2:45 p.m.
I encourage everyone to read the parent. This represents ongoing work
that will impact the way events are handled in the future, and I imagine
that there's more people out there who will have comments.
Jack's done a lot of work getting the idea to this point, and now is when
we need your public review and comments, so that we can incorporate it in
to what we're doing.
Thanks,
Max
On Wed, 21 Jun 2006, Jack Aboutboul wrote:
Hey Everyone,
As some of you already know, I have been working with Max for the past
few weeks on the foundations of some initiatives which we hope will help
us refine some of the processes and functions which Ambassadors
currently carry out. I want to to use this email to introduce one of
these initiatives in hopes of eliciting some good feedback to further
refine these ideas. Let me start out by saying that currently, the main
goal of these propositions is to facilitate more efficient, grass roots,
and most importantly, independent participation by ambassadors. That
is, we hope to use these changes as the building blocks of many more
improvements, and we have decided to start here.
The initiative I would first like to introduce is the Fedora Ambassadors
Event Kit. As we all have learned by now, the cornerstone of the
Ambassadors project has to do with events, and events are the single
most effective vehicles for publicity and community gathering. The
main problem with running events, however, is that thus far, most of the
events we have carried out have been top down, rather than bottom up.
By that I mean that the efforts, in large part, have come together with
much oversight and involvement with Red Hat and that has caused some
problems. Foremost, many ambassadors have complained about not being
able to run an event independently and have waited for funds and other
merchandise for days on end. Therefore, we have decided to streamline
the event and merchandise acquisition process, and that's good news in
more than one way. It means more control for ambassadors.
The Fedora Ambassadors Event Kit consists of five sections, each of
which is aimed at tackling one angle of event planning. The following
is a description of each of the sections with a brief breakdown:
Part 1. Welcome - This section is used to welcome both new and current
ambassadors alike and thank them for choosing to run an event. This
section briefly outlines some common foundation work which must be done
before any event can take place, and how to go about building quality
relationships, both within and without the community, which will serve
many purposes in both present and future endeavors.
Part 2. Optical Media Guide - The purpose of this section is one of the
most significant changes in protocol for Ambassadors. This section
outlines a new method for obtaining media, by which we empower and
encourage Ambassadors to establish a relationship with local vendors.
Local vendors are a better outlet for obtaining media since the overall
cost is lower and the relationships established with these vendors will
help us gain sponsorship for important initiatives, such as Free Media.
Ambassadors will then be able to collect monetary donations in exchange
for media at the event which will help recover costs and sponsor more
free media.
Part 3. Merchandise Guide - This section builds on the previous section
and lays out guidelines similar to those in the optical media guide.
Once again Ambassadors will be able to produce hats, shirts, mugs, etc.
locally without much oversight. Many may complain about this new
process, but there are reasons for this. Mainly, we would like to see
ambassadors come up with localized designs for merchandise. Fedora is a
global project and as such, it should be represented in precisely that
way. Ambassadors again will be allowed to ask a donation in exchange
for a merchandise so as to recover their costs.
Part 4. Custom Design Approval - So you do want to come up with a
localized design for a creative t-shirt, that's great!! All we ask is
that you kindly submit your design for review, before we give you the go
ahead. We have much trust in the Ambassadors, and doubt that anyone
would come up with something in poor taste, however, from a legal
perspective we must approve designs. (You obviously know someone is
going to come up with a Fedora Kills OpenSuSe shirt, and that could be
an issue.)
Part 5. Accounting - Yes, it sucks, but we want to make this part of the
process as easy as possible. The Ambassadors project wants to make sure
that we do not leave anyone hanging with regarding to costs related to
running an event. Therefore, we will include a simple grid sheet which
will allow Ambassadors to fill in what costs were involved in running
the event, how much money was recovered and what balance remains, if
any. This will also allow us to isolate what elements of running the
event are the costliest and how we can further help bring the costs down
in those areas.
Part 6. Extra Stuff - So what happens to the extra 20 shirts you have
left? Rest assured that we are working non stop to finally put together
a Fedora Stuff store which we will all be able to use. Until then, we
will have some guidelines in this sections which can be followed, until
a more formal decision is made.
That's basically it right there. The Event Kit will be available both as
a pdf downloadable from the wiki and as wiki pages themselves which will
allow for editing. We would much appreciate as much feedback as
possible. Does something here sound unbearable? Did you happen to fall
in love with one of these ideas? Would you like to see something
changed or improved? Time is wasting and we would like to have the
event kit up within a few days at the latest, so now is your time to
suggest or complain.
You are an ambassador, let your voice be heard!!
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