Re: GNOME.Asia focus, strategy and medium to long term plan

[Pockey Lam <pockey beijinglug org>]

Dear Fred, dear Emily, 

It's indeed a good topic for us to discuss :)

I think GNOME.Asia key goal is to attract more contributors to the GNOME
project in Asia, which include both GNOME users and developers and
anybody who is interested in contributing in GNOME of any kind (while
living in Asia). 

And we do want to have more local GNOME community e.g. GNOME User Group
or GNOME Developer Group that give supports to users / developers
locally. 

For communication channels, I think we haven't been doing much
marketing / promotion / follow up except organizing / promoting the
Summit once a year. So your email is indeed a very good reminder! 

As Emily said, the numbers of GNOME developers (contributors) in Asia is
limited (a lot less than those in Europe :) should we consider to
constantly promote / communicate about "GNOME in Asia" all year long via
different channels e.g. 

1) mailing list (we also need to promote this mailing list for more
potential contributors to subscribe via marketing / highlight in our
website to build our own database of potential / existing
contributors), 

2) IRC (#asia-summit is more for event organization and committee
members, should we consider to create another channel for people to
discuss / get help / support for GNOME in Asia?) 

3) Announcement / Press release / Blogging / Social network (status.net,
identi.ca)

4) We can also consider to build partnership with related FOSS
communities in Asia for link exchange or other kind. It can also help us
to reach those potential contributors / users and some of them may even
become a good host of upcoming events in their countries

5) Speak in different FLOSS related conference to promote GNOME in Asia
(in Asia) 

6) For our official website, should we do some modification to include
these messages and communications e.g. whenever there is news, or a new
GNOME programs, Google Summer of Code, project needed help and so on, we
can announce it in our website as well. Should we turn the website to
become like a platform for contributing / getting information to
GNOME.Asia than just an annual summit? Of course we should continue to
have an annual event and put information in the website, but we can
consider to start to think of a yearly long marketing plan to get more
contributors / build up our database. I believe it will help us to get
sponsors interested in GNOME.Asia as well, as they would see what are
active constantly. 

Pockey





On Tue, 2010-08-10 at 16:31 +0800, Emily Chen wrote:
> My fault! , cc: asia-summit-participants-list gnome org in last
> email. 
> 
> Please send to [asia-summit-list gnome org] now. 
> 
> Sorry, 
> Emily 
> 
> 2010/8/10 Emily Chen <emilychen522 gmail com>
>         Hi Fred, 
>         
>         Thanks a lot for raise those good questions. I was thinking
>         the same questions after back from GUADEC. 
>         
>         I ask myself many times: What is GNOME.Asia ? 
>         
>         In the very beginning, when we first start GNOME.Asia in 2008,
>         in my mind, I want to make it a similar GUADEC in Asia.
>         However, after three years, I realized that the fact is:
>         GNOME.Asia won't be GUADEC, they are different. One person in
>         GUADEC asked me one question: In GNOME.Asia, how many people
>         are local and how many are the people from GNOME community?  I
>         tell him, that 80% participants are local, and 20% are GNOME
>         people. That's very true.
>         
>         There are some fact: 
>         1. In Asia, the GNOME community is just start, not strong
>         enough as in European. 
>         2. We have core developers on GNOME in Asia, most of them are
>         working in company like : SUN, Novel, Intel, Red Hat, Google.
>         However, the number is developers are quite small. 
>         3. The local company who is using GNOME technologies like
>         CS2C, they are not involved into GNOME community and
>         Foundation. Red Flag is transfer to KDE now. 
>         4. GNOME.Asia 2008 in Beijing is like a platform to gather all
>         the GNOME people in China, GNOME.Asia 2009 is like a FOSS
>         event, more marketing and promoting GNOME in Vietnam. I think
>         it is really depending on the country and the cultural. 
>         
>         What we are going to do for GNOME.Asia 2010 in Taiwan ? Our
>         goal? 
>         1. I do think the community is very active and the local
>         people are interested in GNOME 
>         2. We are going to encourage them to build a GNOME Users Group
>         in Taipei, I talked to Max several times on IM, I also want
>         all of our team talk to them, encourage them to think about
>         build a users group after the conference. The conference is
>         only 2 days, but users group last longer. Pockey and I will
>         have a session on the last day of the conference, we will
>         focus on : How to organize GNOME.Asia summit and how to build
>         GNOME users Group. 
>         3. Invite the Taiwan GNOME developers to join GNOME
>         foundation.
>         4. Promote: Friend of GNOME, Google summer of code/GNOME,
>         GNOME Women program, GNOME store etc. 
>         5. Reach to other country in Asia : Like Japan, Korean,
>         Indian, Cambodia, Singapore etc. 
>         6. For communication channels, we have : 
>         Mail list: asia-summit-participants-list gnome org
>         IRC: #asia-summit 
>         facebook ? 
>         6. Reach to 
>         
>         GNOME.Asia is like a baby and now is a child. We do want to
>         make it grow every year to build a better GNOME community in
>         Asia. 
>         
>         -Emily 
>         
>         2010/8/10 Frederic Muller <fred beijinglug org>
>                 
>                 Dear committee members,
>                 
>                 While we're approaching our 3rd conference in Asia, it
>                 would be nice to consider what we want to achieve
>                 (except suffering from organizing conferences with
>                 third parties). My understanding from the various
>                 talks I have had with Emily is that we are trying to
>                 encourage, attract, foster, build a GNOME community in
>                 Asia.
>                 
>                 So what is a GNOME community? Is it GNOME users, is it
>                 GNOME developers, is it both?
>                 
>                 Do we want as what happened in Beijing, to create a
>                 lot of Gnome User Groups?
>                 
>                 Do we want to create communication channels, and if
>                 so, would they be users support vs dev support (or
>                 both). 
>                 
>                 I have been reading the recent posts on Guadec and I
>                 am under the impression that people tend to go again
>                 and again every year, creating a sense of belonging. I
>                 don't feel we have focused so much on getting this
>                 core group of developers (or if so, we haven't quite
>                 succeeded yet) in Asia.
>                 
>                 I'd like to get a bit of feedback from people on this
>                 list before continuing and then maybe work together
>                 toward a better strategy to strengthen our efforts.
>                 
>                 Thanks.
>                 
>                 Fred
>                 
>                 
>                 
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>                 
>         
> 
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