[Ambassadors] Effective SWAG distribution/ management with in APAC

[Heherson Pagcaliwagan]

On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 1:56 AM, Buddhike Kurera
<bckurera at fedoraproject.org> wrote:
> Hello Folks,
>
> In May the F18, FAmSCo term has started which I was a member. Now it
> is almost 4 months has gone and around 2 months to go for the release
> F18.
>
> There was two goals[1] at the beginning, one was to improve the SWAG
> production and distribution with in the APAC region and the next was
> to facilitate and represent fellow FAms in much efficient way. (donno
> what you think  )
>
> I do believe that I will providing better representation and
> facilitating for the FAms from APAC.

You know that we're always grateful for that bckurera. Even though we
don't say that often enough, we are :)

> However I am still working on the first goal which is hard to achieve,
> but I ll be doing my best.
>
> The plan I have came with so far is as follows.
>
> Currently there are 18 countries with in the APAC region.
>
> Australia
> Bangladesh
> China
> Hong Kong
> India
> Indonesia
> Japan
> Malaysia
> Myanmar
> Nepal
> New Zealand
> Pakistan
> Philippines
> Singapore
> Sri Lanka
> Taiwan
> Thailand
> Vietnam
> (excluding following countries since they are almost dealing with EMEA
> Cyprus, Jordan, Saudi Arabia)
>
> With in the region there are diversity of the tax and shipping
> overheads therefore “Distributing through a central point” is not the
> best strategy for APAC.

I still believe this is one problem we can manage if we agree amongst
ourselves to actually to do it. Taxes and shipping costs are facts of
life and we'll be greatly limiting ourselves by dismissing that course
of action. For sure, other regions deal with other challenges (not tax
and shipping) but they started with one thing - they agreed to do it
and put all efforts to refine their operations into what they have
now.

> However my plan is to produce SWAGs in bulk
> and distribute them in a central point which is the FUDCon in the
> region holding yearly. Since most of the FAms from most of the
> countries in the region, are participating I think that would be
> feasible. So once a year SWAGs (such as stickers, buttons, straps ….)
> will be produced and distributed via the FUDCon.

This should be a nice start. Following this train of thought, FUDCon
hosts will produce the swag. Or am I wrong?

> In APAC the scenario is totally different than NA or EMEA since the
> countries are largely seperated geographically. Therefore local
> production would be the best possible alternative. However FUDCon is
> used as the central point as all the FAms are gathering yearly.

This seems practical for me.

> It is better to produce media themselves locally. I think that would
> be the best possible way to address the tax and shipping costs. In
> such case it is possible to open a ticket on the fedora-apac trac[2]
> and move for the production. Since the revised “Reimbursement
> Guideline” is in effective[3] there would not be much difficulties.

This is what we're doing for a long time now and i won't argue that it
just works. However, I'd like us to push the envelope and dream big.
Costs will always be there, it's up to us to manage it to acceptable
levels against intended return value.

> Comments and suggestions are welcome.
>
> Planning for the next SWAG production will start soon.
>
> [1] http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/ambassadors/2012-July/019928.html
>
> [2] https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-apac
>
> [3] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/APAC/Reimbursement
>
> --
> Regards,
> Buddhike Chandradeepa Kurera (bckurera)
>
> Email: bckurera at fedoraproject.org | IRC: bckurera | User: Bckurera
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