Initiatives/CommunityOutreachRevamp

Objective: Fedora Community Outreach Revamp

Goal

This objective will be an initiative to revamp several community outreach teams within Fedora that are struggling to function, or need more support to truly become a success. The objective will bring together Ambassadors, Ambassador Emeritus, Join SIG, and Advocates all under the same umbrella of CommOps in a clear and cohesive structure.

Logic Model

Outcomes & Deliverables

The desired outcome for the Community Outreach Revamp is for Fedora’s outreach teams to be functioning successfully. The teams should be reinvigorated, understand their different roles clearly, and have all the tools to effectively outreach. Another desired outcome for this revamp is to rebuild contributor fulfillment in various ways.

Deliverables

Completion of Role Handbooks for CommOps, Join SIG, Advocate, Ambassador, Ambassador Emeritus. Timeline: February 2021 - June 2021
Formalized and documented process for reps to Mindshare. Timeline: February 2021 - June 2021
Execution and analysis of Community Outreach survey. Timeline: December 2020 - January 2021
Execution and documentation of Mindshare Team Interviews Timeline: July 2020 - February 2021
Branding for CommOps team/subteams. Timeline: April 2021 - September 2021
Draft and execution of Marketing plan. Timeline: June 2021 - December 2021
Translations of Role Handbooks into 5-8 key languages. Timeline: June 2021 - December 2021
Community health survey for future use (periodically, every year). Timeline: September 2021 - December 2021
Update and add to CommOps docs page to make it a complete indexed set of resources for each team under the CommOps umbrella. Timeline: June 2021-September 2021
Informal polls to be developed and implemented (by the Revamp team at first and later by other teams) to measure awareness. Timeline: September 2021 - December 2021

Outcomes

The Ambassador team is full of active contributors who know what to do and how to do it.
The process for how to organize events and request swag is well known to all Ambassadors, and those within the larger CommOps umbrella.
Members from CommOps & subteams are practicing new/updated forms of organized community outreach.
Clear onboarding documentation and process on how to get involved in the Community Outreach teams.
Brand awareness from CommOps new structure is beginning to grow based on branding and relevant marketing plans.
More contributors engaged in the Ambassadors program, but also the CommOps team overall.
Weekly meetings for Community Outreach.

Further details on the Revamp outcomes

Inactive ambassadors - Add a cadence into the Ambassador program for annual cleanups by identifying inactive ambassadors every 6 months. Move inactive ambassadors to Emeritus after reaching out to them. Measure ambassadors' knowledge of the Ambassador activities/processes through a specific survey for the members currently active in the Ambassador team.
Event organizing & swag request - Fedora contributors tend to self-organize events and not report to the community about their activities. With the Revamp, it is expected to have an increase of information regarding the activities happening by making the reporting process more decentralized (from Mindshare) and give people the opportunity to share their local community news more easily. We will measure the effectiveness of this by comparing swag requests and event reports from the past.
CommOps & subteams are practising new/updated forms of organized community outreach - Informal polls, as well as 1 and 2-year surveys, will help evaluate community outreach of these teams. Although, it might be tough to determine who is representing which request because there is a lot of overlap in membership on these teams.
Clear onboarding documentation in the Community Outreach teams - The CommOps, Ambassador, Ambassador Emeritus, Ambassador Mentor, Advocate, and Join teams are rolled up into one Docs page with a set of comprehensive indexed resources and information. This will also include documentation and a cadence for updating these pages.
Brand awareness from CommOps - Informal polls, as well as 1 and 2-year surveys, will help evaluate brand awareness.
More contributors engaged in the Ambassadors program & the CommOps teams - Given the tendency of the Fedora contributors to self-organize, one of the paths we are detailing for the Revamp is providing templates, resources, and most importantly, how to receive $resources from the Mindshare Committee. So, if we can see that most folks are choosing to self organize we would ideally see over time consistent page views/downloads of key resources and an increase in Mindshare Committee requests for $resources.
Weekly meetings for Community Outreach - Establish weekly meetings for community outreach that will be open to all of the Outreach teams. We expect a base of 6-10 folks who regularly show up. All others on these teams will be encouraged to attend when they need support or are able.

Community feedback on the Discussion topic: https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/t/fedora-objective-proposal-community-outreach-revamp/25928

Scope of Work

Mindshare Committee

The Mindshare Committee will help guide the TTF and the revamp by consulting and doing check-ins at the regular Mindshare meeting.

The Mindshare Committee will also create a marketing plan for roll-out in and out of the Fedora community.

Temporary Task Force (TTF)

This is a temporary working group dedicated to working on three specific tasks:

1. Clean up Ambassador Group

2. Create Role Handbooks

3. Survey community on the role of Ambassador/Community outreach in 2020.

CommOps Team

Develop interview questions and conduct research interviews with teams/active members of each Mindshare team and document their current responsibilities. Cross-over work to Team Directories.

Design Team

Develop a brand around the new CommOps structure, including an icon set.

Docs Team

Consult and help update various Docs pages across the various websites for the different Community Outreach teams.

Translations Team

Translate role handbooks into various key languages once it has been completed.

Objective Leads

Mariana Balla

Sumantro Mukherjee

Note: Mariana & Sumantro will share one vote in Council votes.

Support:

Marie Nordin

Timeframe

8-12 months.

Relevant Links

- [Nest 2022 Translations Sprint - August 2022]

Blog Posts

- Fedora Ambassadors Revamp 2020 - call for volunteers - July 2020

- Fedora Community Outreach Revamp: Update! - August 2020

- Ambassadors Revamp Volunteer Kick-Off - September 2020

- Ambassadors Revamp Volunteer Kick-Off Revisited - September 2020

- Fedora Outreach Revamp: Update #2 - September 2020

- Fedora Community Outreach Revamp Update #3 - November 2020

- Community Outreach Revamp: call for AMA questions

- Fedora Community Outreach Revamp AMA - December 2020

- Community Outreach Revamp Objective - January 2021

- Fedora Community Outreach Revamp Update #4 - February 2021

- Community Survey Results Summary - March 2021

- Community Outreach Revamp #5 - April 2021

- Fedora Community Outreach Revamp Update #6 - June 2021

- Community Outreach Revamp @ Nest: Docs Session - July 2021

- Fedora Community Outreach Revamp - Halloween Update - November 2021

- Join the Fedora Ambassador Call kick-off! - February 2022

- You're Invited: Fedora Ambassador Call Kick-Off - March 2022

- Fedora Ambassadors Kick-Off Call Wrap Up: what's next and how to get involved! - April 2022

- You're Invited: Fedora Ambassador Call - May 13, 2022

Press Coverage

Phoronix: Fedora Looks To Overhaul Its Community Outreach - January 2021

History

Proposal written by Marie Nordin, the current FCAIC. The proposal was approved by the Mindshare Committee. Co-leads were brought on, the TTF was assembled, and the work has been scoped. From there it was decided to ask the Council if it would be a good fit for an Objective. The proposal was discussed on council-discuss ML with some clarifying questions and positive feedback to move the initiative to an Objective.

How did we get here? Gathered from the community by various methods (tickets, IRC, ML)

- The Ambassador title has different meanings for different people

- A shortage of mentors for newcomers, and some unresponsive mentors

- Old Ambassadors are becoming inactive at a faster rate than new Ambassadors are being added

- Fast changes in leadership

- Current Ambassadors feel unwanted, newcomers feel similarly

- Lack of defined responsibilities

- Lack of new purpose

- Burnout

- Grown, not scaled

- Tired of repetitive tasks

- No visibility

- No recognition

- No easy way to report event attendance

- No clear way to measure import of work

- Feeling like there are too many bodies of governance

- Frustration of how to receive swag

- Comparing uses of money, not feeling like money is being used well

- Reimbursement process too long and complicated

- Feel like unpaid Red Hat employees

- Feels hard to contribute

- Feels hard to get started

- Conflicting information about new Mindshare processes and old Ambassador processes

- Not enough user facing information about how to get involved with Ambassadors, or any of the other teams within Fedora

- The “Fedora Ambassador” identity has fragmented with the advent of the Mindshare Committee Personal differences between individuals have caused some ambassadors to leave, and some local communities to stagnate

- No clear guidance from Fedora leadership, no guidance on what to say or do at events

- Outdated ideas of how to promote Fedora

- The Fedora Ambassadors lost financial autonomy and did not adopt the new process

- The technology world has evolved, and the way people learn about technology locally has evolved away from focused meet-ups and booths at local LUG events

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