OSMI Blog

26 Pictures That Show What OCD Really 'Looks' Like

February 2nd, 2017

Reminder: Open Sourcing Mental Health is now a charity option on AmazonSmile

February 1st, 2017

Glad the holidays are over? So are we. Tryptophan-induced food coma isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and Black Friday Deals are overhyped and overrated. Just don’t forget that you can still support OSMI anytime by shopping on Amazon through the AmazonSmile program. Set us as your charity once, and then all you have to do is remember to shop through smile.amazon.com rather than just amazon.com. It’s easy!

Amazon Smile is a program where Amazon donates a small % of every sale to a non-profit of your choice. There is no extra cost to you! Just remember to shop Amazon from our Amazon Smile Link:

Shop Amazon for OSMI now!

Having trouble quitting smoking? You're not alone, and mental health has a lot to do with it.

January 31st, 2017

Last week, our friends at Mental Health America participated in a fantastic Twitter chat with folks from the American Psychological Association's Public Interest DirectorateSmokefreeUs, and the Veterans Health Administration, US Department of Veterans Affairs. The theme was helping people quit smoking for a happier, healthier new year, and several of the questions focused specifically on how mental health plays a role in smoking habits and cessation. The graphic above provided by Mental Health America is particularly illuminating.

Check out the rest of the conversation on Twitter:

In San Francisco? Join OSMI board member Jen Akullian at An Evening of Conversation about Mental Health in Tech tomorrow

January 30th, 2017

Tomorrow, January 31st, 2017, at 6pm PST, OSMI board member Dr. Jennifer Akullian, Psychologist and People Developer at Keen IO, will be joined by Julia Nguyen, Founder of if me and Software Engineer at IndieGogoJohn Cutler, Senior Product Manager at ZenDesk, and Erin Frey, cofounder and CEO of Kip, for an evening of short talks, Q&A and open discussion, and mingling. The focus will be on the following topics:

  • Mental health tools and tactics for founders and startup employees. How to support yourself, your colleagues, and your community
  • Early warning signs and preventative measures
  • Mental health programs and initiatives for your employees

The event is free and open to the public. It will take place at the Keen IO office located at 1458 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA 94103.

More information is available on EventBrite.

Check Yourself: Common Mental Health Mistakes

January 28th, 2017

Next week, OSMI members are descending on SunshinePHP en masse

January 27th, 2017

Board member Gary Hockin is giving the Day 2 Lunch Keynote, titled Using Open Source for Fun and Profit (Saturday @ 1:30pm in the Grand Ballroom)

Founder Ed Finkler is giving his talk Graph Databases Will Change Your Freakin Life (Friday @ 5:15pm in the Grand Ballroom)

Board member Joe Ferguson is holding a workshop on Tutorial Day called Create Your Own Local Development Environments With Vagrant (Thursday @ 9am in Key Biscayne #1)
He is also doing a regular session on DevOps For Small Teams (Friday @ 4pm in the Grand Ballroom)

Volunteer Amanda Folson is giving a talk titled Not-On-Calliday: On-Call Best Practices (Friday @ 5:15pm in the Key West Ballroom)

Volunteer Matt Trask is giving a talk called Console Applications: Automate your life away (Saturday @ 11:30am in the Key West Ballroom)

Many of the other speakers are longtime supporters as well. If you're attending SunshinePHP, be sure to meet up with us during the hallway track to talk all things OSMI.

OSMI founder Ed Finkler spoke about mental health at Google Chicago

January 26th, 2017

Speaking in the Talks at Google series today

A photo posted by Ed Finkler (@funka7ron) on

OSMI founder Ed Finkler was at Google's Chicago office yesterday afternoon to talk about mental health in the developer community and OSMI as part of the Talks at Google program. Stay tuned for the video.

Tweet using #BellLetsTalk today to help mental health initiatives

January 25th, 2017

We are not affiliated with Bell, but OSMI is encouraging all of its followers to join the conversation on Twitter. More funding for mental health initiatives benefits all of us.

There's also a live Q&A with Clara Hughes and Marie-Soleil Dion at 2:30pm EST. If you have questions or thoughts about mental health or how to help de-stigmatize mental illness, join in!