[Ambassadors] Max's Blog Post re: Ambassadors Discussion

[Jeffrey Tadlock]

In reading Max's blog post on 2/24 [1] he brings up some key points that 
I feel merit further discussion on helping build a strong foundation for 
the ambassadors.

:Begin snippet of Max's Blog post:
"Part of this problem is one of localization. You can go through the 
process of learning to be an Fedora packager regardless of where you 
live, but unless you are near a place where there are already active 
Ambassadors organizing events, it's hard to get real experience doing an 
event.

Another topic of conversation was helping to delegate responsibility. If 
an event is going to happen, there are several roles that need to be 
filled. One is purely operational -- coordinating with the location, 
scheduling the talks, making sure that there are handouts or posters, 
getting swag, publicity, etc. The skill set needed to do these kinds of 
things is different from the skill set needed once you actually get to 
the event and stand at the booth or deliver a talk.

Once you're actually speaking about Fedora, now it's about the message, 
and I think that for a lot of Ambassadors, we need to do a better job of 
filtering. Freedom, choice, community model -- those are the core 
principles of Fedora. After that, you need to be able to say in about 30 
to 60 seconds what the high points of the current release are, and what 
the next release will include."
:End snippet of Max's Blog post:


Organizing an event does take some real work and for some it might not 
be their area of expertise.  I do think there are several things the 
Ambassador project could do to help lower this hurdle and increase the 
number of local events Fedora has a presence at.

My thoughts are based on what I learned from helping organize the Fedora 
presence at the Ohio Linux Fest in 2006.  While we prepared for this 
event we felt there must be a better way to organize for something such 
as this - something a little more cookie cutter to reduce the actual 
work load of organizing the materials and such and allow more time 
focusing on other areas while at the event.

I think one thing that could go very far in helping with some of the 
larger events is to see the Event Kit that Jack Aboutboul worked on come 
to realization.  The page for the Event Kit [2] is blank.  I think we 
should look at the Gnome Event Box [3] as something the Fedora Project 
should put in place.  For those unfamiliar with the Gnome Event Box, it 
is a large, sturdy box that they ship to Gnome volunteers presenting at 
various events.  It includes an LCD screen, a desktop computer, mouse, 
keyboard, various networking equipment, posters/banners and materials to 
help in hanging these things at the booth.  It is close to a booth in a 
box.  Something such as this reduces the amount of work that must be 
repeated each time someone from the Fedora Project attends an event.

A Fedora Event Box would allow an ambassador to request the box for a 
certain date and have it shipped to them.  When they receive the box 
they will have all the basic materials needed to put together a good 
looking booth for Fedora and also allow them more time to focus on other 
aspects of an event.  To me this lowers the hurdle significantly to 
volunteering to attend an event.  The costs of such a box are filling 
the box with the appropriate materials and then the shipping costs from 
event to event.  The benefits to these costs are well put together 
Fedora Booths and hopefully more participation in local events.

Beyond the Event Box, making sure people know the core principals of 
Fedora is important.  For this I present the Ubuntu Marketing Flier [4] 
as an example of a very clean at-a-glance look into the distro.  I think 
Fedora needs a similar brochure to promote what makes Fedora what it is. 
  We can also state where to get Fedora, where to ask questions and 
where to get support from the community.  We can make such a flier 
readily available for Ambassadors in a format that will allow 
ambassadors to take the file to a print shop for local production.

For Release Features in upcoming versions a clean, well formatted single 
page can cover the highlights of future releases.  This document can get 
updated for each upcoming release and be readily available to 
ambassadors to take to their local print shop for production for the 
actual event.

Many ambassadors also bring DVDs, T-Shirts, stickers, etc to events for 
sale from the booth to help defray the costs of getting us there to 
begin with.  Our booth at the Ohio Linux Fest had all of these and we 
were pretty successful at paying for most (not all) of our costs to 
attend the event.  Having templates that are ready for production and 
guidelines on how to give the information to the T-shirt maker or 
sticker maker can also reduce the amount of repeated work.  For 
ambassadors with their own ideas, they could certainly run with that, 
but for other ambassadors they can just take the templates from the web 
and use the guidelines provided on the site.  I see this as lowering the 
hurdle for event planning and organization.

In summary I see the following setup as greatly helping ease the 
organization efforts of attending events and hopefully leading to an 
increase in the number of events Fedora is able to attend - simply 
because we have made it easier.

* Fedora Event Kit (box):
This will include the basic materials to get a booth up and running.  An 
ambassador requests and receives this and can be assured of having a 
near immediate professional presence at an event.

* Marketing Fliers:
Two fliers, one brochure covering the core principals of Fedora - 
explains what Fedora is about, where to obtain Fedora and where to get 
support from the community.  The other flier lists the features in the 
upcoming release - to be updated with each new release.  These would be 
readily available on the web to allow the ambassador to locally produce 
the materials.

* Schwag.  Readily available (or at least clear steps on how to obtain 
the necessary high resolution images) images and templates for use with 
T-Shirt and Sticker logos.  Also guidelines on what to tell a T-Shirt or 
sticker producer to make sure you get the materials you want.

By laying these ideas out clearly on wiki I think the hurdles to 
organizing events can be reduced greatly.  This will either allow a 
person to simply request the materials and have access to the brochures 
to have a good presence at an event with minimal effort or free up 
valuable time for people who organize the Fedora Booth at events to 
focus on lining up speakers, prepping a birds of a feather session, etc, 
etc.  I know if there had been these elements in place for the Ohio 
Linux Fest we would have had a much easier time of getting everything 
organized.

And finally, when I helped organize the Fedora Booth at the Ohio Linux 
Fest I was assigned a "mentor".  This was a single contact that if I ran 
into trouble along they way or had questions in general I could easily 
email and he would either answer the questions I had, get me in contact 
with the correct person or get the answers for me.  I think we should 
continue this.  Let those of us that have organized events previously 
volunteer to be a mentor.  Most likely those of us that volunteer to 
mentor will be familiar enough with the Ambassadors and people within 
the Fedora Project itself to help get answers and help guide new event 
organizers as needed to insure a successful Fedora presence at events. 
We would just be a friendly ear to help keep folks from getting overwhelmed.

--Jeffrey

[1] http://spevack.livejournal.com/9394.html

[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/EventKit

[3] http://live.gnome.org/GnomeEventsBox

[4] 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DIYMarketing?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=Ubuntu_leaflet.pdf