would like to join Portland/Oregon team

Dwight Hubbard dwight at dwightandamy.com
Wed Aug 26 05:34:22 BST 2009


I would think it would make sense to try and coordinate with the Portland 
Linux Users group and Freegeek.  

On Tuesday 25 August 2009 04:35:04 pm John Montgomery wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-08-25 at 15:50 -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 03:30:04PM -0700, John Montgomery wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2009-08-25 at 15:05 -0700, Brian Murray wrote:
> > > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 04:17:35AM -0700, David Kaplan wrote:
> > > > > I would like to join the Portland or Oregon team. I contacted Dan
> > > > > but I think he lives in Florida now.
> > > >
> > > > I don't think there is much of a Portland team which is rather odd
> > > > since there are quite a few Ubuntu developers in the Portland area.
> > >
> > > I agree, it is rather odd. You would expect Oregon to be a hotbed of
> > > supporters (this is the home of the OSL, after all), but it's beginning
> > > to seem there isn't much of a team anywhere in state these days.
> >
> > Or maybe it's not so odd... maybe there's so much open source / linux /
> > ubuntu stuff going on here that the demand is already being satiated
> > through other forms?
> >
> > Perhaps the trick would be to focus on specializing a bit.  I.e., in
> > states with little open source activity, a general purpose interest
> > group can take off, but in one like ours with lots of open source
> > activity, it'd need to focus on one aspect, like marketing/outreach, or
> > Ubuntu end-user training, or some such.
> >
> >
> > Lately my wife and I have been upgrading our parents to Ubuntu (netbooks
> > all around), and spending time with each giving lessons on computer
> > usage... basic stuff like how to use google (maps are a big hit), how to
> > use OOWriter to make documents, how to get photos off cameras, and so
> > on.  Parental friends are getting invited over for help too...
> >
> > It occurs to me that there is a vast market of potential Ubuntu users
> > for whom it really doesn't matter whether they're using Windows or
> > Ubuntu, but rather which platform they can get some basic training on.
> > Seems like a local user group would be an ideal vector for using such a
> > tactic to gain converts.
> >
> > Bryce
>
> Bryce -
>
> I definitely agree and understand what you're saying about outreach and
> such, and I'm certainly trying to do my part. I've pretty much decided
> to quit worrying less about organizations as such (although it would be
> nice to have a bit more interaction, just for the sake of exchanging
> ideas if nothing else) and more about doing what I can do in the
> advocacy department. I'm neither a programmer nor an artist, so I've
> started (this month was the first one) to get out there in the local
> community about once a month and talk to people about Ubuntu, handing
> out CDs, offering installation assistance and support, etc. and just
> trying to raise awareness in general here in my part of the state where
> the concept is not quite as prevalent or popular as it is up North. It's
> been a varied and interesting experience so far, but well worth
> continuing in my opinion.
>
> -John

-- 
Dwight Hubbard
Website: http://computing.dwighthubbard.info
Email: dwight at dwighthubbard.com
Redhat Certified Engineer - RHCE #804007137224095
VMware Certified Professional - VCP #18529



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