[fedora-india] FAD Singapore 2015 - day 1
Hello,
I'm attending FAD Singapore 2015 this weekend. The agenda for this meeting was
to brainstorm and figure out various ways in which we could spread 'Fedora'
across the APAC region. And second was to plan annual(FY 16-17) budget for the
region.
We began the day early with a round of introductions and jumped right to the
agenda of finding ways to spread the Fedora community. Naturally, the first
question asked was - What do we currently do towards it? What is it that isn't
working? Each participant was asked to narrate their experiences.
The answers were usual, we conduct events, use Fedora to teach Linux,
distribute swags/DVDs etc. Yet, somehow it's not enough to drive up the
conversion rate of the audience turning into Fedora users and/or contributors.
It is observed that DVDs get varied responses across regions. In Singapore
nobody wants to have DVDs, because they prefer USB media; Whereas in other
regions DVDs get over within hours at an event. We need to capitalise both
ways; We could not choose one over the other. The issue of wastage of DVD
media and resources was also raised. It is observed that we don't plan and
order for the media well ahead in time. We do mass productions hoping that
those will get distributed, but they mostly remain with the volunteers and
before long they become stale, as the next Fedora release comes out. Though
we'd prefer to produce all swag & DVDs in one location to maintain consistent
quality, if we are to produce media on demand basis, it might be feasible to
produce them locally considering the shipping expenses and time taken for it.
Secondly, volunteers must plan at least 4-6 months in advance for this to work
out well. It is ambassadors' task to drive home that point to the volunteers.
Next was the topic of Fedora adoption. Many observations came about. Like the
activities we do are not regular and recurring. They are not catering to the
target audiences, ex. running same old 'How to become package maintainer'
tracks etc. May be that should not be a beginner level introductory track.
There is rarely a follow-up with the audiences after the event is over. Many
participants shared that they often manage to get the audience started with
Fedora tasks, but after the initial excitement, they rarely ping back. Thus the
regular follow-up are needed and it is the event owner's task to do the
follow-ups or ensure that it happens via other volunteers. While doing events,
we also need to aim towards getting more users and not just the contributors.
We need to ensure that they know how to use Fedora for the tasks that they
want to do ex. Designing, authoring and publishing, Administration, Gaming,
Programming, etc. Ie we need to have focused events considering the audience's
interests. To increase user base, it's also important to make Fedora more
easily accessible. It is general observation that people identify Linux with
Ubuntu, but with Fedora not so much. It'll help to have install fests at
the release parties wherein we do the installation by setting up
local/portable Fedora mirrors.
The discussion continued even through the lunch break, and post that we moved
on to discuss the yearly events and budget planning. It's quite late here to
dwell into more details, but the highlights are covered through these pages
-> http://piratepad.net/FAD-Sngapore-2015
-> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAD_Singapore_2015/Events
-> http://ethercalc-izhar.rhcloud.com/62tau2cry9
-> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Budget.next
Thank you.
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-P J P
http://feedmug.com