LoCo tools, development

[Joshua Chase]

Here is my take on this, and I may be completely off base, but just hear me
out. For those who don't know me, I'm the Leader for the GA LoCo.

Over the last 12-18 months we have been trying to brainstorm, and implement
ideas to engage young people. The reason for this is, if you can get Ubuntu
into the schools, you can really make a significant impact. One more than
one occasion, our communication methods have been referred to as "old
fashioned, lame, not very interactive" so on and so forth. I think what
Martin is discussing has many valid points that don't need to be explained
in too much detail because I think it is clearly obvious.

1. We are trying to attract members who come from a "myspace / facebook /
twitter / youtube / SMS, MMS / video chat, IM" generation. We need to be
forward thinking if we want to make our LoCo's attractive, and inadvertently
the community attractive.

2. Trying to explain what IRC is to a teenage or college student is like
watching a deer in headlights.

3. Wiki's are generally extremely useful for organizing thoughts, ideas, how
to's and any other element you want to document. It is however not a very
great tool for interacting with others.

4. Forums are great, IRC is great, Wikis are great, I've also been using
Linux and involved in the community since 1996. So of course all of that is
great, for me, someone who has been involved a long time. I watch my
girlfriend's younger brother who just graduated high school. I see how he
interacts with his friends online through all the social networking sites,
through playing WoW, Xbox Live, video chatting, and IM.

It's time we be forward thinking is all. Be open to new ideas. I've been
working on a web platform for LoCo's to do live broadcasts of their events,
interact with other members through live streams, audio and video. A Place
to upload and watch install fests, release parties and the sort. Why?
Because we need to be engaged on all mediums. If this is something that
fails, that's ok, we move on to trying something else. So Martin, I think
there is a need here as well, and I know other teams that I talk to have
noticed it too.

I think using methods like updated platforms, viral videos, podcasting,
streaming content about the community will make us be more attractive and
will make people get the feeling that they want to be a part of this team
and community.

So party on, let's make something happen.

Kind Regards,
Joshua Chase
http://linuxcrypt.net

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 3:43 AM, Matthew East <mdke at ubuntu.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'll reorder the quoting a bit.
>
> > 2008/5/25 Jad madi <jad at syntux.net>:
> >> Maybe we do not need to develop a new tool or anything at least before
> >> using the current tools that we have starting from this mailing list
> >> ending with the wikis and discussion forum, what we need is to
> >> encourage sharing experience and ideas rather than a new tool unless
> >> you convince me with a tool that would increase the means of
> >> communication between the teams.
>
> On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 3:14 AM, Martin Owens <doctormo at gmail.com> wrote:
> > You can not plan with communication, communication is in it's self a
> > tool. now what your saying is that the wiki, forums and mailing lists
> > are good enough for communication; yet this isn't good enough for
> > planning and organisation, the wiki here is particularly bad because
> > it's so unstructured that you find yourself spending most of your time
> > fixing the problems that others have put in. As easy as a wiki is to
> > set up I don't think we should be using them for everything.
> >
> > I'll work with others to make the tools, it's up to you and your team
> > if you want to use them. As it always is. I just won't be help back by
> > a belief that what we have is good enough, because it isn't.
>
> I have to say I don't think that is a satisfactory response to an
> honest query, which I share myself.
>
> I'm not a big fan of setting up new websites when existing community
> resources exist (wiki, this mailing list, Fridge, UWN, etc). The
> advantage of the existing community tools, is that all the teams in
> the community use them, not just local teams, so there is better
> inter-team communication. On the other hand a new website gives
> everyone an extra resource that they need to follow *in addition* to
> the existing ones, which is burdensome.
>
> While I understand what you are saying about the deficiencies of the
> wiki, the Ubuntu community currently uses the wiki for its collective
> organisation, and departing from that for any team is a serious step.
> Obviously, it's possible that you have something in mind that the
> existing tools can't address, but if you are talking about setting up
> a website for local teams to use, I think you have to at least explain
> in detail what your ideas are, and why the existing resources aren't
> good enough.
>
> --
> Matthew East
> http://www.mdke.org
> gnupg pub 1024D/0E6B06FF
>
> --
> loco-contacts mailing list
> loco-contacts at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/loco-contacts
>



-- 
Joshua Chase
GMT - 5:00
http://www.linuxcrypt.net
http://www.cigarbros.net
gtalk: joshua.d.chase
skype: joshua.chase
Grand Central # (404) 461-9919
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