On Fri, 2010-07-30 at 08:30 +0200, Raul Romero (openSUSE Member) wrote:

Another idea for discussing and brainstorming could be use Google Wave or Novell Pulse (http://www.novell.com/ctoblog/?p=172).

--- Raúl Romero (openSUSE Ambassador) Perfil de [^BgTA^]: http://goto.bgta.net/profile ---

Or how about using our own Retro system? I'm not sure if Google Wave is the way to go. Many people complained about trying to make sense of the Google Wave environment when it came out and it hasn't been all that successful. Now, maybe Google Wave has improved since that time and it works better. I don't know. But, the other thing to consider is that there are many in the FOSS world who are uncomfortable about using Google's services. I'm not going to start a political discussion about that, I even use Google's services myself. But we have to be careful about what we recommend as our tool of service that it does not alienate some people. We want to make sure our tools are compatible with the broadest range of people possible. Now, as for Novell's Pulse. Hey, I think Novell puts out some really great products, and I used to be a Novell partner and sell its solutions, so what I'm going to say is not against Novell at all. Here's where we could end up with a long-term problem if we introduce the use of a Novell paid product, (or anyone else's paid product.) We, the openSUSE Project, are striving to empower our community to support and manage our infrastructure. If we use a paid product (even if Novell gave it to us for free), the number of potential administrators becomes smaller because many within the community are unlikely to have purchased and become experts in that product. Therefore, if we are to choose a new tool, we need to choose one that is free and open to anyone to become experts in. Not because of the philosophy of free vs. proprietary, but simply because we must ensure that the broadest range of potential managers of those tools is available at all times. Therefore, while Novell's Pulse is a great product, it simply does not fit with our particular community's needs. These are only my opinions, but I'm sure others would agree with here. Sincerely, Bryen M Yunashko openSUSE Board Member openSUSE Marketing Team lead -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, 2010-07-30 at 14:00 +0900, Satoru Matsumoto wrote:

...

On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 6:44 AM, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

...

We will have a first ambassador IRC meeting on the #opensuse-marketing IRC channel on freenode on the 3rd of August at 15:00 UTC. You're invited to join this meeting. Details of the meeting are at http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Ambassadors_meeting

Although I'm not an Ambassador yet, I'm interested in this program from the beginning and hope it will be of help both in promoting openSUSE and motivating contributors all over the world (why I haven't become an Ambassador is another story for another day).

I know IRC meeting sometimes is an effective and efficient way for discussing and brainstorming and it might be worthwhile to share the time with other members, but it is not always the best way to collaborate.

* It is very difficult to find the convenient time for everyone.

When we have a project meeting, for example, most of the *important* persons live in Europe or America and they are employees of Novell, so that they can join the meeting during the daytime on weekdays.

But Ambassadors live in different timezones and I suppose most of them are volunteers and it would be difficult to join the meeting during the daytime on weekdays due to their own jobs or schools.

* How much a person can commit the IRC meeting depends on his/her English skill.

Discussions on IRC meeting go along in real time, that is, those wishing to commit the meeting must have certain English skill. There is a very high bar for those who are not good at English - like me ;-) - to take part in discussions.

I don't mean to deny having Ambassador IRC meeting itself. But time and language are always the problems when we really want to bring up a global community.

So, I'd propose to have bi-weekly regular *global* meetings and separate meetings for regions or languages as appropriate.

* Each region and/or language will have its facilitator(s), who are good at English. * The facilitators are going to translate the meeting agenda and what we need to discuss to their languages and organize region/language specific meetings (not limited to IRC meeting - mailing lists or other channels would be OK) if needed. * Once the region/language specific meetings would be held, the facilitators will feed back the result of those meetings to *global* meeting.

You may think this is too much bother, but I think this will be helpful in solving time and language problems.

Best,

-- _/_/ Satoru Matsumoto - openSUSE Member - Japan _/_/ _/_/ Marketing/Weekly News/openFATE Screening Team _/_/ _/_/ mail: helios_reds_at_gmx.net / irc: HeliosReds _/_/ _/_/ http://blog.zaq.ne.jp/opensuse/ _/_/

Note that my discussion below pertains generally to marketing which all Ambassadors are part of the Marketing team by default. Since they're related here, I'm speaking in general terms. Satoru, I agree with you 100% about the issues you face here. And I would definitely *love* to find a way that we can involve people in regions such as Asia and India more effectively. To be clear, the current 15:00 UTC time frame does not always work well. It doesn't benefit the Western Hemisphere that well, especially because 15:00 is very early in the morning for United States. 10 a.m. for me in Chicago and 8 a.m. for folks in California. And for those who cannot use IRC while at work, it shuts them out completely. I sent out a mailing in the past to see if we could come up with a special meeting time that was more convenient for people in the Western Hemisphere with no response. So I continued with sticking to 15:00 UTC with the long-term hope that at some point we would expand to some other time zone to fit other regions. Now, let me tell you what we did for the GNOME-A11y team that I work with. I proposed and set up weekly meetings there that alternate each week. 07:00 UTC and 15:00 UTC every Thursday. Specifically so we could get our Asian team members to participate. And it actually works pretty well. It meant that I had to be up for a meeting at 2 a.m. every two weeks, but I didn't care as long as we ensured that everyone around the globe participated fairly. Would this kind of arrangement work for you? If so, I'm ready to do it for the team. In our case, I would suggest we have both time-shifted meetings on the same day. So I would attend at 2 a.m. and at 10 a.m. the same day. That way we keep topics close together instead of so differently each week. I ask only two things: 1) Do you think people will show up at that hour from that region? 2) I want a commitment of coverage. I may not always be around to lead meetings at that hour and I would like to ensure that we have backup person to lead meetings when I cannot be there. AJ is already my backup for 15:00 UTC, now I want to see backup for 07:00 UTC. This could solve the timezone issues. But obviously, it does not solve the language barrier issues and I'm not sure how we can address that. Primarily, openSUSE meetings are held in English, and that is actually a barrier we need to tear down. But someone has to come up with a creative solution that fixes that problem. I'm willing to discuss this in more detail with you if you are interested in discussing ideas. I'm very interested to learn more about the Asian region and its potential as part of the openSUSE Community. We must do more to recognize and grow and strengthen ourselves in many regions of the world and not be stuck in the easy route of just staying English. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts as well as other people's thoughts on this. Sincerely, Bryen M Yunashko openSUSE Board Member openSUSE Marketing Team lead -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org

Some of my thoughts: 1. Regarding the time issue, we must make seperate meetings for America, Europe-Africa, Asia. Each are could have the meeting the time it's OK for everyone. Every region has different needs from others. This way they could discuss the upcoming events as well. Maybe we have to discuss that issue to this meeting as well. 2. Regarding where we could do it, don't know technical about Google or Novell. We need a bot to keep full log of our discussion, that can be added to wiki for those of us who couldn't participate. Maybe that's why we need the Ambassadors IRC channel. Regards, Stathis -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org

στις 30/07/2010 10:48 πμ, O/H Bryen M. Yunashko έγραψε:

On Fri, 2010-07-30 at 10:45 +0300, Stathis Iosifidis (aka diamond_gr) wrote:

...

Some of my thoughts:

1. Regarding the time issue, we must make seperate meetings for America, Europe-Africa, Asia. Each are could have the meeting the time it's OK for everyone. Every region has different needs from others. This way they could discuss the upcoming events as well. Maybe we have to discuss that issue to this meeting as well.

2. Regarding where we could do it, don't know technical about Google or Novell. We need a bot to keep full log of our discussion, that can be added to wiki for those of us who couldn't participate. Maybe that's why we need the Ambassadors IRC channel.

Regards, Stathis

A meetbot already exists in the marketing channel. So creating a new channel just because you need a bot doesn't make a difference. The meetbot also exists in the project channel as well.

Bryen

It's not the bot we need. It's the place for the meetings. If marketing is OK, then no problem. Stathis -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org

Le 02/08/2010 11:13, Satoru Matsumoto a écrit :

most of them keep silence and haven't commented if the hour is agreeable to them or not

I hate IRC or similar instant messanging system. Please could you keep the mailing list? better have time to read before answer, and be able to participate when not in front of the computer 24/24? jdd -- Jean-Daniel Dodin Président du CULTe www.culte.org http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1412160445 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 9:01 PM, Bryen M. Yunashko wrote:

The problem with a mailing list discussion is that every point to be discussed will take forever.  In an online real-time meeting, people can discuss and come to conclusions quickly.  There is opportunity to comment afterwards if you cannot come to the meeting by reviewing the minutes/logs of the meeting.

You're right, but I never can participate in an opensuse-XXXX IRC meeting, because here, in Spain, we have a draconian hours (you don't know the luck you have for this). BTW is also quite true that a real time chat on IRC is best, but in this case, we have the problems of time changes that would prevent others from participating, for example, Japan (as mentioned before). (excuse me my bad english please) -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Have a nice day  ;-) TooManySecrets /"\   ASCII Ribbon Campaign  | FreeBSD Since 4.1 \ / - NO HTML/RTF in e-mail  | GNU/Linux Since 1994.  X  - NO Word docs in e-mail | OpenSUSE Member / \  - http://www.toomany.net   | OpenSolaris Community Member --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 9:19 PM, Andreas Jaeger wrote:

...

You're right, but I never can participate in an opensuse-XXXX IRC meeting, because here, in Spain, we have a draconian hours (you don't know the luck you have for this).

So, will it never work - or what time would work for you?

Well, maybe I was a bit extreme to say "never" (you know, "never say never"). What about the Saturday for the IRC meetings?

Often you have on the one hand to have focused and quick discussions with many people on IRC - and on the other hand use email to inform everybody and flesh out details.

Yes yes... I only talk about IRC from the ambassadors meeting point of view (weekly, biweekly, monthly, etc.), not to help (or comment something) in a momment. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Have a nice day  ;-) TooManySecrets /"\   ASCII Ribbon Campaign  | FreeBSD Since 4.1 \ / - NO HTML/RTF in e-mail  | GNU/Linux Since 1994.  X  - NO Word docs in e-mail | OpenSUSE Member / \  - http://www.toomany.net   | OpenSolaris Community Member --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, 2010-08-02 at 21:13 +0200, Manuel Trujillo (TooManySecrets) wrote:

On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 9:01 PM, Bryen M. Yunashko wrote:

...

The problem with a mailing list discussion is that every point to be discussed will take forever. In an online real-time meeting, people can discuss and come to conclusions quickly. There is opportunity to comment afterwards if you cannot come to the meeting by reviewing the minutes/logs of the meeting.

You're right, but I never can participate in an opensuse-XXXX IRC meeting, because here, in Spain, we have a draconian hours (you don't know the luck you have for this). BTW is also quite true that a real time chat on IRC is best, but in this case, we have the problems of time changes that would prevent others from participating, for example, Japan (as mentioned before).

(excuse me my bad english please)

-- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Have a nice day ;-) TooManySecrets

What I keep hearing from people is "this time doesn't work for me." But I never seem to hear anyone tell us what time works best for them. We try to find times that work best based on the feedback we get. If we get no feedback, we make best decision possible. This is why I'm also advocating that we have two timezone meetings as I suggested earlier. Because this program is such an important global effort, I want to ensure everyone has an opportunity to communicate. So... speak up now... What time works best for you? And your English is better than mine! :-) Bryen -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org

On Tue, 2010-08-03 at 01:06 +0530, Koushik Kumar Nundy wrote:

On 3 August 2010 00:57, Bryen M. Yunashko wrote:

<snipped>

...

This is why I'm also advocating that we have two timezone meetings as I suggested earlier. Because this program is such an important global effort, I want to ensure everyone has an opportunity to communicate. So... speak up now... What time works best for you?

While UTC 15:00 is not such a bad time for me, alternate meetings having alternate timings is according to me, not such a bad idea. The complication resulting from that would however be that nosingle meeting would have a worldwide geographical distribution of attenders. This could be overcome by let's say, a meeting every month or two on a weekend. Sunday, UTC 11:00, where most people who have internet access at home could attend.

A very interesting idea. A quarterly global meeting, although some of us cannot commit to weekends, but we can certainly bring that up for discussion. However, a global meeting still doesn't resolve the issue of language barriers. I'm open to suggestions here. Bryen

...

And your English is better than mine! :-)

Most people complaining here about their weak English seem to have pretty high standards set for themselves. I seem to find nothing very dismal or stunted in their linguistic ability, except maybe a grammatical error here and there.

...

Bryen

-- Koushik Kumar Nundy

http://kknundy.blogspot.com http://thinkbiosoln.com http://en.opensuse.org

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 9:27 PM, Bryen M. Yunashko wrote:

What I keep hearing from people is "this time doesn't work for me."  But I never seem to hear anyone tell us what time works best for them.  We try to find times that work best based on the feedback we get.  If we get no feedback, we make best decision possible.

You're right (or if you prefere; "amen brother" ;-)).

This is why I'm also advocating that we have two timezone meetings as I suggested earlier.  Because this program is such an important global effort, I want to ensure everyone has an opportunity to communicate. So...  speak up now...  What time works best for you?

+1 for this. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Have a nice day  ;-) TooManySecrets /"\   ASCII Ribbon Campaign  | FreeBSD Since 4.1 \ / - NO HTML/RTF in e-mail  | GNU/Linux Since 1994.  X  - NO Word docs in e-mail | OpenSUSE Member / \  - http://www.toomany.net   | OpenSolaris Community Member --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org

Hello world, στις 02/08/2010 12:13 μμ, O/H Satoru Matsumoto έγραψε:

That's exactly the thing.

I'm wondering why only few Ambassadors are involved in this topic. ATM, there are 71.99 subscribers (BTW, where has gone 0.01 subscriber ? ;-)) on this -ambassdors list [1] and 175 Ambassadors are registered [2], but most of them keep silence and haven't commented if the hour is agreeable to them or not. Does this mean, the scheduled meeting time 15:00 UTC is agreeable to most of the Ambassadors and they are going to join the meeting ? If most of the Ambassadors can join the meetings on that time frame, there's no problem. But if they won't join the meeting without making counter-proposals, does that mean, they are not interested in talking with other Ambassadors and improving the program at all, and the only interest they have is how they can get DVDs and stuffs from openSUSE project ?

I hope my concern will prove unfounded...

[1] http://lists.opensuse.org/stats/opensuse-ambassadors/opensuse-ambassadors.ht...

[2] http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Ambassadors_list

Personally I'm OK with the time. But as I proposed, it's better to have seperate meetings for areas. Not only because everyone can attend but almost everyone know what's happening in their area, different cultures etc.

Well, Japanese for example, how many Japanese contributors except me can you name actually ?

There certainly are a fair amount of openSUSE users in Japan. Some of them are writing articles about openSUSE on their own site and posting blogs. I've often called for them to be engaged in *main stream* of the openSUSE community, but most of them hesitate to join the discussions in English.

This situation is what I want to change. And in order to do so, I want to share the ideas with other contributors all over the world.

I hope Ambassador program will help changing this situation.

It's good if every country (that have more than 2-3 ambassadors) will have meeting for programming next events etc in their country. This way, people who don't speak-understand english (I'm one of them), can speak their language. Regards, Stathis -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org

στις 02/08/2010 05:45 μμ, O/H Andreas Jaeger έγραψε:

On Monday 02 August 2010 13:03:28 Stathis Iosifidis (aka diamond_gr) wrote:

...

[...] It's good if every country (that have more than 2-3 ambassadors) will have meeting for programming next events etc in their country. This way, people who don't speak-understand english (I'm one of them), can speak their language.

Do we need to organize these as large ambassador meeting or would the ambassadors do this on their own depending on the task?

How often do we need those country meetings?

Country meetings can help the organization of the country. They can do it once a month, depending what events they attend to. If they need more than one a month, it's OK. The country must book the IRC channel for that reason (don't know from whom).

An additional idea: What about having each meeting a specific region/country/continent as focus where ambassadors from that area tell us a bit about what's going on?

Andreas

That's the idea Andreas. As I saw, we're more than 100? If all speak for 1 minute, we'll have 100minutes (1hour and 40minutes). We must discuss tomorrow to have: 1. Country meetings (depending the people). 2. Continent/region meetings (where we'll focus on the countries. People can inform the rest to the country meeting. This will help the people who don't speak-understand English). Regions can be divided to America, Europe-Africa, Asia-Oceania because they don't have time difference. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org

στις 02/08/2010 07:45 μμ, O/H jdd έγραψε:

Le 02/08/2010 18:25, Stathis Iosifidis (aka diamond_gr) a écrit :

...

Country meetings can help the organization of the country. They can do it once a month, depending what events they attend to. If they need more than one a month, it's OK. The country must book the IRC channel for that reason (don't know from whom).

do you think ambassadors will have the money to meet each other physically? in same town, yes but country?

jdd

? IRC is free, right? That's the idea to meet on the IRC. Not physically. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org

On Mon, 2010-08-02 at 14:03 +0300, Stathis Iosifidis (aka diamond_gr) wrote:

Hello world,

στις 02/08/2010 12:13 μμ, O/H Satoru Matsumoto έγραψε:

...

That's exactly the thing.

I'm wondering why only few Ambassadors are involved in this topic. ATM, there are 71.99 subscribers (BTW, where has gone 0.01 subscriber ? ;-)) on this -ambassdors list [1] and 175 Ambassadors are registered [2], but most of them keep silence and haven't commented if the hour is agreeable to them or not. Does this mean, the scheduled meeting time 15:00 UTC is agreeable to most of the Ambassadors and they are going to join the meeting ? If most of the Ambassadors can join the meetings on that time frame, there's no problem. But if they won't join the meeting without making counter-proposals, does that mean, they are not interested in talking with other Ambassadors and improving the program at all, and the only interest they have is how they can get DVDs and stuffs from openSUSE project ?

I hope my concern will prove unfounded...

[1] http://lists.opensuse.org/stats/opensuse-ambassadors/opensuse-ambassadors.ht...

[2] http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Ambassadors_list

Personally I'm OK with the time. But as I proposed, it's better to have seperate meetings for areas. Not only because everyone can attend but almost everyone know what's happening in their area, different cultures etc.

The meeting we are calling is for general Ambassador Program discussion, not per-country discussions or even leads in particular regions. Every country or region should be able to set up meetings or discussions in their own way that they see fits best with the group there. We can't do per country like that. It would be unfeasible and I would be totally drained on time. We expect that each group/country/region have its own level of autonomy to drive the way they see best. But for this meeting, it is about general Program infrastructure and common issue sthat affect all Ambassadors across the board.

...

Well, Japanese for example, how many Japanese contributors except me can you name actually ?

There certainly are a fair amount of openSUSE users in Japan. Some of them are writing articles about openSUSE on their own site and posting blogs. I've often called for them to be engaged in *main stream* of the openSUSE community, but most of them hesitate to join the discussions in English.

This situation is what I want to change. And in order to do so, I want to share the ideas with other contributors all over the world.

I hope Ambassador program will help changing this situation.

It's good if every country (that have more than 2-3 ambassadors) will have meeting for programming next events etc in their country. This way, people who don't speak-understand english (I'm one of them), can speak their language.

Regards, Stathis

-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org