11:43 p.m.
On Tue 20 April 2010 9:01:10 pm you wrote:
I got recommended by StabbyMc and lcafiero to contact you two because you
are currently still in high school. As I am myself a sophmore in high
school (apparently making me the youngest ambassador of the bunch), I
would like to ask at least one question, although knowing me I'll probably
end up asking a few more later on. Since school work gets in the way most
of the time with helping as an ambassador, what kinds of things have you
two been doing to help while in high school. I hope you understand what I
mean by that, since I really want to help but aren't exactly sure what all
my options are. For now I'm considering being a Campus Ambassador in
addition to already being a normal Ambassador.
Thanks a lot for your help on this.
Hello Danny,
Nice to meet you, glad that we see some more Ambassadors in high school! I
think Joe O'Dell is beating you out as the youngest Ambassadors as a freshman
in high school, though. :) I've cc'd Joe and he can probably also provide some
good insight as well if he doesn't mind the mailbomb ;)
Campus Ambassadors is definitely something you should look at getting involved
in; the main purpose of the group is to give Ambassadors that are still in
school the chance to interface with others who are also still in school. Kind
of a subgroup, I guess, rather than Yet Another Group To Join. I've cc'd the
list in this mail, maybe some other members can also give you some useful
feedback. Since you're already a Fedora Ambassador, you are completely welcome
to our group! (Even if you weren't, you'd still be welcome, you'd just have to
become a fedora ambassador :) )
Personally, the biggest thing that you can do with your time on campus, even
if taken mostly by school is to leverage your friendships as a chance to
introduce Fedora (the distro and community) to possible new users and
community members. I guess a better way to put that, and perhaps it is more
effective to look at it this way, is to leverage Fedora to help your friends.
"Oh waaaah, I don't have Microsoft Widgetizer to do this project"
"wellll,
here, take this, pop it in your cd drive, and do your homework." or "Oh
waaaaah, my computer is broken... Got a nasty virus and Windows won't start"
"oh here, take this, pop it in your cd drive and give it a shot. If you like
it I can help you install it." Things like that are, imo, the most effective
way to bring folks to seeing how awesome our distro is. Introduce bug
reporting as a way to get a user involved in our community, etc.
And make noise. You're a computer geek. You have computer geek friends(?) Make
sure they know that you don't run Windows. You'll be the first person they
come to when they need a way out of the Windows hole, or even looking for
alternatives to expensive proprietary software on Windows.
I think that in situations like the latter, it is more effective in the long
run to create stepping stones, rather than just plopping a CD in their hands
and telling them to have at it. I've given folks this route, and two or three
now are happy Fedora users, because they see the benefits of FOSS as a whole,
after seeing what OOo, Scribus, GIMP or Inkscape or any of countless other
programs we have can do for them.
Most of your ambassador work you will do in a high school setting isn't
"official" ambassadors work, ie, there is no event to report on at the FAmNA
meeting, there is no real recognition from our side of things; it's all very
ad-hoc. I'm kinda trying to think of a way to make things more, ya know,
verbose on our side of things, communicating success stories, tips and non-
success stories back to the rest of the CampusAmb community so we can learn
what does and doesn't work. If you can't tell, I am a fan of verbosity and
transparency :)
Do you have a local LUG? Getting involved with it outside of school is also a
good way to get to know your community as well, and gives you a soap box to
stand on :) Meetings for most LUGs are sparse enough that you can mostly get
away with them not interfering with school, and gives you a chance to give
presentations, meet fellow Free Software enthusiasts, and make contacts for
possible summer work in FOSS (yup, it's almost that time of the year!), and
get to know the community that you will primarily be representing Fedora in
after you graduate from High School and Secondary Education.
EOF. I think CampusAmb is probably getting tired of the constant ZOMG-LONG-
MAILBOMBs but what can I say, I was compiled with --verbose ;) They are more
than welcome to talk back though, I know there are a few of us out there!
Good night,
Ryan Rix
--
Danny Stieben
Fedora Ambassador
http://fedoraproject.org/
dmaxel(a)fedoraproject.org
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/user:dmaxel
--
Ryan Rix
== http://hackersramblings.wordpress.com | http://rix.si/ ==