draft for briefing ambassadors

Thu Apr 8 22:09:31 UTC 2010

On Thu, 2010-04-08 at 14:09 -0600, Neville A. Cross wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 2:39 PM, Nelson Marques <07721 at ipam.pt> wrote:
> > Neville,
> >
> >  Without being disruptive:
> >
> >  "The One-Page Release Notes are enhanced by having a collection of
> > pleasant photos of people happily using Fedora. For instance, these
> > photos might include people showing off fedora t-shirts, stickers and
> > pins."
> >
> >  One-Page Release Notes and photos displaying people? Be mindful of
> > "Release Notes". My suggestion would be something for this as in what is
> > usually known about "elevator speech", and contemplate the following:
> >
> >  * What is our product/server, in other words, what is Fedora
> >  * Who is behind it, in other words, Fedora
> >  * Competitive advantages, heavily masked in order to provide: "Why
> > Fedora".
> >
> >  In practical meanings we should provide:
> >
> >  * A hook - Get people's attention to our message
> >  * Establish a pitch, 150-200 words (short objective speech, non tech
> > language. Even our grandmothers should be able to get the message).
> >  * Passion/Emotion - We should pass/trigger some positive energy to our
> > audience
> >  * A request - people should get the feeling that they are being
> > requested something: "use fedora?", "join Fedora" ?
> >
> >  I would suppose this is something probably different from "One Page
> > Release Notes", but it most likely is something that should be available
> > in one short document, and most useful for Ambassadors, as it should be
> > a small flyer (other benefits could be used, such as media covers, etc)
> > using this sort of "elevator speech".
> >
> >  For Release Notes, i don't see the relevance of community fotos, as the
> > term "Release Notes" might be misleading, to me it sounds misleading.
> >
> >  Just some ideas, no right or wrong... just some thoughts. Do we have
> > somewhere information about the goals and audience targets for such
> > documentation?
> >
> >  For the Ambassadors, could you provide information based on your
> > personal local experiences with your audiences on how you would like to
> > have something like "elevator speech" to work for you? If so, feel free
> > to share, I make myself available to develop this, with just one request
> > (as many know, I'm not an artist), the possibility of an  artist (or
> > more volunteers) to gather on IRC for 30 mins to discuss this with me
> > and ambassadors, to gather material to build a small flyer with me (I'll
> > handle contents, text and marketing related stuff, leaving the artwork
> > at artists choice). The goal build a small 1 page (2 pages most for
> > front and back) that suits the Ambassadors operational needs on the
> > field as a "evangelization" tool.
> >
> >  From my own experience, I would recon that a good slogan/elevator
> > speech should be strong basis for Ambassadors work and bring new people
> > to Fedora.
> >
> >
> >  nelson.
> >
> 
> I have to admit that I was candid requesting pictures. The idea, as I
> interpreted, was to get plenty on photos from where people that do
> magic, as the design team, can chose the more appropriated.   I guess
> that having plenty of material to chose from is a good thing. As
> Fedora is a community, giving the opportunity to collaborators to be
> on stage is a recognition of their voluntary work. When Tatica choose
> my picture to decorate the Spanish one-page release note I felt great.
> 
> As for elevator speech, is a really difficult question. When I first
> came to fedora I was looking to promote Fedora use. Then I realized
> that was a misconception from my part. Fedora looks for contributors.

So it should actively promote itself amongst potential contributors?
(won't this increase the role of getting more contributors?), from the
marketing scope of view:

 * Audience: potential contributors (on several fields such as artists,
developers, packagers, etc)
 * Goals: seem to be clear to me, enroll more contributors in Fedora
Community.
 * Means: doesn't seem clear to me, as much initiatives seem to be
targeting existing contributors. (are we focusing on methods we use to
work as community? I mean, git, wiki, irc, mailing lists, etc), forgive
my ignorance, but promoting the product (Fedora Linux) might not be
enough, as the means are usually the handicap that scare people away (I
have no background to support this, but seems a reasonable explanation).
>From a simple perspective, why don't care about submitting bug reports?
Have we any operations on that field? Highlighting the importance of
such feedback, and that's really a great ice-breaker that could take
more people to enroll on Fedora. It's a good "step in" invitation I
think. I understand that to developers the way as it is, is great, but
on other areas, I feel a very strong lack of strategic guidelines. I
don't even know (should be marketing) who should take such
responsibility on communities like Fedora. Driving a bit to other topic,
but relevant to me, while there are lots of scientific production
articles published about Red Hat and the corporate people, the
communities like Fedora have really no one looking much for them. And in
my humble opinion, most times they are not receptive for
means/processes/techniques that are used all over the place in the
corporate world, in fact sometimes I've even felt some hostility.

 In other words, what is preventing people from joining Fedora as
contributors is the human aspect of it? Because we should actually focus
on getting the real causes and act upon them. This makes sense to me.

> I need a tool that enable me to show others that contribute with
> Fedora is cool, fun, rewarding and useful. I have to be example of
> that attitude and I need to have picture of people proud of wear
> "blue". To me the big question is: How do we bring collaborators and
> keep their enthusiasm working for Fedora as volunteers?

I think I agree with you... but lets take this for a swift example... I
believe everyone think it's cool. Is the human factor why we are loosing
potential contributors?
Don't we have room/space to advertise the tools that make it so fun? I
mean git, irc and basically all the infra-structure. Why don't we pass
on a large campaign to hit everyone like how people actually communicate
and make it so fun:

 * Planet > ?! Could we advertise this as an approach tool for all
Fedora entusiasts and possible contributors?
 * Do we have a plan to get LUG's connected to us in some way?
(Ambassadors, please feel free to throw in some input... how could we
have a more solid connection to LUG's and make them more active in
Fedora?). There is probably no better source of potential contributors
than LUG's and High-Schools/Universities.
 * High Schools/Universities Programs of cooperation... Won't this bring
more visibility to Fedora amongst potential contributors?
 * The tools themselfs... I mean git and most of the Fedora
Infra-Structure.

 What I basically mean, is that most people here are more aware of the
problems we're having trying to reach people. All efforts are actually
doing good, and thanks to everyone who has been so commited. But this
doesn't kill the possibility of having some real Marketing strategy
backing up the contributors... And instead of waiting for free
contributions, should we be far more active in launching challenges to
the community?

 When I first joined the list my plan was not to get involved before F13
was release, so I could lurk around for stuff and make my own research,
I ended up being involved, but I'm having some very huge problems in
trying to understand why somethings are sometimes done. I don't know
exactly hwo to say this in english, but in Portuguese we call it
"desabafo", like a steam off...

 Anyway, i don't mean to be disrespectful to anyone, neither this should
be seen as negative to any contributor... it's just sometimes I really
don't understand, and we are doing lots of stuff, but I fail to decode
the real benefits of it.

 Ok it's a go to show our human/community side, but if we are getting
after potential contributors, it's not features we want to highlight,
it's probably our outstanding means that make us a leader in developing?
Wouldn't this reinforce our position ?

 As for the Ambassadors, this ain't clear to me also... Are they
prospecting in the field for possible contributors? What are the reasons
that people turn us down and not join us? Where do they gather such
information? I mean, aren't they the "agents" on the field? What are
actually their roles when it comes to feedback, specially on strategical
Marketing?

 sorry for the wall of text... don't know why but just got stroke by a
negative wave of frustration... somehow I feel my message isn't going
through in most cases :(

 nelson

> 
> Best regards
> 
> 
> -- 
> Neville
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Yn1v
> Linux User # 473217
> 
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-- 
Nelson Marques
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