Re: Some perspective on how unimportant the board currently is.

[Anne Østergaard <anne oestergaard nu>]

On Sun, 2005-10-30 at 01:06 -0300, Germán Poó Caamaño wrote:
> El sáb, 29-10-2005 a las 12:47 +0200, Rodrigo Moya escribió:
> > On Sat, 2005-10-29 at 19:09 +1300, Glynn Foster wrote:
> > [...]
> > > If you need funding for what you think to be an important project, ask.
> > > If you need travel assistance to speak at an important conference, ask.
> > > Just ask, it's not going to do any harm. We may not have the finances to
> > > help everyone, but I'm sure that we'll make an effort for the important
> > > things.
> > > 
> > ok, so here is my petition :)
> > 
> > for the hackers meetings in Spain (3 so far), it would be nice if we
> > could have t-shirts, cd's, etc, to hand over to people showing up. I
> > guess for Chile that would help also.
> 
> The material will be more effective depending of the audience.
> For instance, in a "Hacker's meeting", CD's doesn't have the same
> "demand" as T-Shirts; except if the audience includes newcomers or
> potential helpers/hackers.
> 
> But T-shirts are more expensive than CD's.  However, stickers are
> cheap and effective in any instance.  I don't know if the Foundation
> could help providing material every time is needed; but could be
> better a mixed model (excuse me if I sound stupid).
> 
> I think it possible to sell T-shirts at a minimum price; and use
> that money for more t-shirts, stickers, etc.  But an initial
> capital could be needed, and then make a report to the Foundation
> about how the money was invested.  Being realistic, no more than
> 10 t-shirts could be sold in every meeting (but in Chile there are
> conferences/meetings almost every month; not all of them dedicated
> to GNOME in a exclusive way; but at least every time is one of the
> topics).  Good enough.
> 
> On the other hand, let me talk about a recent experience.
> Sometimes people get afraid to approach a speaker because they 
> look "the community", "the hacker" or just "the speaker" as a 
> kind of God.  
> 
> So, in a recent conference, I gave around 600 GNOME's sticker.
> I took contact directly with people and it was a good excuse.
> Also for them, every time they asked for stickers I asked back
> if they are using GNOME/Linux, how much time, etc. etc.  Some
> of them asked how to get involved, etc.  We broke the barrier.
> 
> Probably it sounds plain, simple and stupid.  But it's incredible
> how people get stuck even getting in touch; moreover when you
> need a point of start.


This is exactly what is needed.

It is a simple, easy and clever thing to do. A fine initiative and an
example to be followed.

It is called community building. If you are also kind, polite and
welcoming people as Germán does you are on the right track!

When we talk to and listen to other persons we get a lot of useful
informations and new friends!

I will vote for Germán as a new board member.

GNOME greetings

Anne
-- 
Anne Østergaard <anne oestergaard nu>