From Zulu to Python – celebrating the global language of open source ??

Hello world! Or should we say Sawubona Mhlaba? ??

Today is International Mother Language Day, and here at Canonical , boy is it a doozy. Over 1,200 people from more than 80 countries – that’s a lot of mother tongues. Being such a global, distributed organization is a large part of what makes Canonical special, so we’re excited to take this opportunity to celebrate our diversity and share some of the lessons we’ve learned in the last 21 years of ignoring national borders.

This tower is built on open source ??

How did we arrive at such a uniquely distributed culture? Regular readers will be stunned to learn that it all comes back to open source software. Open source projects welcome contributors from all over the world; it’s all about sharing knowledge, expertise, and effort to drive collective innovation.?

In fact, more important than what language you speak is what languages you can code. Open source projects often see developers working on and with a variety of different programming languages. Hiring experts that bring knowledge of these different programming languages helps us discover different ways of doing things, new ways of working, and new ideas.?

Just like open source is distributed and highly diverse, we wanted to build a company that’s distributed and highly diverse. We wanted to bring together the brightest minds in tech, regardless of country of origin. Our philosophy is that the bigger the talent pool, the better the talent – and our talent pool is the entire world.

But naturally, operating such an internationalist team has its share of challenges, both logistical and interpersonal. Let’s get into how we keep our Tower of Babel from falling down.

1. Respect is universal ??

When you work with so many people who have different first languages and different backgrounds, it’s easy for things to get lost in translation. There are some obvious ways around this: avoid colloquialisms, put away your thesaurus and stick to simple wording, and avoid falling into traps with stereotypes.

These steps can help ensure that everyone can understand one another, but what matters even more is ensuring that we are all reliable to one another. To work effectively across timezones and geographies, and almost entirely virtually, the key is being able to trust that your colleagues will fulfill their commitments.?

That shared sense of accountability almost becomes its own universal language. Even though we’re all shaped by different cultures and experiences, we all understand the importance of giving our best effort and thereby enabling our colleagues to do the same.

2. Rules of engagement ??

You can think of reliability as one of our rules of engagement, a guideline for interaction that we can all adhere to. The same principle also applies to our mission statement and values – and even the Ubuntu Code of Conduct.

When you have a shared purpose, it doesn’t matter what your background is. Everyone can contribute to that purpose. And when you have a shared set of values, everyone can strive towards the same standards. When the whole organization or open source project community is navigating by the same north star and behavioral compass, it becomes easy for everybody to move in the same direction.

3. Learn to sprint before you sit ??

Besides having clear values which we nurture in our day to day work, at Canonical we have learned that building relationships is critical to foster collaboration both within our organization and with the open source communities that shape us. There are many things that you can do from the comfort of your home office desk chair, but building strong relationships isn’t always one of them. In the end, there’s almost no substitute for spending time together face-to-face. That’s why we create opportunities to do that!

Canonical’s answer to this at the organizational level is regular in-person sprints. Several times each year, we come together in global events hosted in different locations around the world. We just got back from our latest sprint in Cape Town ????, and in just the last year we gathered in Vancouver ????, Madrid ????, and The Hague ????.

Sprints are our chance to interact in a deeper way than video calls typically permit. We can spitball over a physical whiteboard, have meals together, and explore new cities. And of course, collaborate, share knowledge, and innovate in true open source fashion. In our experience, these small, intense doses of in-person contact are the secret ingredient that makes a globally distributed, and otherwise remote organization function.

Likewise, Ubuntu Summit – which we wrote about a few months ago – gives us an invaluable opportunity to meet and collaborate with the wider open source community in-person each year.?

The last edition of the summit welcomed participants from across the world, who shared learnings and presentations on projects ranging from gaming on Linux to open design to companies like Framework, which are reshaping consumer electronics.?

4. Share the knowledge ??

Sharing knowledge is at the heart of open source – the entire concept is rooted in openly sharing source code and enabling people to contribute their ideas and expertise to projects. At Canonical, we strive to emulate this philosophy by giving back to the open source community and contributing to other projects. For example, our web engineering team spends one week every year dedicated to contributing to external open source projects.

Internally, we strive to follow the same principle. Team members regularly share knowledge through training and workshops, and lightning talks are a highlight of every sprint, giving speakers from across the company a chance to present on anything from their latest coding challenges to their favourite hobbies. Why bring this up in an article on being a globally diverse organization? Because building a distributed team is only the first step; the second is giving diversity a chance to shine by providing platforms for people to share their unique expertise and perspectives, and thereby enabling everyone to grow.

Canonical’s mother tongue ??

So that’s our take: global diversity is the strength of open source, and it’s the strength of Canonical. Being truly distributed isn’t always easy, but it’s well worth the effort.?

To sign off, we’d like to reflect back on our advice about rules of engagement. Although we all have different backgrounds, the common tongue we all speak at Canonical is the language of amplifying open source.

This edition is contributed by Freyja Cooper, a Content Specialist at Canonical.

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