[Ambassadors] Ohio Linux Fest Ambassadors Report

[Andrew Ward]

All,
the report for the FAMNA recent event is in text below,

Ohio Linux Fest Columbus OH
2-3 October 2015

    This is an annual event we all enjoy attending as ambassadors. 
Although the expo is only open for one day we all thoroughly enjoy.
This year we have sufficient Ambassador Coverage. Attending ambassadors 
for this event included Ben Williams, Cathy Williams, Jamie Williams,
Andrew Ward, and Julie Ward. The event was scheduled for two days, day 
one contained various talks and lectures and, day two reserved for talks
and expo hall exhibits.
    Ben, Cathy, and Jamie arrived Friday afternoon to scope the location 
and event venue out prior to the main event the next day. Andrew and
Julie arrived the morning of the event to set up and commence the day’s 
events. The event was located in the Greater Columbus Center downtown
Columbus Ohio. The official expo hall booth was scheduled to be open 
from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
    Although the expo hall did not officially open until 9 a.m. we were 
set up and ready to go by 8 a.m. As usual even though the expo hall was
not open until 9 a.m. we had customers already stopping by the booth 
taking media and asking questions. We came prepared with plenty of media
and a small selection of swag which included some pens, stickers and 
case badges. We held off handing out the T shirts until about 2 p.m.
We also had a few ball caps left that went to those who were 
enthusiastic about our product.
    Once the day got started we saw a slow and steady increase of 
visitors to our booth. During the first sessions of talks showed a few more
visitors waiting for later talks were hanging around the expo hall and 
steadily increased as the day went on. This event usually draws a large
crowd and has a loyal showing of some usual visitors that we see year 
after year. Every event that I have been to, it seems that the OLPC draws
some attention, in fact a lot of attention. Most visitors are not aware 
of what is actually running on the OLPC until we explain the parameters
and installed software. Several of the visitors inquired on how to get 
one of the OLPC’s.
    Throughout the day the questions that we fielded were unique and 
differed from some of the other events I have attended. We received many of
the usual questions that concern what’s new with Fedora, and why should 
I use Fedora were some of the usual questions that we all answered during
the event. But one did stick out with me and the group. One visitor 
asked tell me why I should use Fedora over what I am already using.
That question struck me that it was similar to the one we always get of 
why should I use Fedora. But the lead in question carried a different
tone and began simple soon turned to a complicated and one sided 
question. Once we found out what the visitor was using as an operating 
system it
became clear where this was heading. The individual was currently using 
Ubuntu and was very set in with what they had in place. I could see that
this was going to be a difficult sell to get our product in their hand. 
Once we had got the actual reason why this individual was asking 
particularly
difficult questions. We soon discovered that the person had become 
unhappy with the desktop environment he was currently using and was 
canvassing for a
new operating system.  We then began with the four foundations. Freedom 
was our selling point, since we offer more desktop environments than 
those of
our competitors. Once we had this person’s ear, we began with choices 
and showed the various desktops available. We also demonstrated the 
spins available
such as the Fedora labs, and demonstrated that there were various 
options in design, scientific and security as well. In return we asked 
does your current
operating system offer such a wide variety, the Freedom foundation is 
the basis for choice and Features drove many talking points with what is 
available in
each spin. Then we got into the First of our four foundations, leading 
the way for our community. Friends were our final talking point with 
helping each other
in solving problems. Once explained that if you need help there is a 
vast knowledge base that is accessible through many chat rooms, ask 
Fedora, and the vast
array of mailing lists to get help. This person did pick up one of our 
media DVD’s before leaving the table. If we were successful in showing 
this individual
that there was more to offer and do with our product, we were successful 
in our job as an ambassadors.
    The usual amount of questions for those who were already Fedora 
users did ask some interesting questions. In particular we were asked 
what the future
was for Fedora. Our answer is that we were going to continue setting the 
example for all the others and lead.
   We did manage to get some media to educational organizations during 
the event. A total of 3 boxes were given to three different educational
organizations before the day was out. Most of our swag, T Shirts and 
media were gone by 430 p.m.
After a long day of talking to people, we wrapped up the event giving 
away approximately 300 DVD’s, 3 boxes (450 pieces) of Media for education,
about 2 hundred stickers, 100 case badges, and a whole lot of Fedora 
knowledge.
   The event drew a fairly good crowd. I believe that throughout the day 
we had anywhere from 700 to 900 visit the event. The crowd did seem a
little smaller than last year, and the venue was limited to one section 
down from the two we had the previous year. Even though smaller, the
opportunity to spend more time in a one on one with people visiting the 
booth allowed us to explore and promote Fedora.
    Some of the sponsors that were also present; HP, Expedient, SUSE, 
IBM, TekSystems, Pogo, FreeBSD, and Think Penguin. Fedora was represented
with a vast diverse range of experience from novice to expert that 
really helped demonstrate the ease in which an everyday users showed 
they could use
the applications with no issues to the experienced command line and 
terminal users.
    I believe the Ohio Linux Fest was a complete and informative event 
for both linux enthusiasts and the novice computer user wanting a change 
from the
windows environment.


-- 
V/R
Andrew Ward
award3535 at fedoraproject.org
award3535 at tds.net
award3535 at gmail.com