[Ambassadors] Meeting Minute: FAmSCo Town Hall 2010-02-08

[Christoph Wickert]

Am Dienstag, den 09.02.2010, 12:02 -0600 schrieb inode0:
> On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 11:12 AM, Christoph Wickert
> <christoph.wickert at googlemail.com> wrote:
> > Third: My question was not, what we or FAmSCo can do to support the
> > spins but if the FAmSCo members think there is enough commitment from
> > Red Hat.  Let me give you a few examples:
> >      * OpenSUSE had nice 24" touch screen computers at FOSDEM while
> >        Fedora usually has the laptops of the ambassadors or laptops
> >        that were sponsored by Dell for one particular event only.
> >      * Every OpenSUSE ambassador gets an ambassadors starter kit with a
> >        bag, a jacket, a shirt, a printed handbook, media and some more
> >        goodies.  Fedora ambassadors on the other hand have to pay for
> >        their polos them selves (at least in EMEA).
> 
> Ok, I have been thinking about this some. I belong in the fat and
> happy camp at the moment. When I want something for ambassadors I
> don't seem to have very much trouble getting it if it has value. I've
> never considered asking for fancy computers for the booth or for
> ambassador starter kits that we don't make ourselves.
> 
> So my initial reaction to this is that a nice professional starter kit
> would be good. Can ambassadors produce one that would fit our needs?
> Bags and jackets and things don't fall out of trees and we'll get
> nicer stuff if the people who care most about it produce it.

Please don't get me wrong: The starter kit was just an example.  I don't
think it will solve all our problems.  In fact, it might even create new
ones: People just become Ambassadors to get that fancy starter kit but
later on they do nothing.  We are already doing a very tough mentoring
in order to find out who is really interested in working as an
ambassador and who is not.

If all ambassadors easily get what they need in a timely manner, there
is no need for a starter kit.

> How much impact did you perceive from the 24" touch screen computers?
> In NA we worked with HP to get a set of netbooks donated by HP for
> ambassadors to use at booths. We haven't tried to get anything else
> donated as far as I know but we could inquire into something more
> eye-catching. This is one area where computer vendors can contribute
> to Fedora and it really doesn't need to involve Red Hat doing
> anything.

The situation seems to be different in EMEA. At Linuxtag 2009, which was
Fedora's lead event that year, we had 3 Dell laptops and even if Matt is
at Dell, it was hard to get them.  They arrived just in time, but with
UK power cords and UK keyboards.  We had to take care of the proper
cords and later, when the laptops were returned back to Dell, we had
some trouble because one of the UK cords was lost.

Maybe this is just an unfortunate example, but this the only hardware
"donation" in EMEA I am aware of.

> John

Regards,
Christoph