<div dir="ltr"> <div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 5:33 AM, inode0 <<a href="mailto:inode0@gmail.com">inode0@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Ok, here comes a rather not well thought out collection of ideas for ways that ambassadors can reach out to the academic world. It is a bit rushed since I wanted to get it out before the meeting this evening. I want to thank Máirín Duffy for kindly spending a lot of time sharing her thoughts on this subject, at least some of which are included below. Thanks to others too who have discussed this with me in the past, some of their ideas may be contained here as well. I think it is fair to say up front that this discussion really isn't a counteroffer of any sort to the plan outlined by Jack previously. That plan is designed around a set of goals that have merit and should be pursued in my opinion. Those goals are not entirely clear to me but surely overlap with some of the goals I have in mind. Let's think of this discussion as more one about what *other* stuff we might like to do. Goal #1: Awareness Before anyone can participate they need to be aware of the project. So we start with marketing. While activities like talks to the CS Club or to the school's LUG reach some students, they unfortunately miss the vast majority of people we need to reach to raise awareness of what Fedora has to offer. One key group I want to focus on are students from non-technical areas. We have ways to reach kids in Computer Science and Engineering programs. We need to reach out to kids in Design schools, in Business schools, in Marketing programs, and elsewhere. It is really easy for us to see how someone studying graphic design could find a niche in the Fedora project, it isn't easy for them to see that without our help. Lots of young people want to be involved, but they need others to help them get started. I'm open to all suggestions about how to effectively do this, I don't pretend to have the answer. One idea is to unleash a poster campaign directed at various need areas within the Fedora project for ambassadors to distribute to places where these students will see them. This sort of campaign has its limitations and would need to be carefully crafted so those whose eye we catch know where to go and what to do to have it be more than "oh, that looks cool" and on to the next poster. Perhaps we could give talks to the art club or to a marketing class? I'm afraid most of us aren't very well equipped to do that today but with some help from people currently working in those areas we could be trained a bit in the language and tools enough to give an effective pitch I think. While we are promoting Fedora and what it stands for we can think about doing that through some non-Fedora vehicles. Google's Summer of Code projects are something we could advertise and promote. Getting faculty member mentors, many already exist, also gives us a way to penetrate the consciousness of the faculty. Doing what we can to promote both mentoring by faculty/staff and facilitating the pairing of students with mentors might be another thing we could consider. Goal #2: Participation After awareness participation is key. It seems to me that the single biggest barrier here is being intimidated. Even within the college geek crowd this is a problem. I can't hack KDE so I'll use Fedora but not go any further. We need to get across to potential contributors the vast number of ways they can contribute without being an expert at writing code. Mentoring, Fedora mentoring, is critical to engaging new contributors in areas where they can feel useful quickly. Jon is working on this with the bug tracking folks, I'm sure others are also in other areas. For this community we should find some areas with fairly low technical barriers to new contributors. Bug triaging, documentation, marketing, art, and what else? The university I work at provides several opportunities for booths as well where technology is on display. Getting a small Fedora booth at these events would really be great. Ambassadors can chat with students and others who stop, find their areas of interest, show them sub-projects where those interests might fit into the Fedora project, and sign them up with accounts on the spot. While all of the above has a university focus we should definitely also spend time with high schools and even middle schools where there are opportunities to do so. We have unbelievable contributors currently in high school who mostly seem to find us by accident. While I can toss out some suggestions for things we might try with these schools I'd really like to hear from someone like Ian, if he wouldn't mind, about how he thinks that Fedora could be presented in high schools to engage more students. I realize that what I have written is far from a plan of action. It is more a stew of ideas. At some point a plan of action is necessary. For now I'm happy to throw more into the stew and see what we end up with for supper. </blockquote></div> Hi there! Thanks for starting such a crucial discussion. I'm also willing to promote Fedora in my area. Until now I have only evangelized Fedora on a person-by-person basis. But now I want to address a gathering(something like a student group). For this very purpose, I'm going to announce the formation of a LUG very shortly in my university. I might also involve some experienced Fedora guys to come in and be a part of this inaugural session. I'm particularly interested in eliciting about *what exactly* to demonstrate to the audience so that they get hooked onto it instantly. I'm open to suggestions and further discussions regarding the same. Cheers! -- Prakhar Agarwal Fedora Ambassador-Delhi, India ____________________________ Linux User# 474643 <a href="mailto:prakhar@fedoraproject.org">prakhar@fedoraproject.org</a> <a href="mailto:prakhar@linuxmail.org">prakhar@linuxmail.org</a> GPG key: 8BC6532F "Life is the greatest teacher" </div>