Kickstarting CampusAmb

Sat Mar 27 13:08:02 UTC 2010

Hi All,
I've already given my intro but still you may visit my fedora wiki
userpage for more info User:Suchakra. I'm in India btw.
==
Ya, so coming to the point, I agree with Ryan on almost all points
stated by him especially the one that local LUGs are dominated by
Ubuntu users. Even in my campus, we have just had a local Ubuntu
mirror up and working, but people have 2 take fedora discs and ISOs
from me physically. The reason is simple - No proper introduction to
the other distributions of linux to budding linux users. It makes one
believe that Ubuntu is Linux and Linux is Ubuntu. Also in order to
increase the fedora footprint, and encouraging technically sound guys
(we have lots of them in our college) to contribute to the project, we
need to have events and talks, be it on a small scale or large scale.
I'm doing my share but just a class of 25 prospective students every
1.5 months is hardly what I want. Also, lots of stuff is needed for
such events (stickers, badges, pens etc) and it becomes absolutely
difficult even if i plan to procure them myself. I can give talks and
presentations but to leave a Fedora print in someone's mind we do need
the stuff. On a tight budget, surely, its difficult but I hope,
Ambassador's program will be willing to help. I'l make my first try at
having a little event organized and see the outcome.

Oh and yes, we need the wiki structure worked out too. It surely is a
good idea. I hope someone good with wiki editing may help. I shall try
my best too. Just lets freeze the structure first.

Lastly, its true we need a one point contact (the aristocracy Ryan
talked bout) to get ourselves organized. That shall be sponsors I
guess or guys with prior experience in managing events/spreading the
word.

One more thing, due to geographical differences, its almost impossible
for me to be on freenode so we need to find a way out for that. I
prefer the mailing list in digest mode.
==

Suchakra
==
http://suchakra.wordpress.com
==

On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 5:30 PM,
<campus-ambassadors-request at lists.fedoraproject.org> wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. Kickstarting the Fedora Campus Ambassadors program (Ryan Rix)
>   2. Re: Kickstarting the Fedora Campus Ambassadors program (Ryan Rix)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:00:12 -0700
> From: Ryan Rix <ry at n.rix.si>
> Subject: Kickstarting the Fedora Campus Ambassadors program
> To: campus-ambassadors at lists.fedoraproject.org
> Message-ID: <201003261400.17544.ry at n.rix.si>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Hello one and all,
>
> For about two months now, there has been a pickup in interest in Fedora's
> campus ambassadors program. I think that it is about time for us to start
> picking up efforts for the program. I'm going to go ahead and try to kickstart
> a bit of discussion about exactly WHO we are, WHAT we want to do, and HOW we
> will do it. Anyone feel free to jump in, as this is a discussion I'd like all
> current and prospective campus ambassadors to take part in.
>
> With that out of the way, I have a few questions to ask, and my answers for
> them.
> nt, I'm going to go ahead and try
> 1) What do you want to see in the campus ambassador program? What is our
> primary goal?
> 2) How (or should we?) differentiate from the main Fedora Ambassadors program?
> 3) How should we interract with the Fedora Ambassadors program?
> 4) What are our next steps?
>
> Thanks and best,
> Ryan Rix
> --
> Ryan Rix
> == http://hackersramblings.wordpress.com | http://rix.si/ ==
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:01:00 -0700
> From: Ryan Rix <ry at n.rix.si>
> Subject: Re: Kickstarting the Fedora Campus Ambassadors program
> To: campus-ambassadors at lists.fedoraproject.org
> Message-ID: <201003261601.06012.ry at n.rix.si>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-6"
>
> On Fri 26 March 2010 2:00:12 pm Ryan Rix wrote:
>> Hello one and all,
>>
>> For about two months now, there has been a pickup in interest in Fedora's
>> campus ambassadors program. I think that it is about time for us to start
>> picking up efforts for the program. I'm going to go ahead and try to
>> kickstart a bit of discussion about exactly WHO we are, WHAT we want to
>> do, and HOW we will do it. Anyone feel free to jump in, as this is a
>> discussion I'd like all current and prospective campus ambassadors to take
>> part in.
>>
>> With that out of the way, I have a few questions to ask, and my answers for
>> them.
>> nt, I'm going to go ahead and try
>> 1) What do you want to see in the campus ambassador program? What is our
>> primary goal?
>> 2) How (or should we?) differentiate from the main Fedora Ambassadors
>> program? 3) How should we interract with the Fedora Ambassadors program?
>> 4) What are our next steps?
>>
>> Thanks and best,
>> Ryan Rix
>
> Let me start off with a short introduction. My name is Ryan Rix, and I'm
> currently a student at Deer Valley High School in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Next
> year I will be attending Arizona State University as a Computer Scince major.
> Within Fedora I'm involved in the KDE SIG, marketing and ambassadors group,
> along with campus ambassadors. My IRC nickname is rrix, and you can find me in
> basically any Fedora IRC channel on Freenode.
>
> == What do you want to see in the campus ambassador program? What is our
> primary goal? ==
> My personal hope is to inject Fedora into each major institution worldwide.
> It's a lofty, and hard to obtain goal, sure, but we have the manpower to do it
> with a small amount of work. We should have at least some presence in campus
> LUGs which are currently DOMINATELY Ubuntu users, basically turning it into a
> subset of the LoCos. We should work to change the landscape of the community
> of students involved in FOSS in each institution into a landscape dominated by
> Ubuntu, and turn it into a more vibrant landscape, with more users of other
> distributions.
> The second part of our goal should be to get students who are not involved in
> Free and Open Source software involved in our communities. This involves the
> activism of an ambassador, and the ability to reach out to new folks, explain
> who we are, and what we stand for. Leverage of our four Foundations[1] is key
> here, and they are especially pertinent in a more open educational
> environment. Unfortunately, as I see it, most students are involved in
> illegally copying software simply because they cannot afford to pay for the
> software, or do not want to do business with companies like Apple, Adobe and
> others. These are the kind of students that I see more and more in
> universities, and they are the kind of people we should be working to attract
> to Fedora and Free Software in general.
> However, to expose these students to Free Software, and eliminate the NEED
> for proprietary software, we have to get professors involved in Free Software,
> and away from tools that can cost students money and freedom. This can be done
> through ad-hoc relationships with professors primarily, and through works like
> POSSE[2]. Fedora's Campus Ambassador program should take an active role in the
> adoption and promotion of POSSE and similar   to get professors involved in
> the Free Software community, attracting them, and their students to our and
> other Free Software communities.
>
> ==How (or should we?) differentiate ourselves from Fedora's existing
> Ambassador program?==
> I think that the biggest, and most important, difference between these two
> projects is the target: the ambassadors mostly work on attracting the FOSS
> community at large, and the general public, to Fedora, whereas we should be
> working to attract students and faculty of secondary and upper level education
> to Fedora. Of course, students and faculty of secondary and upper level
> education are a subset of the general public, and the FOSS community, which
> means that, unless some communication is established, our goals are congruant.
> This is why I believe it is important that we work with the ambassador program
> closely.
>
> ==How should we interract with the Fedora Ambassador community?==
> What I see in our relationship with Ambassadors is a more symbiotic
> relationship than anything else. Fedora's ambassadors are Fedora's face to the
> rest of the Free Software community, and the general public at large. We
> should strive to be Fedora's face in our institutions. As such, I see our role
> to be smaller (but not less important!) than that of the Ambassadors program.
> Optimally, each Campus Ambassador would be in contact with a local Ambassador,
> and that they would be their primary contact for events and needs, rather than
> having the campus ambassadors going through a central non-distributed system.
> The Campus Ambassador could request media or swag from their ambassador
> contact for, say, a University LUG meeting, or an installfest. This ambassador
> could then also attend this event, possibly speak, and increase our presence
> even more. This of course, comes with the stipulation that for every campus we
> need at least one Fedora ambassador in the near area, which is not always the
> case. For example, I am currently the only ambassador in Phoenix Arizona, and
> I would not be the least bit surprised if there were locations with no
> nearby ambassadors. This of course gets media and swag in the hands of campus
> ambassadors who would not, in most other cases, be able to get any. If I
> recall correctly from what Mel told me, the Campus Ambassador program has
> about 2500US$ per year (fiscal quarter, maybe? I'd have to ask Mel or Max, I
> honestly do not know). This is not enough to forge pressed media for a
> worldwide group and have it distributed. This is why we need to work with the
> Ambassadors program.
> With this symbiotic relationship, it should not be necessary for each Campus
> Ambassador to go through the Ambassador mentoring program. However, I think
> that Campus Ambassadors should also have to go through some sort of training
> or mentorship program. I am unsure of what, or how we would go through thtat
> though. We should probably draft up a few wiki pages about how the Campus
> Ambassador mentorees can better relay our position to the different
> communities within universities as opposed to the standard wiki pages.
>
> ==What are our next steps?==
> First and foremost, this is a discussion that needs to happen. The Campus
> Ambassadors program should not be dictated by one person, or a small
> aristocracy, but the group as a whole in an open and transparent fashion
> (hence me moving this to the mailing list rather than IRC).
> When this discussion has been ended, the final product needs to be distilled
> into a set of wiki pages under the [[CampusAmbassadors]] page, so that anyone
> interested in joining our project can see how we differ from the Ambassadors
> program, and how they can get involved.
> After this, we should begin discussion with the Ambassador program about how
> to best handle us working with them, and distill that into a wiki page or
> four.
> Hopefully, this framework can be laid before the next school year begins. I
> believe it's too late in the year for us to organize in time for this
> semester, but come next fall, we could really have an awesome program.
>
> Like I said, this is a discussion, not a dictate, so please talk back :)
> Thanks and best,
> Ryan Rix
>
> --
> Ryan Rix
> == http://hackersramblings.wordpress.com | http://rix.si/ ==
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