[Ambassadors] What's really needed to be an Ambassador?

[Mathieu Bridon]

On Tue, 2010-12-14 at 10:58 -0430, María Leandro wrote:
> So another question comes to my mind.
> 
> 1.- A contributor needs to be an Ambassadors to "get permission" to help the
> community and do events? (this is a question that at least 60% of the
> applicants I get ask for)

I tend to always break this misconception when mentoring a new
ambassador.

First I ask them what they want to do once they become new ambassadors,
and inevitably they will answer me « promote Fedora », « help grow the
community of contributors » or some other variants of the same idea.

My answer has always been « and why would you need to be an ambassador
to do that? »

Being an ambassador should not be required in any way to help. I would
hate having to ask anyone motivated not to help me at a booth until they
have clicked the right button in FAS.

> 2.- A contributor should help some other team to get that meritocracy to be
> an ambassador?
> 
> So, for example. Should we explain better to the applicants that they don't
> "need" to be Ambassadors to be able to help their communities and groups?
> 
> Taking the John idea would be a crazy suggestion and maybe I'm wrong, but we
> should encourage more the contributors section and make the people
> learn/do/teach something instead promote the Ambassadors group.

Sure, being an ambassador should never be a goal per se. Actually, being
a **contributor** should not be a goal per se. Rather, it is a way to
help the Fedora Project achieve its objectives.

A package maintainer will do that by making sure the software included
in Fedora is in sync with upstream, and as bug-free as possible.

A documentation writer will do that by making sure everyone can
understand how the software works and is able to use it.

In the same way, an ambassador will help the Fedora Project achieve its
objectives by helping grow awareness of those objectives as well as
helping grow the ranks of the contributors.

> For me, an
> Ambassadors is the same than a Marketing Team contributor :S

I don't think so.

To me, the marketing group is responsible for the long-term
communication strategy, as well as producing a set of deliverables that
can be used to promote Fedora (talking points,...).

Ambassadors on the other hand are like the infantry. We are on the first
line at events, talking to people and helping new contributors to find
the group where they will blossom. Of course, we usually do that using
the stuff made by the marketing group, and then give them feedback about
how it is received.

Sure, there is a huge overlap between the two groups since most people
who like to do one also enjoy doing the other. On the other hand, some
people (that is my case) enjoy meeting people and talking to them in
real life, but would do a crappy job at writing talking points and
making communication plans.


-- 
Mathieu