Based on some of the feedback from yesterday’s post regarding my latest project I thought it deserved a little more detail. I don’t mean to be cryptic about it, I think I’m simply having a hard time describing the team. Something, obviously, that I’ll need to resolve quickly.
The best way I’ve found to describe this project/team is to think Open Week, just much more regularly. One example (not related to this project) is that this week we’re having the Ubuntu Developer Weeek, and something like this fits right into the goals of this project.
Basically this team will plan and organize regular “Open Week” style events to educate Ubuntu users on how they can participate in the community. Topics will range from bug work to documentation, packaging to loco activism, etc. Pretty much every existing team within the Ubuntu community will have a chance to present on what their team does, invite others to participate and educate them on how they can join in.. and this team will be the engine behind making this happen.
The team itself will organize these events, market the events, and also try to follow up with users as they attempt to participate in the existing communities. It has been interesting to follow some of the blogs on the Planet regarding the journey towards MOTU. This team would also help track (and help the user track) their progress toward participation in their respective community projects.
I want to make sure that new users know how they can participate, who they can contact for help and when they can find ubuntu training events which will make their transition toward participation easier.
I will be sending some reply emails soon to those that have contacted me. I will also be planning a meeting for this upcoming Sunday (Feb 24th) in IRC (details pending) for continued discussion and organization.
I hope this helps clarify what I was trying to say in my previous post. I think there is a real place for this type of project. We’ve got the best community in the free software world, let’s really help show that by being part of a project like this. A project which focuses solely on helping everyone learn how they can participate in one of the greatest free software projects in the world!
This to me sounds like middle management, the kind that gets in the way.
What is the problem that you are trying to solve? It seems that you want to push groups to do their ‘Group Week’ tracks more often and report to your group when that will happen.
I think that most teams would need marketing help to promote their open week thus making this sound like a plan more suited as a subset to the marketing team rather than a new niche.
Why do I need a second group to track what I am doing in the first group? If the first group cannot tell me how I am doing with my progress to MOTU (to use your example) isn’t that a flaw in the MOTU world that needs fixing? Telling a user that to become a MOTU you must follow this track with these people, but to see your progress you have to come to a second arbitrary group, that will put off those who dislike layers of bureaucracy.
Yes, I have to say that my initial reaction is the same as Chuck’s – setting up a team to attract users to other teams sounds unhelpful and overly complicated, especially one with the level of bureaucracy that you seem to be envisaging.
Teams do need some help in ensuring that they set up mentor schemes, improve their processes, use the suggestions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BuildingCommunity, and so on. But that should be done directly with the team… At the moment we already have a community manager who works on that, assisted by his team. The Community Council is currently working on doing regular team reviews which will also assist in this area (the second part of https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StreamlineMembershipApproval)
Guys I absolutely agree with this blog and I think what Christophe is trying to do is to create a small team of people to handle answers from the users like you two did 🙂 You have basically proven, by responding the blog, something like this is required and that information about Ubuntu Community is simply not consistent. Christophe is talking about management mix and 4P’s in managerial marketing but he probably does not know it.
My apologies – I obviously meant Christer, not Christophe.
to me this sounds like a “organise a portal” so that newbies (like me) can find the quickest way to either solve their problem or participate.
I read lots on various sites to solve my problems or to accomplish what I like to do. Often I am not clear what I need to look for. So it would be nice to have some guidance/structure here. But is this not better done in cleaning/streamlining the current structures?
i didn’t get what i was finding . i have to make a project on tigers so that’s why i was searching for some ideas for making it different.