FOSDEM and "register for the badge to get a t-shirt"
by Aleksandra Fedorova
Hi, all,
After being at the booth at FOSDEM 2017 and in light of upcoming
FOSDEM 2018 let me raise a discussion about what we are actually doing
at the booth there.
At the last FOSDEM we had a number of T-shirts available as swag. And
the process looked as follows:
---
Whenever person stopped at a booth for the moment, he/she was
approached by the Fedora Ambassador with a question "Do you want a
Fedora T-shirt? Register an account and sign for a Fosdem badge to get
one!".
The person signs in right there from a phone or laptop, gets a T-shirt
and goes away.
---
While we get some Fedora "users" from this approach, I think it is
fundamentally wrong.
(Please don't take it as a personal offense, it is the approach
itself, not the Ambassador who manages it :) )
So let's stick to the goal: the reason why we host a booth at a
conference is to show that we exist, and that we are a good community
worth joining. The reasons (at least my reasons to join) are:
1) always something interesting happens,
2) generic upstream-oriented attitude - we are doing something for
every one, not just for our project alone.
So our presence at the conference should somehow reflect that.
Being Ambassador staying the whole day at the booth talking with
random strangers is quite hard. So when you get tired you want to
switch to some auto-pilot mode, when you don't want to think anymore
and just stick to some formal rules, like "sign in - get a t-shirt".
But this is not why we are there. This mode actually damages the
Fedora community.
We shouldn't commercialize it, thus we shouldn't behave like a
mindless marketing crowd who's goal is to collect "links to
customers". We are community who works together and who talks about
our work. That is the primary option, swag, Fedora account, badge -
these are all funny, but completely optional things. Remove them - and
there still be Fedora booth worth visiting.
Thus, my suggestion:
* don't aggressively promote the Fedora Account or badge. You can
explain what it is, but never start conversation with the "Sign in!",
never force anyone to sign in, unless he needs to report a bug or
smth. This builds the respect and trust.
* don't consider number of sign-ins as a measure of success, get personal.
Specifically for T-shirts: Year ago at FrOSCon we had a pack of "Proud
Fedora User" T-shirts. When it came to distributing them, we need a
way to identify people which get them, so that we don't just throw
them away for nothing.
At Fosdem the Fedora Account registration was used for that. But at
FrOSCon I did it differently. I simply asked the person "Are you a
_proud_ Fedora user?" And guess what, I always get an honest answer,
which works as a good conversation starter. We had a lot of fun then,
without any enforced "T-shirt requirement" and any commercialization
of the process..
* be ready to talk technical (or better say "real", design,
documentation,.. whatever works for you). Don't be the
swag-distributing robot. Have your interest.
For example I've recently made a LED light blinking on a raspberry pi
- this is super easy to be honest, but it is awesome and I can talk
about it :)
* When you are tired - get a break. Have you time to visit a talk or
two. Get involved in the topics in other booths. Be part of the big
crowd. We are not just Fedora, we are part of much bigger community.
And we don't have to force them to be Fedorians to work together :)
Usually there are quite a lot of Fedorians at FOSDEM, I think we can
make it easier to join the booth, if we will be more open about
joining. For example let's have a schedule printed at the booth and
let people randomly running around to sign on sight for particular
time slots - hour or two of booth work. I think it would be nice
experience for some of those Fedora users, who don't have time or
desire to commit to the entire event. Let them sign for just a
particular hour - it would be easier for them to participate, it would
be easier for others to find them.
And this would make Fedora booth the default meeting point.
Generally, Fedora is not to sell, it is to be part of, or to collaborate with :)
--
Aleksandra Fedorova
bookwar
6 years, 3 months
[famsco] Issue #439: Evolving Fedora Ambassador events
by David Cantrell
dcantrel reported a new issue against the project: `famsco` that you are following:
``
I'd like to propose and template for events where we would like to represent Fedora. Going to conferences is sort of the go-to thing to do, but aside from setting up a booth and giving out things, what can we do. Going to a conference costs a lot of money depending on who goes
and what the conference is. With a standard event template perhaps we, as the Fedora ambassador community, can quantify the value of participating in events. Here are my thoughts on the template/process:
1) Propose an event:
The proposal should include:
- The event and location
- Cost to attend the event as a vendor or organization, if any
- List of Ambassadors who will attend
- Ambassador in charge of our participation in the event
- Required materials to be sent to the event
- Travel cost estimates for Ambassadors working the event
OK, so this is all pretty standard stuff and we already do it. Here's what I'd like to add:
- One or more Ambassador proposed talks. If the event is a conference with speaker tracks, the Ambassadors working the event should propose one or more talks for Fedora. More on this below.
- One or more measurable goals for Fedora. If this is a developer-focused conference, a goal could be to gain new contributors and match them up with a mentor.
- Talks should direct people interested to the Fedora booth where we can help them get involved where they want to contribute. For large events where the number of new contributors is high, we could hold a workshop session too.
2) Start a git repo of standard talks. A lot of us already have a bank of standard go-to talks when we go to a conference. Why not pool these for all Ambassadors? They should be organized by target audience and skill level so that if we need to propose an intro talk, we know where
to find the standard talks. I bet if we look around our home directories and ask we could probably create a large pool of talks quickly.
That's not to say we would never update the talks. In fact, I imagine every conference would need a refresh of the slide deck. But the point here is we have something to work with already and have 90% of the work done.
3) Create a welcome kit for new contributors. It's almost like a new hire orientation process. We want new contributors to be excited about joining the project, regardless of how they are contributing. Far too much of our contributor documentation is focused on package maintenance. We need to balance that out with the other areas where we need contributors.
Alright, now is the part where lots of people reply to this message and point me to where we already do the above. If that's the case, great! The fact that I didn't know or was able to find it should indicate we need to consolidate and organize our efforts more.
``
To reply, visit the link below or just reply to this email
https://pagure.io/famsco/issue/439
6 years, 5 months
[famsco] Issue #438: Ambassador Response Expectations
by Brian Exelbierd (bex)
bex reported a new issue against the project: `famsco` that you are following:
``
Do we have expectations for the response time for an ambassador receiving an email? I understand that people travel, get sick, etc. But assuming no special circumstances what are our expectations?
``
To reply, visit the link below or just reply to this email
https://pagure.io/famsco/issue/438
6 years, 5 months
Fedora @ Chaos Communication Congress
by Zacharias Mitzelos
Is there someone that would like to be the event owner for 34C3? Last
year it was tyll, but because he won't be available this year he asked
me if I wanted to organize our presence, but I can't know for sure yet
if I'll make it as well.
This year it will be held in Leipzig instead of Hamburg, from December
27-30.
Cheers,
Zach
--
Zacharias Mitzelos
<mitzie at mitzelos dot com>
mitzie on freenode
http://zacharias.mitzelos.com
6 years, 5 months
Evolving Fedora Ambassador events
by David Cantrell
I'd like to propose and template for events where we would like to
represent Fedora. Going to conferences is sort of the go-to thing to
do, but aside from setting up a booth and giving out things, what can we
do. Going to a conference costs a lot of money depending on who goes
and what the conference is. With a standard event template perhaps we,
as the Fedora Ambassador community, can quantify the value of
participating in events. Here are my thoughts on the template/process:
1) Propose an event:
The proposal should include:
- The event and location
- Cost to attend the event as a vendor or organization, if any
- List of Ambassadors who will attend
- Ambassador in charge of our participation in the event
- Required materials to be sent to the event
- Travel cost estimates for Ambassadors working the event
OK, so this is all pretty standard stuff and we already do it. Here's
what I'd like to add:
- One or more Ambassador proposed talks. If the event is a conference
with speaker tracks, the Ambassadors working the event should propose
one or more talks for Fedora. More on this below.
- One or more measurable goals for Fedora. If this is a
developer-focused conference, a goal could be to gain new contributors
and match them up with a mentor.
- Talks should direct people interested to the Fedora booth where we can
help them get involved where they want to contribute. For large events
where the number of new contributors is high, we could hold a workshop
session too.
2) Start a git repo of standard talks. A lot of us already have a bank
of standard go-to talks when we go to a conference. Why not pool these
for all Ambassadors? They should be organized by target audience and
skill level so that if we need to propose an intro talk, we know where
to find the standard talks. I bet if we look around our home
directories and ask we could probably create a large pool of talks quickly.
That's not to say we would never update the talks. In fact, I imagine
every conference would need a refresh of the slide deck. But the point
here is we have something to work with already and have 90% of the work
done.
3) Create a welcome kit for new contributors. It's almost like a new
hire orientation process. We want new contributors to be excited about
joining the project, regardless of how they are contributing. Far too
much of our contributor documentation is focused on package maintenance.
We need to balance that out with the other areas where we need
contributors.
Alright, now is the part where lots of people reply to this message and
point me to where we already do the above. If that's the case, great!
The fact that I didn't know or was able to find it should indicate we
need to consolidate and organize our efforts more.
Looking for comments on the above. Shall we take it to the wiki and
revise there? I've already thought of more stuff too, like event
requirements (e.g., do we want to participate in an event that lacks a
code of conduct?)
Thanks,
--
David Cantrell <dcantrell(a)redhat.com>
Red Hat, Inc. | Boston, MA | EST5EDT
6 years, 5 months
REMINDER: EMEA Ambassadors Meeting 2017-09-27
by Nemanja Milosevic
Hey EMEA Ambassadors,
We're going to have our regular meeting tomorrow. See below for more info:
* Date: Wednesday, Sep 27, 2017
* Time: 22:00 CEST/CET
* Location: #fedora-meeting @ freenode
* Meeting Agenda:
- Roll Call
- Announcements
- Requests
- Ambassadors Schedule
- Events
- Action items from previous meetings
- Open Floor
If you have any requests that need to be discussed during the meeting,
make sure to file a ticket on pagure.
Meet you there!
- Nemanja
6 years, 5 months
Re: Fedorator power supply
by Brian Exelbierd
Hey,
Are you in EMEA and missing your Federator power supply? The ones we
ordered should be here tomorrow. Let me know where they are supposed to
go.
Also, I have several Federators in Brno that I didn't think were staying
here. I am going to take advantage of them and borrow one for Brazil,
but I would like to know what was supposed to happen to them.
Thanks,
bex
On Mon, Sep 25, 2017, at 01:29 PM, Brian Exelbierd wrote:
> Ok - I know this is crazy pants old - but supposedly I will have hte
> supply here on Tuesday (tomorrow).
>
> Where can I send yours?
>
> Thanks,
>
> bex
>
> On Thu, Sep 14, 2017, at 08:32 PM, Till Maas wrote:
> > Hi Brian,
> >
> > On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 10:47:11AM +0200, Brian Exelbierd wrote:
> > > They literally just arrived in Boston :(. I am working on figuring out
> > > whether it is worth shipping them across the ocean or if I should just
> > > buy new ones.
> >
> > Too bad :-/. In case you buy new ones, could you consider to buy adapters
> > with a detachable cord so they can be easier adjusted for different
> > countries? Then it would be possible to also use an angled cable such as
> > https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Micro-USB-Cable-UUSBHAUB3RA/dp/B001AR...
> > which should simplify the building process and stress the cable less.
> >
> > Kind regards
> > Till
6 years, 5 months