various [...]
[...] dissed the developer community: “I won’t rehash it in detail here, but ultimately we didn’t believe we had the backing from Palm we would need to ensure success…Palm’s developer network has been largely [...]
[...] uma série de eventos que têm sido extensamente discutidos. Não vou entrar em detalhes aqui, mas não cremos que tenhamos o apoio da Palm que precisaríamos para garantir o sucesso”, conta [...]
The sad part is that I bet the decision came from a very few closed-minded old school individuals at palm. Too bad for them and the mobile company that once was but it is no more… I gave up on palm time ago due to the stupid management decisions – it’s all in my blog.
Ceo
its sucks but its lovely, is bad but its misunderstood, its here but its not…. Well, baby. All you gotta do is listen… and talking don’t work so good.
Its just tech toys and nothing that needs this many words. (referring to my words in this post)
Like everything I’ve ever been involved with… best of times, worst of times… it sucks or its great but it is what it is. Enjoy it or don’t, you only get to do it once.
Be on the team or don’t. Buy it or don’t. Buy in or not. You choose. I choose. But lets just do it instead of talking bout it.
[...] to brand relevancy. If communities are built around companies that don’t get it, community leaders will walk away and the brand runs the risk of fading into the [...]
After all this blow up and locking of horns. Palm has stepped up and really came out for the community in the San Francisco Bay Area. After trying unsuccessfully for 2 weeks to find a location, Palm stepped in and offered their own campus to hold the biggest preDevCamp in the world. Many Palmn engineers are attending as well as tons of other interested parties inside and outside of Palm. Please don’t throw the baby out with the bath water for Palm making one stupid mistake when they were nervous about Apple and everyone else finding out their dates. Now the pre is out Palm is starting to really show the love for the grassroots community springing up to develop apps for them. Examples – Early release of the SDK just over a month after the phone was released. The freedom it has given the homebrew community – It patched the phone with the 1.1 patch and it could have totally locked it down, but it didn’t. Palm is starting to get it, keep in mind most of Palms people are ex-apple or ex-adobe so secrets are a big deal, cut them some slack, they are learning to open up.
Luke Kilpatrick
Organizer of preDevCamp San Francisco
http://sanfrancisco.predevcamp.org/
[...] that has been discussed at length elsewhere. I won’t rehash it in detail here, but ultimately we didn’t believe we had the backing from Palm we would need to ensure [...]