Opsitive community update August 2022
Hello DevOps people!
It’s time for an update to what’s going on at Opsitive.
I’m happy to report that I’ve had a bit of a breakthrough. When I started working on Opsitive, I had a goal, but no strategy. All I knew was that I wanted to teach again. I remember pulling out the old Business Model Canvas at some point, and had I followed through with filling it out, it might not have taken me so long to find my strategy. Anyway, it’s taking shape now.
A new direction for the Opsitive community
Some of you already know that I’m a nostalgic nerd. I wear “HAL9000” t-shirts, I run Unix v7 on a PiDP-11, and I wish I had the space for a Commodore PET or Amiga 1200. Another vintage computing topic I’ve been reminiscing about lately is the BBS systems of old. I was a sysop myself in the early nineties. This gave me the idea to launch a BBS again under the Opsitive flag. I doubt it would have been sustainable, but I had an important realization: My BBS nostalgia is less about the tech and more about the first time I made friends online. And there’s no reason a web-based BBS couldn’t have the same effect! That’s why the Opsitive community forum is now the “Opsitive BBS“.
Since every BBS has its own individual character, I’m going to extend its topics beyond DevOps to everything that tickles my fancy. And I’m open to your suggestions, too!
This change in purpose will apply to the Discord server as well, of course. I’ve even enabled full notifications for myself, just in case you want to “chat with the sysop”.
Opsitive now has a blog
Another light bulb that went off for me was that I also have endless freedom in how I use the Opsitive newsletter. That’s why I wrote my recent broadcast about the Morgen calendar scheduling app even though it isn’t really related to DevOps.
I was happy to see that it was well received. Some of you even asked if there was any web page they could link to. Unfortunately, Podia, the course platform Opsitive runs on, doesn’t offer a newsletter archive yet. That’s why I spent the last two weeks building a separate Opsitive website and blog. From now on, I’ll write my posts on the blog first, and then simply notify you via the newsletter.
Later this week, I’m going to launch the new Opsitive website under the www.opsitive.com domain. The course and community platform will move to its own subdomain.
Community meetup
Even though I’m a huge believer in asynchronous communication, sometimes it’s good to have contact in real time, face-to-face. My company, for example, used to have (before travelling became a personal and business risk) regular team meetings in changing European cities. And because I’m eager to get to know you better, I’m going to invite all Opsitive members to a monthly video call. It’s going to be just a friendly chat hour without any pre-planned topics, for starters. We’ll see what emerges from it over time. I’ll post details about the when and where on the Opsitive BBS. So register your account if you haven’t yet!
That’s it for this community update. It’s a pretty long one, and I’m excited to see where my new strategy is going to take us!
Lastly, let me tell you that I am very grateful for all your contributions and support. Thank you!
Take care, Jochen
