Hello! In this space I post mostly about my work projects and related issues. Previously, I used to blog at Sun on blogs.sun.com, but all of that fun ended abruptly after the Oracle acquisition in 2010. I wrote thousands of posts for Sun during those years, and thankfully that content still lives in the Internet Archive. I really loved that blog. It’s a shame how it ended. But you have to keep going, right? Anyway, everything below sums up what I do these days.
Brief Background
I’ve managed projects in software, biotech, publishing, and construction. I’ve navigated multiple economic and political systems, sparred with some hostile unions, survived a few near-death experiences, and overcame serious medical limitations. I’m lucky to be alive and thankful to be walking.
I ran my own excavating and real estate development business, and I was also a mechanic and a truck driver. After everything crashed I picked up the pieces, went back to school, and eventually became a publicist, an editor, and a writer. I’ve worked with the global news media and local, state, and federal government officials; I’ve interviewed hundreds of engineers, scientists, and clinicians; and I’ve produced thousands of articles, photos, videos, and podcasts. In recent years I’ve been building FOSS communities at Sun and Oracle, managing developer events globally, and delivering my own community sessions at conferences.
Bio
Jim works at Oracle on the Java Developer Relations Team in the Java Platform Group, which is the engineering organization building Java. He hosts the Duke’s Corner Podcast, publishes the Inside Java Newsletter, produces video and photography, delivers community sessions at events, and contributes to the team’s community development programs.
In recent years while in Oracle developer marketing, Jim managed the Oracle Developers YouTube channel and multiple social media platforms. He also hosted the Oracle Groundbreakers Podcast, produced videos and live streams, delivered presentations, managed events, and published the Database and Java newsletters.
Before Oracle developer marketing, Jim worked in Solaris engineering managing FOSS projects delivering into the operating system. He was also the OpenSolaris Community Manager at Sun Microsystems from the project’s inception until the acquisition by Oracle. He directed Solaris engineering projects with corporate partners, managed Linux and OpenSolaris user groups, presented at universities and conferences, briefed press and analysts, and ran developer events. Earlier at Sun, Jim managed competitive marketing campaigns for all of Sun’s Open Source and Open Standards projects. He also wrote keynote speeches and managed communications for Sun’s CMO and other executives.
Jim’s academic background is in science and technical writing, publications production, health care policy, and history. He’s edited software and veterinary newsletters; written hundreds of magazine articles and press releases; and collaborated with engineers, scientists, physicians, and veterinarians in academia and in biotechnology. He’s also worked with the global news media and government officials at the state and federal levels, including The White House, while running hardware, software, and biomedical publicity programs for multiple companies and universities.
Jim’s foundational experience in managing complex projects came from working in the real estate development business. He sold residential homes and raw land; hired and managed construction crews; acquired the legal and financial approvals necessary for building; and worked closely with political, municipal, regulatory, and banking officials to finalize closings. He also ran his own excavating and trucking company — he purchased equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars; worked on hundreds of commercial and residential sites; and negotiated operations with customers, vendors, government officials, and multiple national and contentious unions.
Jim knows well what it’s like for everything to crash completely and require rebuilding from scratch. That’s why he has a varied background. He never gives up. He keeps building.
You can find Jim via your favorite search engine or on Twitter @jimgris or at these links here.
Developer Relations
The bits below outline some of the public-facing programs I’ve been managing while in two organizations at Oracle since 2017:
- Java Developer Relations: January 2022 to present
- Corporate Developer Relations: May 2017 to December 2021
Summary of what I’ve been doing since 2017:
- Streaming and recording video interviews and sessions with Oracle engineers and community developers.
- Recording audio podcasts with Oracle engineers and community developers.
- Writing articles to support and promote podcasts.
- Taking conference photographs of Oracle engineers and community developers.
- Hiring and directing photography vendors at conferences.
- Delivering community development sessions and keynotes at events and developer tours.
- Planning and managing general conference logistics for events and developer tours.
- Serving as scrum master to lead engineering hackfests with Oracle and customer developers.
- Managing conference keynote live streams backstage with video vendors.
- Participating in un-conferences and helping plan and facilitate the events.
- Planning, documenting, and participating in multi city international developer tours.
- Managing multiple communication channels: social media, newsletters, websites, podcasts, videos.
- Providing program management support for the Java Champions and Java User Group programs.
I do whatever is necessary to push the project forward, contribute to my team’s efforts, and build the Oracle developer community.
Podcasts, Videos, Newsletters
Duke’s Corner Java Podcast
- Podcast Audio | Podcast Video | Dev.java | Substack | Twitter |
- Duke’s Corner is name as of 2022. The podcast was previously called Oracle Groundbreakers and also Oracle Techcast and the 360+ episodes go back to 2011. I took over the platform in 2020. Also note that for inexplicable reasons the Duke’s Corner videos are “unlisted” on the Java YouTube channel so they are effectively hidden. I’m re-publishing the archive over time on Substack and Twitter.
Oracle Developers Interviews (Archive)
Podcast Articles
Articles supporting the Oracle Groundbreakers Podcast:
- Oracle Code Innovate: Passionate participation keeps developers connected to new virtual format December 2021
- Little towns, big ideas: How scale models can imagine smarter and safer cities October 2021
- Explore Oracle Labs Australia September 2021
- Heating up with MySQL August 2021
- Talking to makers: How to engage people who build with their hands July 2021
- Building with a Purpose: A hackathon that helps people in need June 2021
- Oracle’s Sandesh Rao on building AI tools for Oracle Autonomous Database April 2021
- Developer tips for Oracle Database March 2021
- Project Helidon: Java, microservices, and building the open source community February 2021
- Managing massive change and thriving in the chaos of 2020 November 2020
- At Oracle, open source development projects continue to grow September 2020
Newsletters
- Inside Java: I publish this newsletter for 400,000 subscribers.
- Database Application Developer: I published this newsletter for two years for 550,000 subscribers.
Presentations
Sessions on building and contributing to FOSS communities:
- August 2024: COSCUP in Taipei, Taiwan
- June 2024: Japan Java User Group Cross Community Conference in Tokyo
- April 2024: FOSSASIA Summit 2024 in Hanoi, Vietnam
- February 2024: Tokyo Linux User Group
- November 2023: Japan Java User Group Cross Community Conference in Tokyo
- July 2023: OCYatra 6 City India Tour
- July 2022: OCYatra 6 City India Tour
- August 2020: International Developer Career Day
- July 2020: OGYatra Online Multi City Tour of India
- July 2019: OGYatra 6 City Tour of India (Videos, Photos)
- May 2018: Oracle Code Shenzhen Keynote and Interviews
- 2005-present: Building Software Communities
- 2005-2010: OpenSolaris Project
Solaris Project Management
This was the period from 2011-2016 after Oracle canceled the OpenSolaris project right after the acquisition of Sun Microsystems. During the reorgs I was moved from doing external OpenSolaris community development to instead focusing internally as a program manager in Solaris engineering on the following projects:
- Solaris Userland FOSS Consolidation
- Solaris Core Quality Engineering
- Solaris Unix Commands Project
- Solaris OpenStack Project
- Solaris V8 Project
- Solaris POSIX Standards Project
- Solaris Core Innovations Workshop
I learned a great deal about engineering project management and product development during this period. But all of that ended abruptly right at the end of 2016. Then in the spring of 2017 I moved into corporate marketing to work on global developer programs, which is outlined earlier on this page.
Community Photography
Here are thousands of photos from events involving Java, Linux, OpenSolaris, and other FOSS communities from 2004 to now:
Aizu University Japan, Barcamp Tokyo, Barcamp Yokohama, Beers for Books, Community Leadership Summit, Cross Cultural Engineering, Developers Lounge Tokyo, Devnexus, GraalVM Tokyo, Jfokus, Java Japan Cross Community Conference, JOnsen Japan, JavaOne San Francisco, JavaOne Tokyo, Mozilla Japan, OpenSolaris User Group Japan, O’Reilly Make Tokyo, O’Reilly Mac OS 10, O’Reilly OSCON, Oracle Code Innovate US/India, MySQL Tokyo, MySQL Engineering Summit, OCYatra India, PostgreSQL Tokyo, Ruby Kaigi, Sangam India, Solaris Night Seminars, Tokyo 2.0, Tokyo CGM Night with Danny Choo, Tokyo Hackerspace, Tokyo Linux User Group, Tokyo Open Source Conference, Tokyo New Context Conference with Joi Ito, Tokyo Tech Days, UnVoxxed Hawaii. And probably some more …
Here is a selection of image profiles from blogs on this site.
Freesouls by Joi Ito
Featured in FREESOULS Captured & Released by Joi Ito highlighting developers and tech leaders embracing and building open communities.