[Ambassadors] Concerning the Campus Ambassadors group

[Joe O'Dell]

First off, thank you very much for creating this! :)

As a student, I would be very interested in joining this - However, I am in a UK Secondary School (I think its an equivelant of a US High School), so talks every month would perhaps be a little hard to manage. Yes, I could give a presentation to the Board of Governors and the IT department, but a school-wide one is impossible :(

I shall get around to applying tomorrow (well, today, as it is 00:32 in England!).

Thank you once again Bert!

Regards,

Joe
(ascenseur)
-------------------------------------------------------
Joe O'Dell

Fedora Ambassador & Contributor (FreeMedia)
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Ascenseur

bedsLUG Co-Ordinator
bedslug.co.cc

DFEY Member (SouthEast)
dfey.org

Ubuntu-UK Group Member
(ascenseur)
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JoeODell



On 27 Feb 2010, at 00:15, inode0 wrote:

> 2010/2/26 Pierros Papadeas <ppapadeas at gmail.com>:
>> Hello all!
>> 
>> Following our last EMEA Ambassadors Meeting [1] (meeting log [2]) I
>> would like to share
>> the synopsis of the things said on "Campus Ambassadors group" issue
>> during the meeting.
>> Bert Desmet (now "Campus Ambassadors" president) was there to answer
>> some of our questions,
>> but we think that the scope of this discussion is much wider, so here
>> I am summarizing
>> the Q/As made in our meeting.
> 
> First, congratulations to Bert and a big thank you to you and your
> peers for taking ownership of this.
> 
> I will make some remarks below that reflect my opinions about various
> things but I think it is really important that the parameters of the
> program be defined and driven by the campus ambassadors who will
> ultimately make this successful with their efforts.
> 
>> Q: How broad is the definition of campus? universities only?
>> A: More meant for college / uni students
> 
> I would say high school and above is the target audience but we would
> expect most activity at the university level.
> 
>> Q: Who can become a Campus Ambassador? Do you have to be an Ambassador already?
>> A: No, you don't have to be an ambassador (but you need to have the
>> cla done, and you
>> have to be in college / university / some other school)
> 
> I agree with this. I think the bar for entry should be lower than for
> an Ambassador to begin with however I expect there will initially be a
> lot of Ambassadors who also are Campus Ambassadors and I hope there
> are a lot of new Campus Ambassadors who later join the Ambassador
> program and continue their work with us after or during their time in
> school.
> 
>> Q: Universities or Schools? (concerning the scope i guess)
>> A: Schools count too :)
>> 
>> Q: There is gonna be a special group in FAS?
>> A: There is already one [3]
>> 
>> Q: How far does the campus ambassador program differ from the "normal" one?
>> A: That's one of the things we still have to clarify in the next meetings
> 
> Let's walk through the reasons identified for the existence of a
> Campus Ambassador program.
> 
> * To build up individual Fedora communities on campuses, and provide
> resources for students to organize events and contribute their code
> and ideas to Fedora.
> 
> Outsiders (ambassadors who are not students) cannot possibly be as
> effective as insiders (students) at building these campus communities.
> 
> * To help students network with other open source and Fedora
> contributors, and lay the groundwork for potential summer internships.
> 
> Here is where Fedora can positively impact new young contributors.
> 
> * To create a fun and exciting network of passionate, dedicated people
> to spearhead Fedora's presence on college campuses.
> 
> People like me stopping in for a talk about Fedora at a local High
> School or college will never have the persistent impact that can be
> achieved through students on those campuses being engaged and active.
> 
> * To work with faculty and students both to promote free and open
> source software on campus.
> 
> Engagement of faculty is I think one of the long term high impact
> benefits of this program. And I think engaging faculty is far more
> likely to occur with the daily interaction between faculty and bright,
> engaged, and enthusiastic students than it could be with hit and run
> visits from people outside those institutions.
> 
>> Q: Bert, who elected you? (As the president of Campus group)
>> A: The people who attended last meeting ;)
> 
> Congratulations again Bert!
> 
>> Q: So the approach is the same as Ambassadors with smaller scope?
>> A: Indeed :)
> 
> The scope is big, but the focus is smaller.
> 
>> Q: I don't really get why we need "campusambassadors"? Why can't
>> regular ambassadors
>> do that as well? And how will you ensure that "campusambassadors" are
>> knowledged enough?
>> A: Well, we will be more 'specialized', and we will also try to have
>> good 'quality control' on the people
> 
> I have tried above to give some reasons I think students can achieve
> the stated goals better than non-students can. My hope and expectation
> is that new campus ambassadors will hang around with old ones and
> learn from them. Regular meetings and places on irc for campus
> ambassadors to exchange ideas with each other and learn about Fedora
> will help all involved grow.
> 
>> (All answers were given by Bert)
>> 
>> Also some points were made from fellow ambassadors, like :
>> 
>> * They are welcome to do it within Ambassadors and use our mentoring
>> approach (Joerg Simon)
>> * There is a huge difference between schools and universities, so I
>> think, it is needed to have
>> special skilled people to deliver the thought of FOSS to the student
>> (Sascha Thomas Spreitzer)
>> * We aim from high school students to older ones (Bert Desmet)
>> * I think we have great examples of Students who follow this approach,
>> I think personally that they
>> all can live within the Ambassadors Group (Joerg Simon)
>> * There is an danger that we cause new management overhead with
>> another ambassador group (Joerg Simon)
> 
> I agree with Joerg in this concern. There is a danger but I see an
> upside too. If we leave the management to the campus ambassadors (the
> old guys are here to help and advise if our help is desired) they will
> learn a lot about community management as well. Watching Max and Paul
> makes community management look easy. It isn't as all of us who have
> bitten off a little piece to chew on know. But I think doing this will
> make the campus ambassador leadership more valuable to the Fedora
> Project in the future and will better prepare them for whatever lies
> ahead in life.
> 
>> As you can see many questions were made and some of them fall outside
>> the scope of Ambassadors.
>> Given the fact that the new Campus Ambassador group resembles a lot to
>> our Ambassadors group, it
>> would be nice if we could have some discussion/opinions on this
>> subject from Ambassadors throughout the world.
>> 
>> My personal opinion is that we do not need a different group for this
>> kind of job, and we could rather organize
>> Ambassador-SIGs (Special Interest Groups) with different scopes but
>> all within Ambassadors' way of doing things
>> (mentoring, infrastructure, budget etc).
>> To work with faculty and students both to promote free and open source software on campus
> 
> Whether we think of the campus ambassadors as a group or a SIG or
> whatever doesn't much matter to me. What matters is having people like
> Bert step up, get clear on the goals, and make stuff happen. This is a
> really exciting program to a lot of us and I want it to succeed as
> much as anyone. I have decided the best way for that to happen is for
> me not to meddle too much in it. Those who have a vested interest in
> its outcome, the campus ambassadors themselves, need to be the
> engineers on this train for it to leave the station and start rolling
> down the track.
> 
> John
> --
> ambassadors mailing list
> ambassadors at lists.fedoraproject.org
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/ambassadors

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