LoCo Outreach via Team Cross-Pollination

[Grant Bowman]

On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 4:29 PM, Dan Trevino <dantrevino at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 6:44 AM, Amber Graner <akgraner at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 12:46 AM, Nick Ali <nali at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>>> This is an idea on how to get new LoCo members interested in different
>>> parts of the Ubuntu community.
>>>
>>> The wiki is a great resource, where new members of the community can
>>> learn about all the teams that make up the community, what they do,
>>> how they do it, how to get involved, and much more. But some folks
>>> still feel intimidated or overwhelmed by the wiki. Some just learn
>>> differently. Thats why Ubuntu Classroom and Open Week are great, they
>>> provide a different way to present the material to interested
>>> individuals.
>>>
>>> But Ubuntu Classroom and Open Week are pull methods, the user has know
>>> thats what they are interested in before attending.
>>>
>>> I suggest a push method. Lets take IRC LoCo meetings. Assuming a LoCo
>>> has regular IRC meetings, wouldn't it be great if someone from the Art
>>> Team stopped by and discussed how the Art Team works? How about
>>> someone talking about how to translate Ubuntu into their native
>>> language? What if the Documentation Team discussed what needed to be
>>> updated for the next cycle? This can be extended to every community
>>> team. Tie in slides and web pages with Lernid and the discussions
>>> become more powerful.
>>>
>>> The advantage to LoCos is that they get someone who is very
>>> knowledgeable about a specific aspect of the community to present to
>>> their LoCos. And it might make LoCo meetings less boring :-)
>>>
>>> This would obviously require the various teams to make an effort to
>>> reach and communicate with LoCos, but the advantage to teams is that
>>> they are actively recruiting from a pool of individuals who they know
>>> are already interested in the Ubuntu community.
>>>
>>> Thoughts? Criticisms?
>>
>> Nick,
>> I like this idea.
>> How can we as LoCo's make it easy to for the various teams participate in
>> our meetings?  Can we for example add a column to the Main LoCo Teams wiki
>> [1] or to the LoCo directory that would include the times for the LoCo
>> Meetings? Or created another wiki off the main for information like this?
>> This would let both Projects and Other LoCo teams know who would be
>> interested in having folks volunteer to pop in on LoCo meeting discuss
>> everything from Art, the Q&A, to Ubuntu Women and more.
>>
>> [1] - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoTeamList
>> Thanks for working this!
>> Amber
>> --
>> Amber Graner//akgraner//
>> http://amber.redvoodoo.org/
>> http://www.ubuntu-user.com/Online/Blogs/Amber-Graner-You-in-Ubuntu
>>
>>
>> Just me Amber.
>>
>> There are lots of Linux users who don't care how the kernel works, but only
>> want to use it. That is a tribute to how good Linux is.
>> Linus Torvalds
>>
>> --
>> loco-contacts mailing list
>> loco-contacts at lists.ubuntu.com
>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/loco-contacts
>>
>>
>
> We've tried to reach out before, but the effort has been spotty.  I
> think this is a great idea, but in my opinion we need some
> organisation, and someone to actively recruit for this.
>
> I think that, given the work some of these teams are doing (and their
> workloads), it would be better for "us" to go to them and request
> time, rather than expecting them to go out and find a loco to talk to
> themselves.  But you don't want 43 different loco teams jumping into
> #ubuntu-kernel, all asking for someone to come speak to their teams.
>
> IMO:
> There should be an easy way for dev/community teams to communicate availability
> There should be a consistent and  easy way for loco teams to request
> or schedule a speaker
> There should be a coordinated message to the dev/community teams that
> we'd like to hear from.

I like this idea.

The scarce resource is the dev/community team participation, right?
Amber linked the list of LoCo teams.  If a dev/community team is
organized and recruited, what next?  I think a missing component is a
list of ready, willing and able dev/community contacts that LoCo
leaders can use to request a guest IRC appearance or Lernid style
"webinar."  Would this list be some dev/community self-selected subset
of an existing list?  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Teams looks to me to be
missing some teams.  Maybe a subset of
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/IRC/ChannelList

Grant Bowman
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CaliforniaTeam