[Ambassadors] Ambassador NA meeting minutes

[Greg Dekoenigsberg]

Thanks for this analysis, Max.

I humbly retract my libelous and ignorant statements about FAMSCO. 
That's what happens when you don't pay attention over a number of years, 
and then shoot your mouth off.

Of course, we will need to make sure that NA understands how they fit into 
FAMSCO, and that their voice is appropriately represented.  Which is 
iWolf's job, it seems, since he's the only NA guy on the list.

IIRC, FAMSCO was open election.  Is there any assurance of regional 
representation?

--g

On Wed, 16 Jul 2008, Max Spevack wrote:

>> 19:17 < lxmaier_home> inode0: red hat in emea hardly goes to local/regional 
>> events -- i am not even sure they were at linuxTag
>
> Red Hat "corporate" had a small presence at LinuxTag -- one person from HR 
> and one person from Marketing, and they paid 2,000 EUR for the Fedora Booth, 
> which the HR person took a little corner of for her resume-drop meetings.
>
> Aside from that, it was the Blue Man Group.
>
>> 19:23 < ke4qqq> lxmaier_home: I'd agree - but RHNA is already sending out 
>> the stuff - I have asked Greg and Max and FAMSCO to send stuff for events 
>> and it gets sent to me every time. It seems like we waste more time going 
>> through the appropriations process than anything else.
>
> I'm glad it always gets to you, though as the guy who did the "send swag all 
> over North America" requests for about 2 years, I'd love to see it get more 
> automated.  The truth, from my perspective:  It was easier to take 30-60 
> minutes every week, and just do it all manually than to spend all the time it 
> would take to finish up a turnkey solution.  Maybe that's wrong/lazy, but in 
> my own day to day functions the last couple years, that just ended up being 
> reality.
>
>> 19:24 * herlo actually thinks that it'd be nice just to *have* the stuff on 
>> hand.  No event necessary
>
> We tend to mass-produce swag and horde it at RH and wait for events/requests 
> to come in.  This model doesn't scale too well, though.
>
> For a while we had the "swag packs" on the brand fuel store, and the "we give 
> them an address and they ship it out" method worked well, but the price was 
> just insane.
>
>> 19:28 < ke4qqq> gregdek: based on how things operate - I'd say RH owns NA 
>> Ambassadors - we are too dependent on them. Famsco to a lesser degree - but 
>> really we see precious little of them.
>
> Hopefully, the place you are seeing FAMSCo is in the Budget Allocation 
> process for events worldwide.  We followed a pretty strict set of guidelines 
> for "getting your event funded" in Q2, and it worked really well all over the 
> world.  Every event on the FedoraEvents page has budget and support from 
> FAMSCo.
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/SteeringCommittee/Budget
>
> http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2008-July/msg00152.html
>
> http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-ambassadors-list/2008-April/msg00005.html
>
>> 19:29 < gregdek> a. Ambassadors are more invested when they can operate 
>> autonomously, and RH should give funding, but *not* necessarily schwag;
>
> This is the model we use in EMEA, and are sort of moving to in NA, by virtue 
> of the fact that in recent months, an Ambassador's support has been in the 
> form of PayPal'd money, and it's up to them to take it from there.
>
>> 19:29 < gregdek> b. FAMSCO is a broken concept that does not take regional 
>> needs into account.
>
>> 19:29 < gregdek> Well, perhaps it was useful for its time, but as 
>> ambassadors around the world get up and run, it's outliving its usefulness.
>
> I think I disagree with you there, Greg.  See below...
>
>> 19:29 < herlo> I need to ask a simple question about a.  To whom does RH 
>> give the funding? 19:30 < gregdek> Good question. 19:30 < gregdek> In EMEA, 
>> we give it to various folks to help make things happen. 19:30 < herlo> is 
>> it direct to NA ambassadors? Or to FAMSCo or some such 19:30 < herlo> 
>> because to be honest, I personally don't want money, I want the swag 19:30 
>> < gregdek> In LATAM, we give almost all of it to Rodrigo Padula da Oliveira 
>> in Brazil, and he makes things happen.
>
> Hmm, I'm not sure I agree that FAMSCo is broken.  FAMSCo has a membership 
> that includes people worldwide.  Here is the workflow:
>
> FAMSCo is given a budget.  This budget comes from Red Hat, and it is a 
> sub-section of the larger Community Architecture budget.  This FAMSCo budget 
> is for the quarter, and FAMSCo as a body is *fully empowered* to disburse 
> those funds worldwide as they see best.
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/CommunityArchitecture/Expenses
>
> In Q1, FAMSCo spent almost $20,000, spread out pretty well across the globe:
>
>    * North America -- $5,250
>    * Europe, Middle East, Africa -- $3,030
>    * India, Asia, Australia -- $1,975
>    * South America -- $1,000
>    * Fedora 9 CDs and DVDs for FreeMedia and North America -- $8,175
>
> In Q2 (with 6 weeks left) FAMSCo has spent about $7k (with another $8k still 
> to be spent), and the balance worldwide is even better:
>
> 	* North America -- $2,720
> 	* Europe, Middle East, Africa -- $2,525
> 	* India, Asia, Australia -- $0
> 	* South America -- $2,000
>
> Keep in mind that these numbers do *not* include things like FISL in Brazil 
> in Q1 which had its own budget, or the $8k in funding from Red Hat that is 
> being spent directly on community-building activities in India.
>
> Point being, I think FAMSCo continues to serve a purpose, and is empowered 
> with seeing to it that Ambassadors get funds worldwide.  If you have received 
> money for an event this year, that came from FAMSCo.
>
> Simply put, the role of FAMSCo is to make sure that when Red Hat says 
> "community, you have $X for events worldwide" that regions get what they 
> need.  That doesn't mean every region has to get exactly the same amount of 
> money (this isn't summer camp where everyone gets exactly the same number of 
> cookies), but it's meant to ensure that no one starves due to neglect.
>
> That is why the event funding process I have set up allows the FedoraEvents 
> page to rule.  If you get your event on that page by the deadline (as laid 
> out in my emails to Ambassadors list, linked to above), you will get *some 
> sort of funding*.  The better your rep as an event organizer and the larger 
> your event, the more you'll get.
>
> In EMEA, FAMSCo is able to hand money directly to Fedora EMEA e.V., the 
> non-profit set up to handle stuff locally.  In South America, like Greg says, 
> it's basically Rodrigo.  In North America, we hand small amounts of money to 
> individuals, because *Red Hat* has always filled that niche as "central 
> organizer of swag and stuff".
>
>> 19:35 < herlo> the stated process doesn't even work right now.  It says you 
>> must fill out a form that isn't available atm
>
> I don't about any forms.  In my opinion, the process is what I stated above. 
> An Ambassador goes through the "get my event on the Events page by the 
> deadline.  FAMSCo will allocate me budget, and then the FAMSCo treasurer (who 
> happens to be Max) will contact me and ask me if I just want cash, or if I 
> want Red Hat to order me swag, or whatever."
>
> Maybe we need someone to delete all the old "process stuff" that has, 
> truthfully, been routed around.
>
>> 19:42 < lxmaier_home> i do strongly lean towards the "you want to run an 
>> event, you get the money payPaled to you and off you go!"
>
> This is pretty much the way it has been moving to...
>
>> 19:47 < ke4qqq> lxmaier_home: that doesn't scale well - if you need to 
>> order 10,000 CDs and then get reimbursed thats a painful reimbursement 
>> scheme.
>
> That's where it breaks completely.  As the guy who actually deals with the 
> money, I can tell you that once you hit about $1,000, people want the money 
> up front, and can't float it.
>
>> 19:49 < gregdek> Here's another thing: we chose a crappy vendor, and
>> we're stuck with them.
>
> Well, we fired Brand Fuel (if that's who you're talking about) for the CDs a 
> long time ago, after Fedora 5.  We continue to use them for NA swag mainly 
> because it's convenient.  We email them and say "we need a couple hundred 
> shirts and stickes, here are 3 addresses and a deadline" and they hit it. 
> Then we pay, and "charge" those events from the budget that FAMSCo gave them, 
> if that makes sense.
>
> It works ok-ish, but I don't love the process.  We're not getting nearly as 
> much for our money as we could be.
>
>> 19:51 < gregdek> If I trust the people, I don't want to manage them.
>
> Agreed.  I want to put money directly into the hands of trusted community 
> members.  But it has to be done in a way that the accounting still works! 
> Fortunately, RH's finance folks will reimburse off of Paypal, which is why 
> we've been moving to a "you got a budget of $X, and here it is, go nuts" 
> model.  With EVENT REPORTS as the "proof" that the money was well spent, or 
> else the trust level is broken.
>
>> 19:57 < gregdek> * Max orders a ton of DVDs/CDs from BrandFuel.
>
> Not brand fuel, but yeah...
>
> I've already told Paul and Mo that I will no longer have anything to do with 
> CD/DVD production other than making sure the budget exists, and the bills get 
> paid.  If we want to use Karlie for CDs and DVDs in North America, then the 
> most important thing to do is get our Art Team working with her Art people on 
> color matching, starting RIGHT NOW.
>
>> 19:58 < ke4qqq> lxmaier_home: it takes WEEKS after the release before
>> media is available.
>> 19:58 < herlo> lxmaier_home: is that based upon some sort of metric?
>> 19:59 < lxmaier_home> nope, just crappy vendor
>> 19:59 < ke4qqq> and we are on a 6-month release cycle.
>
> With F9, the artwork was ready before the bits went GOLD, but the GOLD bits 
> are only available 2 days before release.  It's impossible to get a 1 week 
> turnaround time on thousands of DVDs/CDs *for the budget we have*.
>
>> 20:01 < gregdek> We produced about 2500 CDs/DVDs for NA for Fedora 9.
>> 20:01 < gregdek> Is that a good number?  A bad number?  No idea.  We
>> pulled it right out of our ass with what budget we had left.
>> 20:02 < lxmaier_home> that cost us what? 3000?
>
> No, that's wrong.  We produced 3,000 Live CDs and 2,000 DVDs.  5,000 total 
> media for $8,175.  It was not fantastic.  This company did a great job for 
> F8, but their prices went up and their quality went down for F9, so that's 
> that.
>
> Here's my problem -- in Q3, people in North America are going to want media 
> again.  If we spend $8,000 on media for NA out of a total FAMSCo budget of 
> $12-15k, then what the heck is the rest of the world going to do?  And how 
> will we have money for subsidizing travel and actually getting people to 
> shows?
>
> My take: no more mass production of media.  The artwork for each release 
> needs to be on the wiki, and when an Ambassador gets $1,000 of budget for his 
> event, he should be able to go to Karlie (or someone) and say "send me $400 
> worth of media".
>
>> 20:03  * gregdek wonders whatever happened to Fedora Unity's non-profit...
>
> Nothing ever happened to it.  It's a non-starter.
>
>> 20:07 < herlo> did you say how much the budget was? 20:07 < herlo> I assume 
>> it depends, but 20:07 < gregdek> Sometimes RH people come to beg us for 
>> money to send some engineer, and we will if we think it's a good deal, but 
>> we try to reserve that money for non-RH folks. 20:07 < gregdek> It's 
>> anywhere from $5k to $25k a quarter for NA.
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/CommunityArchitecture/Expenses
>
> We spend more money in North America than anywhere in the world.
>
>> 20:09  * herlo wonders if 1) FUDCon could get its own budget and 2)
>> Each Ambassador group could get a piece of that to send certain folks
>
> FUDCon and other "target" shows worldwide do get their own budget, as the 
> link above shows.
>
>> 20:42 < ke4qqq> gregdek: whats to become of famsco? and by whose hand?
>> 20:42 < herlo> I can
>> 20:42 < herlo> gregdek: that was for the list
>> 20:42 < gregdek> ke4qqq: a fair question, and one I'm not ready to answer 
>> yet.
>> 20:43 < herlo> f-am-l right?
>> 20:43 < gregdek> But I think the writing's on the wall.
>> 20:43 < gregdek> herlo: yes.
>> 20:43 < herlo> I'll send it out shortly
>> 20:43 < ke4qqq> yeah I feel reticent to depose elected people - but
>> divestiture of power is already occurring. Perhaps fedboard or
>> something. or it gets reshaped as something else.
>> 20:44 < gregdek> Governance models reshape themselves all the time.
>> 20:44 < gregdek> If FAMSCO is serving its constituents, it will prosper.
>> 20:44 < gregdek> If not, it will die.
>
> I don't understand.  The model you guys are talking about is the same one 
> that FAMSCo is trying to promote, IMHO.  FAMSCo exists to push responsibility 
> into local regions, to make the budget decisions, and to resolve disputes 
> (which seem to be limited to "what should we do with spammers").  You folks 
> might think that I make those calls myself -- I don't.  FAMSCo makes them. 
> All I do is give FAMSCo the parameters and see to it that the numbers add up 
> in the end.
>
>    * RodrigoPadula
>    * ThomasCanniot
>    * FrancescoUgolini (Chair)
>    * FabianAffolter (Vice-Chair)
>    * JeffreyTadlock
>    * AndreasRau
>    * JohnBabich
>
> That's your FAMSCo membership.  You'll notice that it is quite global, and 
> that not a single one of those people works for Red Hat?  You're ready to 
> throw them out, why, exactly?  I submit to you that the FAMSCo model is 
> working pretty darn well outside of the US, and that everything you are 
> talking about in this meeting fits DIRECTLY into the larger goals of what 
> FAMSCo hopes the Ambassadors group can be.
>
> --Max
>
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