This was a very long and detailed message. I will respond in-line to
keep the thoughts on subject. I hope that it makes it easier for
everyone to follow.
On Mon, 2018-04-16 at 09:17 -0400, Jared K. Smith wrote:
As an elected representative on the Mindshare Committee, I would
like
to kick off a discussion on behalf of the whole committee about our
Ambassadors program and how we can improve it. We encourage you to
read the plan below, make thoughtful comments or suggestions, and
help us frame the plan going forward.
Fedora's Mindshare Committee represents the outreach leadership in
Fedora. Mindshare aims to help outreach teams (such as Ambassadors,
marketing, the websites team, etc.) work better together by providing
them with a way to unify around Fedora’s core messages. The Mindshare
Committee contains appointed members to represent the various
outreach teams, as well as members elected from the community.
The following list helps to explain and what we expect from our
Ambassadors. This shouldn't be anything new or surprising to our
ambassadors, but I include it here as a reminder.
An Ambassador should:
Be an active contributor to the Fedora community.
* Show a basic level of knowledge about Fedora and its key marketing
messages (as shown through a mentorship program). Know the teams,
subprojects, working groups, and special interest groups, to help
guide new collaborators to areas of interest.
In other large projects I was involved with this was always a
challenge. Many new groups, sub-projects and SIGs sprung up
organically. As an organization we want to make it as easy as possible
for both the Ambassadors and the community to know about all the ways
to contribute. My hope is that
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/fedora-pr
oject/subprojects/subprojects.html becomes part of the documentation to
help with this.
== Messaging ==
As the public face of Fedora at many events, we expect Ambassadors to
be aware of the areas of focus that have been set forth by the Fedora
council. The primary focus for ambassador messaging at this time
should be on the three editions (Desktop Edition, Server Edition,
Atomic Edition) plus the three current Council objectives
(Modularity, Fedora CI, and Internet of Things).
The editions and objectives represent the goals and overall direction
of Fedora. We want to communicate the exciting things that make
Fedora unique from other distributions and projects. Ambassadors are
the communicators of these goals and direction.
I agree with this. I would like to make it a bit easier for Fedora
Ambassadors to find marketing material. We have some great resources
but many of them appear to be out of date:
*
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Design/SXSW_Materials#Brochures
*
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/Design?rd=Marketing_colla
teral
*
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing_Fedora_flyer
*
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Logo/UsageGuidelines
It would be nice to see something like
http://spreadubuntu.neomenlo.org
/get-materials with the ability to sort materials by release, edition,
and objectives.
== Administrative Functions ==
To this end we are going to make budget requests more predictable.
See below for details about Release Parties and the new Advocates.
Requests that don't fit in those categories will come to Mindshare
(or a later designated group) for approval. The goal is not to
centralize control, but is instead to get a way of thinking about the
impact of each request relative to its budget request. The council
has indicated that local events are better than large events. This
doesn't mean no large events, but it means we need to understand why
flying people around the world is better than having them advocate on
a regular basis in their own "backyard".
Large events do not always have to be centralized. You can hold a large
decentralized event that enables groups to participate locally, but
feel as though they are part of a global event. The Fedora Project
could promote a global bug jam, a translations jam or even holding on-
line sessions for Software Freedom Day that enable small groups to meet
locally and participate.
== Advocates ==
We would like to create a new "level" for people who want to be
advocates for Fedora, but aren't yet willing to go through the formal
Ambassadors mentorship program. While this is a bit of an experiment
and may need to be changed over time, we hope that having a new
"lower friction" process will help future Ambassadors get started.
Unlike Ambassadors, the Advocates will only be able to request up to
$100 in budget for a particular event. While we haven't decided on
the exact mechanism for allocating budget for Advocates, we
anticipate it will be similar to the low-friction process for Release
Parties (see below).
Sounds like a good idea. The ambassador program can be a bit daunting
for new people coming on board. This would allow people to get started
and grow in to ambassadors.
== Low Friction process for Release Parties ==
We are proposing a new low-friction process for funding release
parties. Anyone (not just Ambassadors or Advocates) can request up to
$100 USD in reimbursement for a release party. The general
stipulation will be that the person requesting the funds must provide
some critical pieces of information both before and after the event,
to ensure the event meets with Fedora's release party guidelines.
Only $25 USD of the release party budget may be used for
transportation costs, and a limited amount of swag (stickers,
buttons, pens, etc.) will be sent to the organizer.
The idea is that if someone wants to get a reasonably sized group of
people together to celebrate the newest release, we'll happily buy
some chips/sodas/pizzas/snacks and send a small bit of swag.
=== Before the event ===
Open a Mindshare ticket with the following information:
* Time/Date
* Location
* Expected number of attendees
* Expected cost
=== After the event ===
Update the Mindsare ticket with the following information:
* Actual number of attendees
* Photos of the event
* Actual cost
* Any lessons you learned from the event, or tips for other events to
help them be successful
* A link to your blog post, ideally in the Fedora CommBlog, or on
Fedora Planet about the event
That sounds like a great idea, but there may be some logistics to
consider. For example, would two or three events be sponsored if they
were in the same city? What if the events were in the same city, but on
different university campuses? Though I suspect that having too many of
these events to sponsor could be a 'good thing' I wanted to bring up
the topic of sensible limits.
== Becoming An Ambassador ==
In order to make this easier, we'd like to unify the processes, where
it makes sense, around the world. Ambassador's time is a precious
resource and having it spent on administrative processes or
unnecessarily duplicative onboarding is not a good use of it. Similar
to today, Ambassador candidates need to be mentored. Ideally a mentor
is someone familiar with the candidates location who can provide
guidance, however any mentor should be able to mentor any candidate.
Once a candidate has met the goals of mentorship (see below), they
get made an ambassador after a ticket is filed in FAmA and an
announcement is sent to the ambassadors mailing list. This isn't to
trigger a vote. Instead this is an announcement to ensure there are
no concerns. Typically this ticket is assumed to be ok after a week
(a bit more time is appropriate if there are lots of holidays during
the week). Objections aren't automatic "failures" they just lead to
discussion. Where needed, Mindshare will help with guiding the
conversation and getting us to a decision.
The goals of mentorship:
* Ensure the candidate knows about Fedora and is active as a
contributor.
* Ensure the candidate understands the role of an Ambassador.
* Help the candidate generate ideas for their first two events.
* Ensure the candidate understands how to request assistance, file
tickets, and knows what is expected of them before and after an
event.
A mentor should expect to be a primary point of contact for the
candidate for some time, including after the candidate becomes an
ambassador.
I agree that people need to be mentored by a person familiar with the
prospective ambassadors area, culture, etc.
== Becoming a Mentor ==
In the same way that we'd like to clarify how to become an
ambassador, we'd like to also make it clearer how to become a mentor.
In general, a mentor needs to:
* Ask to become a mentor.
* Demonstrate their ability to meet the goals of mentorship by
specifically describing how they are going to do it.
* Acknowledge they have the time to be a mentor.
Similar to the Emeritus ambassadors below, mentors will be surveyed
yearly.
== Emeritus Ambassadors ==
We are also creating an "Emeritus Ambassadors" level for people who
were Ambassadors at one time, but are no longer actively engaged in
the ambassador efforts. This is a way to publicly recognize them as a
former Ambassador and thank them for their work, but they will not be
actively listed as an Ambassador so that new contributors do not
continue to contact them.
Annually, we will contact every ambassador and ask them if they want
to remain active. This is based on the idea that stepping back
because of burn out is hard for many people. However, when asked if
they want to continue many people will feel more comfortable with
saying they are ready to take some time off. The goal is not to
encourage people to step down.
However, we also recognize that we need active, responsive
ambassadors. Every year will also survey our ambassadors about their
activity. This will be combined with the above request. In general,
we'll assume they are active an only ask what they've been doing if
there is question. This way we don't wind up with ambassadors who
receive requests from the public and never answer them. It also
answers the questions about title-seeking that have been raised in
some areas. There is no minimum threshold of activity, just that
ambassador activity is happening.
Excellent idea. I believe this has been needed for quite some time.
== What about FAmA? ==
The FAmA group remains an important administrative body. The goal of
FAmA is to help the Ambassadors drive administrative functions. The
FAmA group will consist of 2-4 people elected by the Ambassadors.
Members must be either current Ambassadors, Emeritus Ambassadors or a
current member of Mindshare. People serve a two release staggered
term and are able to be re-elected as long as they remain qualified
to stand for election.
The positions in FAmA are administrative. They are not in place to
serve as decision makers but are more focused on helping
administrative requirements get met and to make sure that things that
need conversation get surfaced. They help ambassadors succeed.
Initially they will probably focus on:
* Maintaining the Ambassadors Contact List.
* Maintaining the FAS groups.
* Moving people, upon their request, to the Emeritus group.
* Moving people from candidate to ambassador as they finish their
mentoring.
* Maintaining the list of approved mentors.
* Surveying ambassadors yearly about their continuing desire to be
active.
* Helping make sure budget entries get made in support of
treasurers/card holders.
We plan to keep regional card holders in place to help with managing
reimbursements. We'd like the regional treasurers to shift to
supporting the card holders, FAmA and Mindshare.
Surfacing conversations that are needed, for example, candidates that
want to become mentors about whom there are concerns.
--
Jared Smith
Thank you for taking the time to write this up and start the
conversation and movement towards the future of the Ambassador program
and Fedora Project advocacy.
Charles