SxSW photobooth awesomeness and its future

[Clint Savage]

(crosspost: I hope everyone here isn't too upset to possibly get this
three times)

Hi all,

As you probably know, I've been hanging around Fedora for a few years
now.  I helped improve the events that Fedora attends by creating the
Fedora EventBox.  It's been going really well, but this week, I saw a
big improvement because of just a few people at SxSW.  I would like to
thank Mo, Emily, Spot, Jared and anyone else who helped make the booth
there awesome!

If you haven't seen the booth, that's okay, but here's a few pictures
of what is going on:

http://ping.fm/roiOI - (Guy Kawasaki and Tux)
http://fedorapeople.org/groups/photobooth/sxsw-86ada905-3085-4f4c-8bc9-6d...
(another attendee with Tux)

All of these and others can be found at
http://fedorapeople.org/groups/photobooth/

In our Fedora Ambassadors North America (FAmNA) meeting tonight, I
followed-up a short email by Max, asking about what thoughts others
had and improvements could be made to make this a regular thing at our
events throughout Fedora.  I came up with a few things about how we
could improve it and make it feasible for North America.  I'm sure
there are ideas for other regions as well, so feel free to join in the
discussion.

Now, the reason I figured marketing and design should be involved is
that they have a large say in how things are designed and how we tell
people why Fedora's important.  I think there's an opportunity here
for better collaboration too, so please, please, please, feel free to
improve upon the ideas I'm going to propose.

First off, the photobooth idea is amazing.  I'd like to say that we
should be doing something similar at every event, encouraging people
to get their pic taken at our booth. But making someone where a
costume for 2-3 days could be challenging.  So I propose we build a
portable photo board[1] to include in Event Boxen.  Probably of
something more goofy, I actually thought the Beefy Miracle[2] would be
a good choice, since it's easy to come up with.

In addition, one would need a web cam and a dedicated laptop to take
the pictures and upload them.  This should be an easy to-do.  Having a
web cam could prove invaluable for other things as well, like doing
mini tutorials.

 Logistically, this could be a bit challenging when you have only an
8'x8' space, but this can be handled pretty easily.  One way is to
move the table and chairs to one side and stand in the booth, or sit
behind (tightly) the table and work from there.  The other half of the
booth could easily be used to take pictures and show off our cool
stuff!

But there's more we can do with this, and that's where I think the
value lies.  For one, it is cool that each participant get's a nice
little card printed right there with a QR code so they can go retrieve
it.  But it would also be nice to let them share their photos on
social networking sites like Facebook, identi.ca, foursquare, twitter,
etc.  I can also see gaining contributors from this concept, in that
they are now 'part' of Fedora's legacy.   Maybe having them show up on
the FedoraProject front page when an event is happening?  I seriously
think that this is stuff that everyone in Fedora would love.

Anyway, I'm sure I have more ideas, but I hope some of you can help
with more great ideas that I know I won't.  Please help us build a
better booth and better Fedora presence at events all over the world!

Cheers,

Clint

PS - Vote for beefy miracle as the F16 code name. That's my pitch, and
I'm sticking to it!

1 - http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/photo-board-667243/
2 - http://beefymiracle.org/