Re: 3.0 parties - amazing job!

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Dave Neary wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Pockey & Fred are doing a really amazing job with the 3.0 release party
> drive - it is quite astonishing to see the number of parties sprouting
> up around the world! Truly, this is an amazing job.

Hear hear! It's great to have these events - they add a whole extra
dimension to the 3.0 release story.

> I would like to suggest capitalising on the success of the event in a
> couple of ways:
> 
> 1. Let's get the organisers of the parties & their region into the GNOME
> CRM for future use - it's easy to forget this later, as it is a lot of
> slog work - if we do it while the parties are organising then the job
> may be easier. This is something really easy that we could delegate
> across a larger number of people.
> 
> 2. We should follow up after 3.0 (about mid may, perhaps?) to try to
> crystalise some of these groups into local GNOME user groups. Perhaps it
> could be in the form of a survey to get some local information (do you
> have a university nearby? Do they teach computer science? Do they have a
> computer club, or a professor who likes free software?), or in the form
> of a call to action (Here's some news & an info pack - would you be
> prepared to contact your local university and give a presentation about
> GNOME to the computer club about it? We've prepared some presentation
> materials and notes that you can use for your presentation)
> 
> Or perhaps we start with the first one to get some buy-in from the local
> organiser, and then follow up with the second once we have secured some
> small action on their part?
> 
> Building up our network of local organisers in the CRM will be really
> useful, and I bet that it will be really helpful for future events.
> 
> I can contribute a copy of GNOME contacts generated during the GNOME
> survey last year, which should get things started.
> 
> Thoughts?

Sounds like an excellent idea to me.

I'm not sure if it's been done before, but it would be useful to
brainstorm how we can support and involve GNOME user groups. Perhaps
this is something that we could put on the agenda for the Bangalore
hackfest.

On a related note: Pockey has arranged for party organisers to send us
photos of their events. That way we can use them in future marketing
activities. (I'd like to add a photo gallery to gnome3.org.) Is it worth
organising a competition for the best photo?

Best,

Allan
-- 
Blog: http://afaikblog.wordpress.com/
IRC: aday on irc.gnome.org