Re-Energizing LoCo Teams

Sat Aug 31 00:45:02 UTC 2013

I think what has been lacking in the LoCo Council is thinking outside the
box and I think the upcoming elections offer a great opportunity to bring
in some change makers. The question is who will step up to do this?

Although I am dwindling my contributions to Ubuntu I really do hope to see
LoCo's be revitalized and be even more successful than ever.

I would encourage anyone who has ideas and solutions to please reply here
and share some solutions that you think can take LoCos to the next level or
blog about it on Planet.

I encourage the community to nominate forward thinking change makers to
fill some of the seats on the LoCo Council.

On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 12:30 PM, Jono Bacon <jono at ubuntu.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I believe that in the entire history of Ubuntu we are at the most
> exciting time we have ever experienced.
>
> With Ubuntu we set out with a clear mission: to build an elegant,
> beautiful, Free Software platform that brings powerful, easily
> accessible, technology to all. We are gritted in our determination
> around this mission.
>
> All the pieces are starting to come together. A powerful converged
> platform, a beautiful user experience, a new SDK and app upload
> process, powerful cloud orchestration technologies, and a growing
> eco-system of users, app developers, and devops.
>
> Awesome technology is not enough though. Silicon Valley is littered
> with the corpses of many great technologies that didn't catch on. The
> key to successful, living, breathing technology is *adoption* and
> *passionate users and developers*.
>
> ## Building Adoption
>
> LoCo Teams are a *critical* piece of how we drive this adoption.
>
> LoCo teams are our front-line troops out there living Ubuntu and
> sharing it with others. If we have successful LoCo teams we will have
> a successful Ubuntu.
>
> In recent years we have faced some challenges with LoCo Teams though.
> Fewer people have been participating in teams, we have some rather
> bureaucratic processes in place for how and where people can form
> teams, and LoCo teams are not as optimized for success as they could
> be. Put simple, I feel our LoCo Team community could benefit from
> stronger and more visible leadership.
>
> I want to change this. I want to re-energize our LoCo community to
> bring out the best in our wider community and to open doors to more
> and more people who can be touched by Ubuntu. I am not talking about
> just welcoming Linux fans to LoCo teams...but app developers, content
> creators, devops, partners, general users, and more.
>
> The potential is tantalizing.
>
> For us to achieve this though we need a crisp strategy.
>
> At UDS the other day we had a session that I found personally rather
> frustrating. At every UDS we always have a session about LoCo Teams,
> and there are always lots of ideas around what LoCo teams should be
> doing and how we can support them. These ideas are usually expressed
> as "*we should do XYZ*" or "*the problem with LoCo teams is XYZ and we
> need to fix that*". We always have lots of ideas but few people are
> willing to sign up to work items to deliver that work.
>
> Ideas are easy to have, delivering real practical solutions that drive
> improvements is harder, and we need more of the latter. We need people
> who are *willing to make change happen* in a practical way.
>
> There is too much opportunity with Ubuntu and bringing technology
> freedom to people to let our LoCo Teams wither on the vine.
>
> ## Help Us Lead
>
> Recently the LoCo Council announced a re-election for seats on the
> next council (
> http://lococouncil.ubuntu.com/2013/08/28/call-for-nominations-to-the-loco-council-2/
> ).
> The LoCo Council is the most natural place for this leadership to
> occur, and I want to encourage those of you who are willing to commit
> the time and effort to bring change to LoCo Teams to apply to join.
>
> I want to transition the mental model of how the LoCo Council works
> from merely joining meetings and reacting to agenda items and tending
> to the business of the week. I want to see the council bring
> leadership, challenge the norms, challenge our bottlenecks, and build
> a culture of innovation and change around our LoCo Teams.
>
> Our community is laden with great people who can bring this kind of
> leadership, and I want to encourage you to join the council.
>
> We need people who are willing to commit more than providing +1 and -1
> votes on our LoCo Council meetings, but people who want to think about
> the next generation of LoCo Teams and what work needs to be completed
> to achieve that vision, and commit to driving it forward. I would ask
> that only those of you willing to (a) lead and (b) commit time to
> actively participate in the strategy the council focuses on should
> apply. If you can only commit to joining the LoCo Council meetings and
> not driving strategy and leadership forward, please don't apply to
> join.
>
> This is not to suggest our existing and previous LoCo Councils has and
> have not been doing great work; I am tremendously thankful for their
> remarkable contributions. I just think we need to amp up our game, in
> much of the same way we have been amping up the Ubuntu platform. Now
> is our opportunity and we need to grasp it with both hands.
>
> This is a tremendous opportunity for great leaders to have a real
> world-changing impact on Ubuntu and Free Software in general.
>
> If you are excited about the opportunity of re-energizing LoCo Teams,
> bringing leadership, and challenging the norm, I strongly encourage
> you to apply. Please share your ideas for leadership and change in
> your application.
>
> I am doggedly committed to helping to make our LoCo Teams successful
> and I have some ideas around how we do this when the new council is
> formed. I am looking forward to working with our new generation of
> leaders to help our LoCo Teams to do incredible world-changing work
> with an incredible world-changing platform.
>
> Thanks,
>
>     Jono
>
> --
> Jono Bacon
> Ubuntu Community Manager
> www.ubuntu.com / www.jonobacon.org
> www.identi.ca/jonobacon www.twitter.com/jonobacon
>
> --
> loco-contacts mailing list
> loco-contacts at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/loco-contacts
>

-- 
*Benjamin Kerensa*
*http://benjaminkerensa.com*
*"I am what I am because of who we all are" - Ubuntu*
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