Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-marketing (324 mails)

["Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier" <jzb@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 2:40 AM, Satoru Matsumoto <helios_reds@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi Zonker, Bryen
>
> Thank you for your replies.

Of course. :-)

> Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote:
>
> > Yes, you can do a lot of things that ambassadors do without being an
> > ambassador. One intent behind the ambassador program is to give people
> > an idea what ambassadors do, and to start organizing efforts. It's not
> > to say that some people weren't doing this already -- but some people
> > would like guidance as to what they should be doing, plus
> > identification as an ambassador so the role is more clear / crisp.
>
> That's because why I thought '... signing up for this program will be a
> good entrance for the people who want to contribute in marketing area.'
>
> If someone wants to become an Ambassador, he or she can, as long as he
> or she ...
> * does some suggested works to help promote and introduce openSUSE
>  distribution and/or project

Or comes up with new ways to promote and introduce openSUSE -- we
don't limit people to just the ideas we have so far on the wiki.

> * upholds the Guiding Principles
> * conduct himself or herself in a professional and courteous manner
>
> If I understand correctly, whether someone is an appropriate Ambassador
> or not mostly depends on if he or she has a will to contribute openSUSE
> or not. Any special skills or knowledges are not required for becoming
> an Ambassador, right ?

Well, an ambassador should have a fair amount of knowledge about
openSUSE, but they don't need to be a developer, etc.

> We - I mean, guys on this list - can share an awareness of 'what kind of
> persons are the Ambassadors'. But people outside our community or new to
> openSUSE might consider Ambassadors 'official representative persons
> from openSUSE project'.

There seems to be a lot of interest in whether an ambassador is
"official" or not. (Saigkill also brought this up.)

What constitutes "official," really? And people outside the community
who don't understand the structure of projects may see anyone talking
about openSUSE as "official," really.

> When I participated in a panel discussion at Linux World/Tokyo last
> year, I introduced myself as a CCO - Chief Chore ;-) Officer - of
> openSUSE Japanese community. Of course it was a joke. I was afraid of
> being misunderstood by audience that I were Novell person or one of the
> *officially acknowledged* representative of openSUSE project. You know,
> what I talked in the panel discussion are just my personal thoughts and
> opinions, not the official comments by openSUSE project at all. I didn't
> want to bring confusion for that.

If you're out promoting openSUSE, I'm not sure it really is necessary
to be "officially acknowledged" as a "representative" of the project.

Common sense applies, of course -- if someone wants to do a press
interview of some kind and the questions get into a discussion of
Novell's products and things of that nature, then obviously that
should be done by someone actually working for Novell. If the
questions concern the openSUSE board or governance, then it might not
be appropriate to have someone not in one of those "official"
positions.

But generally -- to speak about the project and promote the project, I
don't think it's required that someone be "official." The more deeply
involved with the project a person is, of course, the more they'll be
able to answer a wider range of questions.

> If I introduced myself as an 'openSUSE Ambassador' at that time, don't
> you think the audience might have easily considered me a kind of
> representative of openSUSE project ?

Maybe, but 1) where's the harm in that? And 2) what makes you think
they didn't consider you a representative of the project anyway?

If you see harm in that, I'd wonder why - the only good reason I can
think of to distinguish official vs. unofficial people is in the event
someone says something that would be embarrassing to the project --
and I doubt that's the case with you! :-)

The structure of open source projects is very different than
companies. People read a lot into it when anyone speaks for or about a
project, and it's a natural assumption for many people to assume that
someone is "official," and I'm not sure it's worth too much effort to
spend our time trying to convince them otherwise when you could be
spending that time promoting open source and Linux.

If you're concerned about whether you're official or not, I'd suggest
thinking as if you *are an official spokesperson and being precise and
accurate in what you say, and *never try to answer a question that
you're not qualified to speak about. (And when I say "you" I mean
everybody reading the list, not just Satoru.)

> > At the moment, no. In the near term, I see the ambassador group being
> > the people who have a louder voice in planning our show presence and
> > having some voice in what we as a project decide to sponsor.
> >
> > As for responsibilities: "If you're working to promote openSUSE in
> > your area or online, you're an Ambassador in good standing as long as
> > you uphold the Guiding Principles of the project and conduct yourself
> > in a professional and courteous manner."
>
> We should clarify the position of Ambassadors like:

> b) Persons who work for promoting and introducing openSUSE in their
>   regions, countries or cities, have some rights and benefits on the
>   bases of assuming obligation for something and can represent the
>   openSUSE project
>
> As long as I can see, our choice ATM is a). It may not be wrong.
> However, IMHO, we have to watch out for jumbling a) and b).

I think that it's closer to b, but we're not (at the moment)
specifying the obligations (it's up to the individual ambassador to
choose how they're going to proceed).

> You know, there's no need to be approved by someone, in order to become
> an Ambassador. And, it must be impossible for everyone to do everything
> that are suggested as Ambassadors ToDos alone as a volunteer. So,
> someone who just wants to help out in the openSUSE booth at events, for
> example, but doesn't have an interest in other things, enough experience
> or knowledge on openSUSE, can also become an Ambassador, right ?  How
> come such an Ambassador can be 'the correct representative'?

This is something I'm trying to avoid -- i.e., choosing one person
over another as the "correct" representative. This has a potential to
be very discouraging to other people.

> If we expect Ambassadors to be representatives somehow, we need to do
> screening for that. For example:

It's not a bad idea to "screen" new ambassadors and help mentor them.
We need more people do to this, though. Are you volunteering? :-)

You have some good ideas, so I hope you'll sign up and continue to be
involved, and help manage the project.

As with any open source project - those that do the work help define
the processes and set the standards. I'd love to see the ambassadors
become as self-organized as the Weekly News team.

Best,

Zonker
-- 
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier <jzb@xxxxxxxxxx>
openSUSE Community Manager: http://zonker.opensuse.org
Blogs: http://blogs.zdnet.com/community | http://www.dissociatedpress.net
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