Make no mistake. Tasha Drew is moving tech forward in open source.
She is the Senior Director of xLabs, an innovation acceleration lab in the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO), co-chair for Kubernetes’ Working Group for Multi-tenancy, and the co-chair for Kubernetes’ Special Interest Group (SIG) Usability.
In these capacities, she’s become the type of influencer people in the community gravitate toward on such subjects as measuring the open source contributor journey, marketing advice for maintainers, promoting the benefits of contributing upstream, and overcoming obstacles in advanced education and tech per her own personal journey.
We at the Open Source Blog wanted to share with you five recent publications featuring Tasha’s pioneering work in the community.
1. GitHub’s ReadMe Project published her proposal for strategically growing open source project maintainership, which entails treating the “funnel to contributor” on par with the “funnel to customer” user journey. Charming Pirates: Reframing User Acquisition and Referral for OSS cites the AARRR framework applied in software startups — Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral and Revenue — devised by venture capitalist Dave McClure, to understand and measure the contributor journey and make a significantly larger return on investment in open source technology.
2. The ReadMe Project also recently featured Tasha and two other experts in answering readers’ questions about how to promote an open source project to both users and contributors in Marketing for Maintainers: Promote Your Project to Users and Contributors. In this Q&A, she offers tips and tricks to getting the word out about your recent contribution to a project and/or soliciting others to contribute with a shortlist of questions to ask yourself to best determine your approach.
3. In Upstream: Jump on In, the Water’s Fine!, Tasha explains to us how she works with a team who is problem-solving in the space of an open source project, like Kubernetes. For instance, she always encourages her colleagues to think about how they can contribute and collaborate upstream, so that they can move the state of the technology forward in a shareable, collegial way. You can learn more about what she had to say about it in this video.
4. Want to learn about Tasha’s remarkable upbringing in tech, the obstacles she’s overcome, and how you can find mentors and support in your own open source journey? Then this exclusive interview between Tasha and the Open Source Blog Editorial Team is for you!
5. Tasha co-authored xLabs: Co-innovating across Products, Partners, and Customers for the Office of the CTO Blog, which defines xLab’s objectives and its focus areas, and provides a “tech preview” for all the projects xLabs launched at VMworld 2021. You can also learn more about xLabs and its current projects at VMware Explore 2022.
Speaking of Explore, Are You Registered Yet?
Head over to the Explore content catalog to register for the two breakout sessions featuring Tasha and her fellow SMEs:
Edge Computing: What’s Next? [VIB1457USD] is a deep dive into several edge computing-focused research and innovation projects at the VMware Office of the CTO and xLabs, including their Kubernetes-native hypervisor specifically designed for edge deployments at scale.
VMware xLabs: Accelerating Innovation with Our Customers and Partners [VIB1541US] will reveal xLab’s new and intriguing projects and technologies. You don’t want to miss these announcements!
You can also follow Tasha on Twitter, LinkedIn, and GitHub as she blazes a trail in the open source community.
Stay tuned to the Open Source Blog and follow us on Twitter for more deep dives into the world of open source contributing.
