# Ep. 5 - Community Communication

- Show: [Open Hardware Manufacturing Podcast](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/open-hardware-manufacturing-podcast)
- Published: 2023-09-28
- Length: 1h 16m
- Page: https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/open-hardware-manufacturing-podcast/2023-09-28-ep-5-community-communication
- Listen: http://opulo.io

## Summary

Stephen Oz and Lucian Shaper of Opulo discuss the complexities of managing community communication for their open source hardware project, the Lumen pick-and-place machine. They detail their decision to use Discord for real-time interaction, MKDocs for official documentation, and GitHub for issue tracking and design reviews, while noting the failure of their wiki. The hosts analyze the trade-offs between forums and chat apps, emphasizing the need to lower barriers for community contributions via 'edit' buttons and PRs while maintaining a single source of truth for mainline users.

## Chapters

- [0:00](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/open-hardware-manufacturing-podcast/2023-09-28-ep-5-community-communication#t=0) Introduction: The challenge of community information management
- [3:21](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/open-hardware-manufacturing-podcast/2023-09-28-ep-5-community-communication#t=201) Forums vs. Chat: Searchability and the risk of misleading info
- [10:09](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/open-hardware-manufacturing-podcast/2023-09-28-ep-5-community-communication#t=609) The Voron example: Community moving faster than documentation
- [13:11](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/open-hardware-manufacturing-podcast/2023-09-28-ep-5-community-communication#t=791) Opulo's communication stack: Discord, Docs, and GitHub
- [22:01](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/open-hardware-manufacturing-podcast/2023-09-28-ep-5-community-communication#t=1321) Video documentation pitfalls and the value of editable text
- [27:01](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/open-hardware-manufacturing-podcast/2023-09-28-ep-5-community-communication#t=1621) Why the Wiki failed and the value of low-barrier contributions
- [35:20](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/open-hardware-manufacturing-podcast/2023-09-28-ep-5-community-communication#t=2120) Company vs. Community: Managing mods and mainline docs
- [43:31](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/open-hardware-manufacturing-podcast/2023-09-28-ep-5-community-communication#t=2611) The case for forums: Serving 'lurkers' and asynchronous updates
- [51:07](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/open-hardware-manufacturing-podcast/2023-09-28-ep-5-community-communication#t=3067) Why Opulo chose Discord and MKDocs for their specific audience
- [1:08:21](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/open-hardware-manufacturing-podcast/2023-09-28-ep-5-community-communication#t=4101) Documenting design decisions to prevent reinventing the wheel

## Topics

- [Connected products & IoT](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/connected-products-and-iot)
- [Marketing & brand](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/marketing-and-brand)
- [Design for manufacturing & NPI](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/topic/design-for-manufacturing)

## Most relevant to

early-stage companies

## Mentioned

- Opulo (company)
- Lumen (product)
- Voron (product)
- Formlabs (company)
- V1 Engineering (company)
- CNC Labs (company)
- MKDocs (tool)
- Discord (tool)
- GitHub (tool)

## Related episodes from other shows

- [A Happy Day For Rust](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/oxide-and-friends/2025-03-15-a-happy-day-for-rust) (Oxide and Friends)
- [Don't Turn It On, Don't Take It Apart](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2016-05-13-dont-turn-it-on-dont-take-it-apart) (The Amp Hour)
- [225: Communication Silos for Product Design Stakeholders](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/product-startup/2024-05-09-225-communication-silos-for-product-design-stakeholders) (Product Startup)
- [470: Upping the Chaos Level](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/embedded-fm/2024-02-09-470-upping-the-chaos-level) (Embedded.fm)
- [#440.1 - An Interview with the core KiCad development team](https://hardwarepodcasts.com/podcast/the-amp-hour/2019-04-29-440-1-an-interview-with-the-core-kicad-development-team) (The Amp Hour)

## Citing this page

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