Hi there! Please reply to the debian-publicity@ mailing list [1], it is the discussion list for anything related to the Events team (R-T and M-F-T set accordingly), TIA.
[1] <http://lists.debian.org/debian-publicity/> This is the report of the Events BoF [2][3]. I am sorry for the delay, but the latest days at DebConf11 were quite intense for me, between the merchandise handling and the proposal for DebConf13 in Switzerland. And the week after DebConf11 I took a pause and enjoyed RL :-) [2] <http://penta.debconf.org/dc11_schedule/events/731.en.html> [3] <http://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/87zkk1z6fe.fsf%40gismo.pca.it> First of all, the BoF was divided into two parts: I explained again what the Events team does and where. These were basically the same information available on the wiki [4] and there were no big surprise here, except a HUGE remark about (ab)using the email address [5] for notifications... [4] <http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Events> [5] <mailto:eve...@debian.org> Then, I moved to the DebConf11 ToDo list [6], which actually got more attention and people started to interact. [6] <http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Events/DebConf11> Most of the people agreed about adding minor events (AKA simple talks) to the web page [7]: Francesca is already working on it and this should be fixed soon, also deprecating the "some talks" page [8] (IMHO not so visible). [7] <http://www.debian.org/events> [8] <http://www.debian.org/events/talks> Speaking of talks, we really need a way to search in the event/talk list, it is impossible that in 2011 we still oblige our users to go through yearly subpages. Just before the BoF Annette told me about the GriCal portal [9]: we should find a way to work together with them to avoid duplication of event submissions and sharing of the main events. Francesca, this could be the F/LOSS "schedule/calendar" we were looking for, not forgetting the French-speaking "Agenda du Libre" [10]... [9] <http://grical.org/> [10] <http://www.agendadulibre.org/> Another agreement was that those pages, especially the ones related to setup a booth, need a re-factoring: the best thing would probably be to send a "Call for Help" on the debian-publicity@ mailing list [1] after having someway planned how the new pages should be organized. Some work can be done independently of those pages, like the merchandise stuff, given that it has its own space on www.d.o [11] (but check #613832 [12]). We should probably move the information on a subpage, which is also easier to maintain. [11] <http://www.debian.org/misc/merchandise> [12] <http://bugs.debian.org/613832> Before going into details about the booth novelties, let me explain the two last points. First, for the mailing list, the idea would be to still use the already-established debian-events-$SOMETHING [13] mailing list for coordination, with a "new" mailing list for announcement only (both minor and major events). This should be a restricted-posting mailing list (probably Events and Press membership only): its aim is to provide email notifications whenever a new event is added to the website. A parallel approach would be to duplicate the announcements on Planet Debian, but these points must be coordinated with the Publicity team. [13] $SOMETHING is variable, sometime we have one $LOCALE (-nl), one $CONTINENT (-eu) and two $SUBCONTINENT (-na and -saff). Second, the merchandise stuff, something that goes beyond the simple webpage [11]. Beside its re-organization, we should find a better way to show what is available *at least* from the Debian Trusted Organizations [14]. The simplest way would be to have a sort of "virtual" shop, also useful for booth organization. In an ideal world, this would be the "complete" stock of all Debian merchandising from Trusted Organizations, "managed" by the Events team (do not panic, strong words chosen on purpose). Nothing has been done in this respect apart from my wishful thinking and discussions with various people, including the Debian Auditors [15]. Nevertheless, we agreed on using the events.d.n address [16] for all our tests, as soon as Andreas will free the DNS entry ;-) [14] <http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution#item-9> [15] <http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Auditor> [16] <http://events.debian.net/> Then, I moved to the main topic and also my primary goal for this DebConf11: the Debian Events Box [17]. Taking the example from the GNOME project [18], booth organizers will receive a parcel with all the *minimal* material for the booth, i.e.: - 1x demo PC, already configured to run BabelBox [19] and other stuff - 1x 17" LCD - 1x keyboard/mouse - 1x Wi-Fi AP with a 4-port hub, already configured - 2+ power strips with worldwide adapter - various network/VGA/USB cables - 2 Kensington-compatible locks - lockable cash box - debian-flyers and other print advertising - T-Shirts/labels for the booth staff [17] <http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Events/DebianEventsBox> [18] <http://live.gnome.org/GnomeEventsBox> [19] <http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/BabelBox> Mostly if not all the people who have already organized a booth agreed on the box content, especially WRT the demo PC. Including a reaflet rack as well as a rollup poster holder would be even better, but because of dimension constraints it would be quite difficult, thus the need for a second "complementary" box was brought to the attention (anyway needed for further merchandise). The point which warmed the discussion was about having "uniformed" T-Shirts or labels for the booth staff. The intention is to try to solve a common problem at various events: there is no way to identify the booth organizers, especially when the booth is crowded and/or various people not always "officially" listed are helping out. Different people underlined the major problem with this approach: categorization. Both parties explained their pros/cons, but no final decision was taken, anyway and for sure this point will generate even more discussions in the future, In any case, something that must be said is that any material in the box is *not* an obligation: the box is nothing more than a guideline, but the organizers are free to use or not the material included. I, for myself, would prefer to have *more* choice and to be obliged to say "no, thanks" than dreaming of something missing... We would like to have one box available in Europe for events starting already in September: the demo PC is the biggest choice, given that it must support hardware virtualization and having as much disk space as possible (a full mirror for the specific architecture is welcome). After having discussed with Axel Beckert about his EeeBox PC (also used to test the Pelicase PL-1650 capacity) we were quite confident in this product. This was until we discovered that none of the options available mounts CPUs with hardware virtualization, i.e. one of the latest Intel Atom E (the best) or Z line, but none of them with 64-bit instructions [20]. This is the major showstopper ATM, given our need to evaluate other options (hint: advice needed!). [20] <http://ark.intel.com/MySearch.aspx?s=t&VTX=true&FamilyText=Intel%C2%AE%20Atom%E2%84%A2%20Processor> The Debian Events Box [17] will be the main force behind the creation of at least a debian-events-box package and even more from the same source, the Debian Events Package [21]. While the former will contain all the tools needed to administer the demo PC, the biggest plan is to include all the event/marketing/merchandise material produced in the past. The first candidates would be the debian-flyers [22] and the already-used T-Shirts logos [23]. [21] <http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Events/DebianEventsPackage> [22] <http://debian-flyers.alioth.debian.org/> [23] <http://debian.ch/merchandise> In the end, I consider both the DebCamp11 and the BoF as successful: despite not having big results (unfortunately we were quite late to show a functional Debian Events Box [17]...) we interacted with various people, thus improving our visibility and grabbing experiences/ideas to improve our work. The fact that some people were present at both the Publicity [24] and Events [2] BoFs showed that our choice of being a subgroup inside the Publicity Team was correct. It was privately suggested to organize a "publicity" track for the next DebConfs, also including other side events like the Wiki BoF [25] or the WWW [26] talk. [24] <http://penta.debconf.org/dc11_schedule/events/725.en.html> [25] <http://penta.debconf.org/dc11_schedule/events/788.en.html> [26] <http://penta.debconf.org/dc11_schedule/events/785.en.html> With such a lot of work ahead of us, especially about restructuring the event pages and defining a detailed procedure for booth management, let me state again that anyone interested in such topics should join the effort. And, once again, please feel free to (ab)use the events@d.o email address [5] for any notification, suggestion or comment :-D On behalf of the Events team. Thx, bye, Gismo / Luca
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