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-!- nirik changed the topic of #fedora-classroom to: Fedora IRC Classroom - Training & Tips for Fedora Ambassadors with your teacher Max Spevack (spevack ) - See Classroom for class schedule today and more info. 12:30
herlo wonderer|chatzil: Classroom#Suggest_a_Class 12:30
spevack hi everyone 12:30
franciscod spevack: hi.. 12:30
@nirik not much of a break there, but we are ready with the next class... take it away spevack! 12:30
linuxguru hello spevack 12:30
vartsu_ hi 12:30
heftig hi 12:30
wonderer|chatzil hy spevack. 12:30
spevack thanks nirik 12:30
sherry151 hello 12:30
zubair linuxguru, the documents will be added on the fedora project? 12:30
linuxguru zubair, yes. 12:30
spevack greetings to all -- i see a few irc nicks that I don't recognize, which is good, since this class is meant in particular for folks who are relatively new to Fedora 12:31
zubair linuxguru, when 12:31
spevack I'd like to welcome everyone to the Ambassador Tips & Training session of Fedora classroom. I'm your professor, Max Spevack. If you want to know a bit about me, feel free to check out my Fedora user page -- MaxSpevack 12:31
wonderer|chatzil :-) 12:31
spevack My hope is that this session will be interactive, so please don't be shy about asking any questions as they come up. The total number of Fedora Ambassadors has grown 30% in the last six months, so the purpose of this hour is to make sure that any new Ambassadors who have joined the project understand how Fedora Ambassadors works, what your local resources are, and how you can be an effective member of this community. 12:31
* spevack has a bit of pre-prepared material that he can just paste in :) 12:31
zer0c00l :-) 12:32
* sseiersen is a new ambassador. 12:32
spevack sseiersen: where are you located? 12:32
sseiersen Maryland, USA 12:32
spevack cool 12:32
spevack Let's start by outlining the most important functions of Fedora Ambassadors. 12:32
spevack (in no particular order) 12:32
spevack (1) Fedora Ambassadors are often the "public face" of Fedora in their region, country, or city. 12:32
* wonderer|chatzil seems to be a senior-ambassador with some questions ;-), located in germany, europewide experience ;-) 12:32
spevack Fedora Ambassadors organize the events in which people are exposed to Fedora, and learn about the values of the Fedora Project -- freedom, friends, features, first. I'll talk more later about the unique role that Ambassadors have in bringing the values of Fedora to the general public. 12:33
RocknRoll hi guys 12:33
spevack hi 12:33
spevack welcome 12:33
spevack (2) Fedora Ambassadors are one of the most important means of recruiting new contributors. 12:33
RocknRoll hello 12:33
* sseiersen has a question 12:34
spevack sseiersen: please ask it 12:34
RocknRoll guys i heard fedora class is going on 12:34
RocknRoll is it? 12:34
sseiersen Would it be alright to copy the log and turn it into a PDF guide for the wiki? 12:34
@nirik RocknRoll: right this very second. ;) 12:34
spevack sseiersen: funny that you should mention that 12:35
spevack because one of the projects that is currently just starting up in Ambassadors is the creation of a training guide 12:35
sseiersen Really? 12:35
sseiersen I'd be glad to help later. 12:35
spevack and I expect that some of the content from these classes will help inform the layout of that guide 12:36
mahesh training guide? 12:36
spevack sseiersen: are you on fedora-ambassadors-list? 12:36
sseiersen Yes. 12:36
spevack mahesh: yes, there's a current project underway to put together a 10 or 15 page guide to "how to be a fedora ambassador" 12:36
spevack furthermore, this is the second time that I've given this IRC class 12:36
mahesh spevack : fine 12:37
spevack and my preparations for today involved reviewing the log from last time and rewriting some of that material in a way that makes better sense 12:37
spevack so the point is that yes -- i think it's very important that we not let things like this just disappear 12:37
spevack but that we collect up Ambassador tips & best practices and help codify that and educate 12:37
mahesh spevack : yes for sure 12:37
spevack one of the challenges that we face in Fedora Ambassadors is the incredibly diverse nature of that part of the Fedora community 12:37
spevack sseiersen, you've probably already seen it on fedora-ambassadors-list 12:38
spevack there are people on that list from all over the world, and I think that list more than many others in Fedora. That poses a few interesting organizational challenges and decisions, which I will also get in to a bit more later. 12:38
sseiersen Think I did, thought it would be good to bring up. 12:38
spevack For the moment, I want to get back to my informal list of what I consider the most important roles that Fedora Amabassadors fill 12:39
sherry151 http://issuu.com/borchi24/docs/fedora_quickguide_v1 12:39
sherry151 this is as far as it goes till now.. 12:39
spevack As already mentioned, (1) is often being the public face of Fedora. 12:39
spevack (2) Fedora Ambassadors are one of the most important means of recruiting new contributors. 12:39
spevack Personal interaction is one of the most important parts of community building, and Fedora Ambassadors provide that far better than an IRC session or a mailing list can. The importance of personal interaction is also one of the reasons why FUDCons and FADs are so important to Fedora. 12:39
SSlater FAD? 12:40
sseiersen Fedora Activity Day 12:40
SSlater k 12:40
spevack FUDCon = Fedora User and Developer Conference 12:40
spevack FAD = Fedora Activity Day 12:40
* spevack digs up links 12:40
spevack http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon 12:41
spevack FUDCon is the Fedora Users and Developers Conference. FUDCon is a combination of sessions, talks, workshops, and hackfests in which contributors work on specific initiatives. Topics include infrastructure, feature development, community building, general management and governance, marketing, testing and QA, packaging, etc. 12:41
spevack 12:41
spevack 12:41
spevack http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAD 12:41
spevack The Fedora Activity Day (FAD) is a regional event (either one-day or a multi-day) that allows Fedora contributors to gather together in order to work on specific tasks related to the Fedora Project. 12:41
spevack Originally, these meetings were used for local Fedora Ambassador groups to make their plans for the coming year, but the idea is being expanded to bring local contributors together in order to work on any projects related to Fedora, and (if so desired) to organize some sort of social event or to hold the event in an interesting location. 12:41
spevack 12:41
spevack 12:41
* spevack pauses for a moment to let people read 12:41
spevack Setting aside Fedora Ambassadors for a moment 12:42
spevack and talking about the general challenge of building a strong Fedora community overall 12:42
spevack my experience has shown me that it is almost impossible to over-value what personal interaction brings to the community 12:42
spevack People who work together on IRC and email all year spend a few days together at a FUDCon, and the energy and excitement that people tend to leave with towards Fedora is so strong, that you can feel it in the air. 12:43
spevack Fedora Ambassadors can provide that same sort of energy, in smaller and more frequent local doses. 12:44
spevack In fact, I'm teaching this Fedora Classroom session from the office of one of our Fedora contributors in the Netherlands, because we had a meeting of about 10 Dutch Fedora contributors earlier today, and they were discussing some of their goals for Fedora in the Netherlands. 12:44
spevack Not speaking Dutch myself, my role today was to show up with tshirts, shake a few hands, and buy some beers :) 12:45
cjg grolsch? 12:45
spevack cjg: and others :) 12:45
spevack 12:45
SSlater yummm 12:45
spevack Moving on.... 12:45
spevack (3) Fedora Ambassadors are the folks who implement the strategy that Fedora Marketing develops. 12:46
spevack It's important to realize that there is a lot of sharing between Fedora Ambassadors and Fedora Marketing. Neither team can be successful without the other. One of the biggest mistakes I see Fedora Ambassadors make is when they fail to realize that being an Ambassador requires more than just being willing to stand behind the booth at an event. 12:46
spevack How many people within the sight of my voice have ever attended a Fedora Marketing meeting? 12:46
wonderer|chatzil me 12:46
mahesh me once 12:46
* quaid 12:46
inode0 ?me 12:47
inode0 for some defn of attended :) 12:47
spevack so for those of you who have not, I'd encourage you to give it a try. Come to 2 or 3 meetings and see whether or not they add to your understanding of the broader picture that Fedora is trying to paint to the public. 12:47
spevack http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing_meetings 12:48
spevack Fedora Marketing meetings are on Tuesdays at 2100 UTC 12:48
* herlo has 12:48
spevack The best Ambassadors are students of every part of Fedora. Because you never know who you will meet at an event, Ambassadors need to be familiar with the active goals and roadmap of many different parts of Fedora. You need to be familiar with the key features that are being developed in Rawhide. You need to know what the Websites team is doing. You need to be able to explain the general process around packaging software into Fedora, etc. 12:48
spevack this is a really important point. 12:49
spevack *anyone* can hand out a CD or a tshirt. But the "stickiness" of that activity is small 12:49
spevack maybe the person will install Fedora 12:49
spevack maybe they won't. 12:49
mahesh how to track these rawhide and website team activities 12:49
quaid FWN++ 12:49
quaid Fedora Planet++ 12:49
spevack quaid makes an excellent point. 12:49
StabbyMc_ spevack ! 12:50
spevack StabbyMc_: let me make my point about FWN and Planet, then i'll get to your comment 12:50
spevack Fedora Weekly News and Planet Fedora are the two most painless ways to keep up a broad general knowledge of what is happening in Fedora. 12:50
spevack Fedora Weekly News is delivered every Monday to Fedora Announce List, and also to the wiki 12:50
spevack http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/LatestIssue 12:51
spevack http://planet.fedoraproject.org is our blogroll 12:51
spevack and it is a very important piece of our community. 12:51
spevack StabbyMc_: please go ahead 12:51
StabbyMc_ If the expectation for Ambassadors is that they attend Fedora Marketing meetings, run Rawhide, are up on all the roadmap features, and hold events, that needs to be on the Fedora Ambassadors page instead of the current "do what you want" message. 12:51
spevack StabbyMc_: a fair point. I would say that I don't expect every ambassador to do ALL of those things. 12:52
spevack two comments from me 12:52
spevack first, your point is a good one, and I would go further to say that most of the "introductory" 12:52
spevack material under the Ambassadors section of the wiki 12:52
spevack needs to be totally rewritten. 12:52
spevack I wish I had the time to do more of that myself, but I don't. 12:52
spevack so it will continue to happen bit by bit 12:52
spevack or perhaps an enterprising individual will take some of the points I make in these sessions and refresh the material :) 12:53
spevack the second point 12:53
spevack and StabbyMc_ you give me a perfect lead into it 12:53
spevack is to emphasize the importance of Ambassadors forming together to build local teams 12:53
StabbyMc_ spevack: it's as though you pay me. 12:53
spevack StabbyMc_: :) 12:53
spevack Looking at the best events all over the world -- whether they are in NA or Europe or wherever, the events that are most successful 12:54
spevack are ones in which a team of 3-5 ambassadors comes together to fill all the different roles. 12:54
spevack What are the sorts of roles that need to be filled at an event? 12:54
spevack I'm glad you asked! 12:54
spevack (1) Logistical 12:54
spevack Getting space, having swag, knowing who is coming, registering for talkst, etc. The "manager" of the event. 12:54
spevack (2) Manning the booth -- 12:55
spevack this is where you're going to want to have one or two people who are up to date on a lot of the most recent stuff going on in fedora 12:55
spevack because you'll get random questions about the current release, etc. 12:55
spevack (3) Speeches. 12:55
spevack I am a firm believer that Fedora should try to have a speech at every event we attend. 12:56
quaid ! 12:56
spevack I could (and probably should) give an entirely separate class about my own ideas on how to deliver a speech that effectively delivers the Fedora message. 12:56
spevack quaid: please go ahead 12:56
spevack in fact, any long-time ambassadors who have comments or want to add to what I'm saying, please jump in 12:57
mahesh spevack : yes for sure 12:57
quaid do you still, in your mind :), connect speeches with how much budget should be spent on an event 12:57
quaid that is, the more Fedora does there (special booths, talks, etc.), the more we want to spend there, attract resources, etc.? 12:57
wonderer|chatzil ! 12:57
spevack quaid: yes, i do 12:57
spevack quaid: do you think that is right, or incomplete? 12:57
spevack wonderer|chatzil: please go ahead 12:58
wonderer|chatzil I also think speeches and talks are very important. But there are many events wich does not cost much and many ambassadors are from around. 12:58
quaid spevack: I think that was unclear to some(?) NA regional coordinators; is that spelled out on a page, e.g., ranges of budget spending to how many activities Fedora does? As guidelines, that is. 12:59
wonderer|chatzil so, travel and accomondation does not cost much. So there are many enthusiastic evangelists around. 12:59
spevack wonderer|chatzil: to be clear, I am thinking about mid-size events and larger. For example FOSDEM -- I would have considered FOSDEM a waste of time without our devroom in which we were able to give a whole bunch of Fedora speeches. That room was packed almost non-stop 12:59
wonderer|chatzil ok 12:59
spevack quaid: noted. For better or worse, I try not to impose too many strict requirements on event organizers 13:00
spevack but that doesn't stop me from expressing my personal preferences :) 13:01
spevack i see some chatter in #fedora-ambassadors -- inode0, herlo, quaid -- anything that you guys want to add here? 13:01
herlo spevack: suer 13:01
* sseiersen has comment 13:02
spevack sseiersen: shoot 13:02
sseiersen Should we talk with the documentation team about the Ambassador guide? 13:02
sseiersen Get some assistance? 13:02
herlo my thoughts are these, the requirements you put on an ambassador are large, and while it may seem insurmountable at first, we're not looking to make everyone do everything, just having a rounded knowledge is best. And that does take a little time 13:02
spevack sseiersen: I'd defer to quaid on that. My initial thought would be that we should first try to figure out a general outline and get some content together, and the docs guys can probably help us formalize and professionalize what we're trying to do 13:03
spevack herlo: that's a really good point 13:03
herlo the thing is, give it a little bit of time and you'll be an expert. it really doesn't take much time at all to get up to speed, it's more about dedication... 13:03
herlo and we're to help you grow 13:03
spevack and if I'm coming across as too strong, I apologize for that. It's definitely a process. The first thing for an Ambassador to do is come to an event and just meet folks and watch how we operate. 13:04
spevack you'll find your niche soon enough 13:04
spevack like i said -- personal interaction is key 13:04
herlo spevack: I have one more comment if that's okay 13:04
spevack herlo: shoot 13:05
herlo StabbyMc_ just mentioned that right now he has extra time to learn, and he suggested some milestones to accomplish. I think something like this is great. If you are a new ambassador and want to help define those milestones, that's what the process is all about. If you have time to learn, you can help define what those milestones should be for a new ambassador to get up to speed... 13:06
herlo and in the process, we all learn... 13:06
* herlo is done 13:06
* fozzmoo thinks herlo is never done. 13:06
* RocknRoll i am totally free now 13:06
spevack Let me try to articulate one of the points that I want to make in a slightly different way. 13:07
spevack And that is this: 13:07
spevack Take any random Fedora Ambassador. 13:07
spevack kanarip is a great example 13:07
spevack he's an engineer, a packager, etc. 13:07
spevack he does a variety of different things within Fedora, and "abassador" is just one of the roles that he fills 13:07
spevack I think that the most successful events and regional ambassador teams are ones that recognize that it is IMPOSSIBLE for one person to know everything about Fedora 13:08
spevack and therefore are able to prioritize their most important events, and use those as magnets to bring 13:08
spevack various fedora contributors together. 13:08
spevack Take me for instance 13:08
spevack I gave a speech at FOSDEM a few weeks ago, and I made damn sure to bring a few folks with me into the room who were very technical, and I told them and the audience ahead of time that if they have some specific technical questions that are going to go over my head, i've got some help 13:09
* herlo totally agrees with this point. An ambassador is not *everything* to *everyone* 13:10
* spevack notes that kanarip is telling him in real-time that I am not doing a proper job of explaining how awesome kanarip is :) 13:10
herlo but they are the people on the ground, who are the Face of Fedora and should know where to look. 13:10
wonderer|chatzil kanarip is the greatest... hua! 13:10
wonderer|chatzil :-) 13:10
sseiersen :) 13:10
spevack any questions or comments? Am I explaining myself well? 13:10
kanarip i'm not... 13:11
StabbyMc_ spevack: understood your points. 13:11
kanarip crap 13:11
StabbyMc_ spevack: but you're talking about an ideal, yes? 13:11
spevack inode0, quaid: anything you want to add? 13:11
spevack kanarip: anything *you* want to add! 13:11
kanarip i was trying to explain him that i'm just one example of what an ambassador could do... I'm there, i never man the booth, i speak just occasionally but i send out the "right" message 13:11
* StabbyMc_ is the only active ambassador in GA, so is an island unto himself. 13:11
cjg sorry, a little question: how to start the ambassador activity? 13:12
* spevack notes that kanarip also enjoys long walks on the beach, and beer of any sort 13:12
spevack cjg: you mean, how can you organize a new event? 13:12
kanarip then there's people that get a speaker slot whenever they ask and talk to a lot of people outside of the fedora project during an event, and then there's people manning the booth, taking care of swag, doing all the stuff that i don't 13:12
kanarip spevack, i also like jigsaw puzzles... maybe you're the last piece? 13:13
cjg spevack, or partecipate to foss related events such as, for example, linux day o linux install fest 13:13
spevack cjg: well, from the fedora perspective, there's two things I would recommend: 13:13
spevack (1) http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents 13:13
spevack (2) attend the Ambassador meeting for whatever region of the world you are in. 13:14
spevack cjg: where are you located? 13:14
cjg Napoli, Italy 13:14
spevack http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/Meetings#Time_and_Place 13:14
spevack cjg: perfect -- then you should come to our next EMEA ambassadors monthly meeting -- I actually run that meeting -- and we'll be able to put you in contact with a bunch of Ambassadors who we have in Italy. 13:15
spevack cjg: we have a really active crew of ambassadors in italy who would love to involve you in what they do. 13:15
spevack in the past year in italy, we've had a variety of smaller install-fest events, and also some slightly larger events 13:15
cjg yes, i remember them 13:16
spevack cjg: we're also planning the next European FUDCon 13:17
cjg when he isn't organizing events what should an ambassador do? 13:17
spevack cjg: great question! 13:17
spevack sometimes that answer is simple, because the Ambassador does other stuff in Fedora, like packaging or working on the Websites team, etc. 13:17
spevack But that isn't always the case 13:18
spevack some people are superb ambassadors who simply organize a few events a year, and, like i said earlier, build a strong team of local contributors around them to help make the events successful 13:18
* RocknRoll i have a doubt 13:18
spevack for those kinds of people, what I'd recommend doing between events is (a) generally keeping up with what's going on in Fedora by reading Fedora Weekly News, (b) keeping more or less up to date on fedora-ambassadors-list, and (c) ... 13:19
spevack i can't remember 13:19
spevack ... 13:19
cjg doh! 13:19
spevack (c) oh, keeping in touch with other fedora contributors who live nearby you 13:19
spevack RocknRoll: what's your doubt? 13:19
spevack anyone else have comments, questions, etc? 13:20
RocknRoll spevack: i am a college student . currently we are conducting an National level techfest in india . we have about 10,000 participants 13:20
RocknRoll it scheduled on MAR 6,7&8 its going on.. 13:20
spevack RocknRoll: ok 13:20
spevack RocknRoll: did you have more to say? 13:21
RocknRoll spevack: where can i find the fedora ambassadors in my location .. so that i can arrange a video conference or some talks 13:21
RocknRoll by tomorrow 13:22
RocknRoll if possible 13:22
spevack RocknRoll: well, we have several resources for ambassadors in India 13:22
rogersinel1 Is there are list of contributors? And where they live? For example I live in Sweden and would like to know if there are more Fedora contributors than the 2 than I allready know of. 13:22
spevack RocknRoll: aside from fedora-ambassadors-list 13:22
spevack there's #fedora-india 13:22
spevack rogersinel1: yes, i'll address that shortly 13:22
spevack and a fedora india mailing list 13:22
spevack RocknRoll: are you on any of those lists or irc channels 13:23
RocknRoll spevack: yes 13:23
spevack RocknRoll: also, I'd be curious to know if you put your event on the FedoraEvents wiki page? 13:23
RocknRoll i am in #fedora-india 13:23
RocknRoll spevack: sure i will do it 13:24
spevack RocknRoll: did you tell anyone in the Fedora India community about your event ahead of time and just get no responses? 13:24
spevack RocknRoll: or did you not even know how to let people know about what the event is, etc.? 13:25
spevack rogersinel1: we have a country list of Ambassadors 13:26
RocknRoll spevack: no i have contacted a friend of mine who says about this fedora class then i came here 13:26
spevack and I'll paste the wiki link in a moment 13:26
spevack but let me note that it is deprecated, and that we are working on a better solution that pulls this information about of the Fedora Account System in an automated fashion 13:26
spevack because the current page requires manual updating, which is obviously FAIL 13:26
spevack http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/CountryList 13:26
RocknRoll spevack: for your reference the event site is www.psgkriya.org i am the site designer and one of the core team members 13:26
delhage spevack: rogersinel1's question was not only about ambassadors, but all kinds of contributors 13:27
delhage rogersinel1: right? 13:27
rogersinel1 delhage: right 13:27
spevack RocknRoll: well, I can't imagine you'll have much luck getting people to your event tomorrow, given that it's already the middle of the night in India 13:27
spevack RocknRoll: but in the general case for Fedora, you'll want to (a) add your event to the Fedora Events page and (b) talk about your event in your region's local meeting. 13:28
spevack As such, two very important pages are: 13:28
spevack http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/Meetings 13:28
spevack http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraEvents 13:28
* kanarip challenges spevack to a game of Fussbal 13:28
spevack rogersinel1: i don't think we have a truly global contributor directory. 13:29
* sseiersen has question 13:29
spevack anyone care to correct me? 13:29
spevack sseiersen: you get the last comment 13:29
sseiersen Where can I find the logs for the classes? 13:29
spevack our time is up in 40 seconds 13:29
herlo spevack: we don't, afaik 13:29
sseiersen Cause I gtg. 13:29
spevack but we'll move to #fedora-ambassadors to continue 13:29
RocknRoll spevack: ok we are conducting another one within 1 month i will try for that :) 13:29
delhage spevack: I am going to file a ticket about extracting that info from FAS 13:29
spevack delhage: thanks 13:29
rogersinel1 spevack: ok 13:29
herlo sseiersen: I'll put the logs up on the Classroom page shortly after each presentation... 13:29
delhage just have forgotten about it 13:29
spevack sseiersen: they will be posted at fedoraproject.org/wiki/Classroom -- the logs 13:30
@nirik thank you for the class spevack ! 13:30
spevack nirik: my pleasure 13:30
sseiersen ty 13:30
stickster spevack: great job man :_0 13:30
delhage thanks, spevack 13:30
spevack thanks all -- follow up conversation in #fedora-ambassadors 13:30
stickster :-) 13:30
-!- nirik changed the topic of #fedora-classroom to: Fedora IRC Classroom - Next class at 20:45UTC - See Classroom for class schedule today and more info. 13:30
RocknRoll thanks spevack 13:30
* herlo announces the logs for the Shell scripting class are already live: Introduction_to_bash_shell_scripting_Classroom_(20090307) 13:30
@nirik 15min break until the next class everyone. 13:31
wonderer|chatzil thx herlo 13:31
StabbyMc_ It'll be probably a day or so until I can add content to that page :-) 13:31

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