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.
TL;DR:
* Let's clarify our focus on editions and objectives * Let's make it easier to hold small events like Release Parties * Let's get more people involved by creating Fedora Advocates * Let's help ambassadors gets more done by easing some the administrative functions and putting them on Mindshare and FAmA * Let's make budget requests more predictable * Let's let people step back when they need to by creating Emeritus Ambassadors
First, let me state on a personal level how incredibly impressed I've been with the Ambassadors during my time in the Fedora community. They do incredible work, and I want to see that great work continue. At the same time, I've seen common "pain points" too. The Mindshare Committee is proposing the following changes -- not as something set in stone, but as a way to start a discussion about the overall Ambassadors program. We hope to spend the next few weeks listening to your feedback and incorporating it into the plan, with the goal of having the plan solidified in place by May 10th so that it can be voted on by the Mindshare Committee before the end of May.
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. * Lead public-facing events with a Fedora presence, and request reasonable funds to support such events. Be able to work in a Fedora booth and both represent the Fedora community, but also demonstrate Fedora in a way that attracts new users and contributors to the Fedora Project. * Be available for contact from new users and contributors who need help getting started in Fedora. * Understand Fedora's limited resources (volunteer attention, time, and budget) and uses them efficiently and effectively. * Communicate with the rest of the community, and stay current on developments in Fedora
We think it is important to note that an Ambassador may not do all of these things personally all of the time. In particular, an Ambassador should be willing to sponsor the attendance of others at events to speak or work booths where their specific expertise is valuable. For example, sending someone from the Kernel team to a kernel conference to represent Fedora may be a better use of our resources than sending an Ambassador who is not a kernel expert. This is a great way for us to address audiences with specialized needs that Fedora can help but for whom we may not have skilled ambassadors.
It is also important that ambassadors are communicating with related groups. For example, communicate with the Join SIG if you're focused on being available for new users and contributors or communicate with the Rust SIG if you are going to attend a Rust event.
== 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.
== Administrative Functions ==
It has been my experience that our ambassadors really enjoy sharing the Fedora message to those they come in contact with. However, when it comes to administrative functions such as budget allocation, many of our ambassadors are less eager to participate.
Therefore we suggest that the regions and individual ambassadors, as much as possible, be relieved of the administrative functions (approving budget requests, and so forth). We propose to split the administrative roles between the Mindshare Committee (budget approval, driving conversation, etc.) and FAmA (FAS group management, administrivia, etc.).
The purpose of this change is to enable Ambassadors to focus on the details that matter most: finding meaningful events that align with Fedora's goals and initiatives and how to deliver the messaging. Mindshare wants to support and enable Ambassadors to succeed at messaging. Mindshare, with the help of FAmA, also wants to alleviate the burden of administrative work, and provide greater transparency into budgets and the decision-making process. More information about FAmA is below.
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".
Continuing with the theme of predictable budget requests, we would like to make things as streamlined as possible. Mindshare will try to work in tickets as much as possible. A request can be approved by a variable number of Mindshare committee members. Tickets will stay open for some time as well to ensure consensus.
* Budget requests of $250 or less require two Mindshare members to +1 and must be open for a week. * Budget requests of $500 or less require three Mindshare members to +1 and must be open for a week. * Budget requests of more than $500 require a majority of Mindshare members to approve and will typically be brought up in a meeting.
== 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).
== 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
=== Other notes ===
* Costs (up to $100 USD) will be reimbursed after the event. We will not send money before the event. No more than $25 can be spent on transportation. No money may be spent on swag.
== 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.
== 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.
== 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
On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 09:17:02 -0400 "Jared K. Smith" jsmith@fedoraproject.org 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.
TL;DR:
- Let's clarify our focus on editions and objectives
- Let's make it easier to hold small events like Release Parties
- Let's get more people involved by creating Fedora Advocates
- Let's help ambassadors gets more done by easing some the
administrative functions and putting them on Mindshare and FAmA
- Let's make budget requests more predictable
- Let's let people step back when they need to by creating Emeritus
Ambassadors
First, let me state on a personal level how incredibly impressed I've been with the Ambassadors during my time in the Fedora community. They do incredible work, and I want to see that great work continue. At the same time, I've seen common "pain points" too. The Mindshare Committee is proposing the following changes -- not as something set in stone, but as a way to start a discussion about the overall Ambassadors program. We hope to spend the next few weeks listening to your feedback and incorporating it into the plan, with the goal of having the plan solidified in place by May 10th so that it can be voted on by the Mindshare Committee before the end of May.
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.
- Lead public-facing events with a Fedora presence, and request
reasonable funds to support such events. Be able to work in a Fedora booth and both represent the Fedora community, but also demonstrate Fedora in a way that attracts new users and contributors to the Fedora Project.
- Be available for contact from new users and contributors who need
help getting started in Fedora.
- Understand Fedora's limited resources (volunteer attention, time,
and budget) and uses them efficiently and effectively.
- Communicate with the rest of the community, and stay current on
developments in Fedora
We think it is important to note that an Ambassador may not do all of these things personally all of the time. In particular, an Ambassador should be willing to sponsor the attendance of others at events to speak or work booths where their specific expertise is valuable. For example, sending someone from the Kernel team to a kernel conference to represent Fedora may be a better use of our resources than sending an Ambassador who is not a kernel expert. This is a great way for us to address audiences with specialized needs that Fedora can help but for whom we may not have skilled ambassadors.
It is also important that ambassadors are communicating with related groups. For example, communicate with the Join SIG if you're focused on being available for new users and contributors or communicate with the Rust SIG if you are going to attend a Rust event.
== 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.
== Administrative Functions ==
It has been my experience that our ambassadors really enjoy sharing the Fedora message to those they come in contact with. However, when it comes to administrative functions such as budget allocation, many of our ambassadors are less eager to participate.
Therefore we suggest that the regions and individual ambassadors, as much as possible, be relieved of the administrative functions (approving budget requests, and so forth). We propose to split the administrative roles between the Mindshare Committee (budget approval, driving conversation, etc.) and FAmA (FAS group management, administrivia, etc.).
The purpose of this change is to enable Ambassadors to focus on the details that matter most: finding meaningful events that align with Fedora's goals and initiatives and how to deliver the messaging. Mindshare wants to support and enable Ambassadors to succeed at messaging. Mindshare, with the help of FAmA, also wants to alleviate the burden of administrative work, and provide greater transparency into budgets and the decision-making process. More information about FAmA is below.
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".
Continuing with the theme of predictable budget requests, we would like to make things as streamlined as possible. Mindshare will try to work in tickets as much as possible. A request can be approved by a variable number of Mindshare committee members. Tickets will stay open for some time as well to ensure consensus.
- Budget requests of $250 or less require two Mindshare members to +1
and must be open for a week.
- Budget requests of $500 or less require three Mindshare members to
+1 and must be open for a week.
- Budget requests of more than $500 require a majority of Mindshare
members to approve and will typically be brought up in a meeting.
== 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).
== 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
=== Other notes ===
- Costs (up to $100 USD) will be reimbursed after the event. We will
not send money before the event. No more than $25 can be spent on transportation. No money may be spent on swag.
== 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.
== 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.
== 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
I have read all the mail. I think is a well explained description of what is intended and why. I am sure that there is a lot of work behind this mail.
I feel that I am left behind in the swag distribution process. The group at Nicaragua has planned a year ahead of activities. Some of us have been working on swag's design and pushing the decision to reach production. This reflect a previous direction on budgeting. I am not against a more dynamic swag allocation. But for people with higher commitment than advocate level, dealing with customs and import duties for smaller amounts may be a burden. I understand than shipping a moderate amount of swag to somebody that may drop of the map is not good. But in the other hand a group with shared responsibilities to avoid the eaten by a velociraptor scenario, structured plan of activities and proven record of past activities, may have a more_than_advocate level of resources. So I voice my concern in this part. It may be that other think this has some merits to discuss it further and come up with a case for this.
I want to thank the whole mind-share group. I think it was needed to re-think how the fedora project should adapt to the fact that we are a bigger group with more complex tasks. As we succeed we face new challenges, and fedora projects is in its way to reach 15 years.
Best regards
Neville
On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 5:53 PM, Neville A. Cross yn1v@taygon.com wrote:
I feel that I am left behind in the swag distribution process. The group at Nicaragua has planned a year ahead of activities. Some of us have been working on swag's design and pushing the decision to reach production. This reflect a previous direction on budgeting. I am not against a more dynamic swag allocation. But for people with higher commitment than advocate level, dealing with customs and import duties for smaller amounts may be a burden.
Thanks for bringing up this topic. Having lived in Latin America for a couple of years when I was younger, I totally understand what you're saying here with regards to postal system and customs and import duties. I know that the Mindshare Committee and the Ambassadors are going to have to do a lot more work to smooth out the bumps in the swag distribution process. I don't expect my earlier comments to be definitive with regards to swag distribution -- I simply wanted to make sure people understood that we're trying to lower the burden on swag distribution wherever possible. In some countries, that means Brian Exelbierd (and by extension, someone at Red Hat) sending swag from central location or two. For other countries or regions, we're going to have to figure out other distribution points and mechanisms as makes sense.
-Jared
On Mon, Apr 23, 2018 at 1:29 PM, Jared K. Smith jsmith@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 5:53 PM, Neville A. Cross yn1v@taygon.com wrote:
I feel that I am left behind in the swag distribution process. The group at Nicaragua has planned a year ahead of activities. Some of us have been working on swag's design and pushing the decision to reach production. This reflect a previous direction on budgeting. I am not against a more dynamic swag allocation. But for people with higher commitment than advocate level, dealing with customs and import duties for smaller amounts may be a burden.
Thanks for bringing up this topic. Having lived in Latin America for a couple of years when I was younger, I totally understand what you're saying here with regards to postal system and customs and import duties. I know that the Mindshare Committee and the Ambassadors are going to have to do a lot more work to smooth out the bumps in the swag distribution process. I don't expect my earlier comments to be definitive with regards to swag distribution -- I simply wanted to make sure people understood that we're trying to lower the burden on swag distribution wherever possible. In some countries, that means Brian Exelbierd (and by extension, someone at Red Hat) sending swag from central location or two. For other countries or regions, we're going to have to figure out other distribution points and mechanisms as makes sense.
I agree. We are doing an experiment right now in LATAM to see if we can replicate the success EMEA has had with central swag distribution there. The first packages are arriving now for FLISOL. We are doing some light experimentation in APAC as well, though we haven't has as many events to test with yet.
I know we have some challenges in some countries, but I think there is value in trying to shift away from having swag in the wrong places or the wrong amounts to a just in time system, where it makes sense.
This takes advantage of Red Hat's offer to host the swag for us in the US and to actually do the packing and shipping. We may be getting similar services in Brno, but for now it is just Kveta and me doing it.
regards,
bex
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
All,
please note my inputs to this email.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jared K. Smith" jsmith@fedoraproject.org To: ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org Sent: Monday, April 16, 2018 9:17:02 AM Subject: [Ambassadors] Request for comments on changes to the Ambassadors program
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.
TL;DR:
* Let's clarify our focus on editions and objectives * Let's make it easier to hold small events like Release Parties * Let's get more people involved by creating Fedora Advocates * Let's help ambassadors gets more done by easing some the administrative functions and putting them on Mindshare and FAmA * Let's make budget requests more predictable * Let's let people step back when they need to by creating Emeritus Ambassadors
First, let me state on a personal level how incredibly impressed I've been with the Ambassadors during my time in the Fedora community. They do incredible work, and I want to see that great work continue. At the same time, I've seen common "pain points" too. The Mindshare Committee is proposing the following changes -- not as something set in stone, but as a way to start a discussion about the overall Ambassadors program. We hope to spend the next few weeks listening to your feedback and incorporating it into the plan, with the goal of having the plan solidified in place by May 10th so that it can be voted on by the Mindshare Committee before the end of May.
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. * Lead public-facing events with a Fedora presence, and request reasonable funds to support such events. Be able to work in a Fedora booth and both represent the Fedora community, but also demonstrate Fedora in a way that attracts new users and contributors to the Fedora Project. * Be available for contact from new users and contributors who need help getting started in Fedora. * Understand Fedora's limited resources (volunteer attention, time, and budget) and uses them efficiently and effectively. * Communicate with the rest of the community, and stay current on developments in Fedora
We think it is important to note that an Ambassador may not do all of these things personally all of the time. In particular, an Ambassador should be willing to sponsor the attendance of others at events to speak or work booths where their specific expertise is valuable. For example, sending someone from the Kernel team to a kernel conference to represent Fedora may be a better use of our resources than sending an Ambassador who is not a kernel expert. This is a great way for us to address audiences with specialized needs that Fedora can help but for whom we may not have skilled ambassadors.
It is also important that ambassadors are communicating with related groups. For example, communicate with the Join SIG if you're focused on being available for new users and contributors or communicate with the Rust SIG if you are going to attend a Rust event.
- - Comment: This is a good start to getting everyone on the same page. My concern is we need a centralized documentation and information that when someone does have a question we do not spend a lot of time trying to figure things out. I totally agree with all of this portion.
== 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.
- - Comment: Communicating what you want us to accomplish is the most important part of this area. It has not been done very well in the past and I hope it gets better.
== Administrative Functions ==
It has been my experience that our ambassadors really enjoy sharing the Fedora message to those they come in contact with. However, when it comes to administrative functions such as budget allocation, many of our ambassadors are less eager to participate.
Therefore we suggest that the regions and individual ambassadors, as much as possible, be relieved of the administrative functions (approving budget requests, and so forth). We propose to split the administrative roles between the Mindshare Committee (budget approval, driving conversation, etc.) and FAmA (FAS group management, administrivia, etc.).
The purpose of this change is to enable Ambassadors to focus on the details that matter most: finding meaningful events that align with Fedora's goals and initiatives and how to deliver the messaging. Mindshare wants to support and enable Ambassadors to succeed at messaging. Mindshare, with the help of FAmA, also wants to alleviate the burden of administrative work, and provide greater transparency into budgets and the decision-making process. More information about FAmA is below.
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".
Continuing with the theme of predictable budget requests, we would like to make things as streamlined as possible. Mindshare will try to work in tickets as much as possible. A request can be approved by a variable number of Mindshare committee members. Tickets will stay open for some time as well to ensure consensus.
* Budget requests of $250 or less require two Mindshare members to +1 and must be open for a week. * Budget requests of $500 or less require three Mindshare members to +1 and must be open for a week. * Budget requests of more than $500 require a majority of Mindshare members to approve and will typically be brought up in a meeting.
- - Comment: I agree very much with a centralized process, this relieves the burden of meetings for most of North America. We went from weekly meetings to twice monthly trying to get participation up in order for us to get events pushed through for our area. My only concern is the meeting frequency of Mindshare Committee and the ability to have enough participation to vote on events. It seems to be running well now, but things can change and cause some back ups.
== 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).
- - Comment/Concern: How to you vet Advocates? My concern is you have a person that want us to pay for an event admission to advocate for Fedora. My experience with this type of program usually proves that the same person we task with representing Fedora doesn't really put Fedora as a priority but either only wants to attend an event at our expense and have their own agenda. Sure we can have a reporting process but if there is no one else there to validate what we tasked individuals with and what they really do at the event. I would set a specific set of guidelines for this type of program. We will find ourselves with a steep learning curve and/or failure to control the amount of requests.
== 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
=== Other notes ===
* Costs (up to $100 USD) will be reimbursed after the event. We will not send money before the event. No more than $25 can be spent on transportation. No money may be spent on swag.
- - Comment: This is fantastic! The low Friction Process Idea is great and in my opinion get more people to conduct release parties.
== 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.
- - Comment/Concern: This is where the documentation and guidance needs some real work. As a mentor I know where the best areas are for teaching new Ambassadors, but there is a vast amount of areas that are either not used, need updates, and not maintained. For example, the ambassadors list for North America. There are a lot of people that need to be moved into the Emeritus ambassadors group (in my opinion), for many of the names I see there have not been an active Ambassador for years or attended any event in several years which leads me to the beginning of this email and what ambassadors should be doing which includes involvement, communications, and availability. Since my involvement with the project I have seen only about 50% of the North America list at either events or irc meetings. That doesn't mean that they have not been involved in the project but just in some aspect that I haven't seen. Also, have experienced individuals that have been disconnected and then pop up out of no where and want to plan events without the knowledge of what is required of them to plan the said event. So this makes my job harder than it should be gathering documentation and links to the changed requirements and getting the process back on track. And some of the problem is that the ambassador finds the new requirements outside of what they wanted and find it difficult to readjust. I guess what I am trying to point out that as a Mentor and Ambassador the documentation really needs attention. In order for us to all be on the same page, the documentation and communication of the same needs to be corrected.
== 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.
- - Comment: Again the documentation needs to be finalized as stated above .
== 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.
- - Comment: I am all for this! It will allow those who are not actively involved stepping back (not out) and also allows them to comeback when they are ready.
== 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.
- - Overall Concerns: How does one know that the documentation and/or information is official and approved? There is so much out there on the wiki that is outdated, or incorrect. We need to have an official/approved identification with respect to our information. -What is the requirements for reimbursement with respect to the mindshare committee? Has the requirements changed? Will there be a page listing these requirements? Does it apply to Fedora Advocates? -With respect to administrative burdens on ambassadors how does the mindshare committee communicate an event that an ambassador is requesting gets approved? I realize that an email is generated when comments are posted on a ticket (which getting several of those a day from various areas) can be confusing causing the same to check the status on every time someone makes a comment can also be burdensome checking the ticket every time. -With respect to Mentors, has the process for selecting new mentors changed? if so where is the documentation? What is the process if it has changed? -Communications and Messaging has been a sore spot with me for quite some time. We need to streamline how to communicate with ambassadors. Mailing lists are good but when you get several along with comments from others can be confusing and distract from the original message. I think that we need to detail what information is approved, where the information can be found and what you require from us. -Documentation and approved documentation need to be completed. If you are going to hold ambassadors to a standard, the documentation needs to support the same. Without solid documentation you will not have a solid foundation to bring new people in or help those who have been involved for awhile to train those new people.
V/R Andrew Ward award3535@fedoraproject.org award3535@tds.net award3535@gmail.com
On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 10:41:13AM -0400, ANDREW WARD wrote:
- Overall Concerns: How does one know that the documentation and/or information is official and approved? There is so much out there on the wiki that is outdated, or incorrect. We need to have an official/approved identification with respect to our information.
Absolutely. My suggestion is that we use the new docs system and have an official ambassadors documentation section on
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/fedora-project/subprojects/collaboration.html
Note that we're in the midst of change the presentation software, so don't worry too much about the look and layout right now. The important thing is that the basic system keeps the docs in a pagure git repo. Ambassadors leadership can have direct commit access to this, and changes can be discussed in pagure tickets and pull requests.
On Tuesday, 17 April 2018 at 16:41, ANDREW WARD wrote:
All,
please note my inputs to this email.
Sorry, but your replies below are indistinguishable from the quoted text. Could you do proper quoting so that your e-mail is readable in text-based e-mail clients like mutt, too?
By the way, this is a request to anyone who is tempted to send HTML-formatted e-mail. I don't mind, but please make sure that the text/plain part is properly quoted and readable.
Regards, Dominik
I see as a correct way to improve the project.
Hope that new rules can be set soon
Juan Carlos Lin
Unisoft S.A. +595-993-288330
________________________________ From: Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski dominik@greysector.net Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2018 3:02:01 AM To: ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org Subject: [Ambassadors] Re: Request for comments on changes to the Ambassadors program
On Tuesday, 17 April 2018 at 16:41, ANDREW WARD wrote:
All,
please note my inputs to this email.
Sorry, but your replies below are indistinguishable from the quoted text. Could you do proper quoting so that your e-mail is readable in text-based e-mail clients like mutt, too?
By the way, this is a request to anyone who is tempted to send HTML-formatted e-mail. I don't mind, but please make sure that the text/plain part is properly quoted and readable.
Regards, Dominik -- Fedora https://getfedora.org | RPMFusion http://rpmfusion.org There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles. -- from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan _______________________________________________ ambassadors mailing list -- ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to ambassadors-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
Hello Jared, it's great to have you back in Fedora, last year we had the FAD Latam in Cusco and the job report can be found here:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAD:Latam_2017#Work_reports
In that event we analyze our problems and some strategies to get ahead, I hope that this work will help you enrich your proposal.
Greetings and good luck
Jared Smith
your proposal is good for Fedora, but probably not for ambassadors, you're seeking from improvements from ambassadors side, but I am not seeing any real improvements from Fedora side.
I had the same problems now that we had 10+ years ago.
On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 1:09 PM, Itamar Reis Peixoto < itamar@ispbrasil.com.br> wrote:
your proposal is good for Fedora, but probably not for ambassadors, you're seeking from improvements from ambassadors side, but I am not seeing any real improvements from Fedora side.
I'm not sure I follow your meaning here... can you elaborate on what you mean by this statement? Is there something in particular you don't think is helpful for the ambassadors? Is there something in particular you'd like improved on the Fedora side?
I had the same problems now that we had 10+ years ago.
Just like programming is an iterative process, fixing policy and procedure is often an iterative process as well. Please don't think that the Mindshare Committee intends these to be the final version of things. I, for one, simply see them as the "next step" in an iterative process that will change (and hopefully improve!) over time.
-Jared
On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 05:09:32PM -0000, Itamar Reis Peixoto wrote:
your proposal is good for Fedora, but probably not for ambassadors, you're seeking from improvements from ambassadors side, but I am not seeing any real improvements from Fedora side.
I don't understand the distinction you are making here. Fedora Ambassadors *are* the "Fedora side".
Just a couple of quick observations from a wannabe-emeritus-perspective:
On 04/16/2018 06:17 AM, Jared K. Smith wrote:
- Let's make it easier to hold small events like Release Parties
- Let's get more people involved by creating Fedora Advocates
My +1 here is particularly for embracing a bit of a higher risk to get a greater reward.
Making it easy for people to do small events & get reimbursed does increase the risk for gaming of the system.
So be it.
The value in making it easy and *welcoming* for people to be supported in their celebrations of Fedora is the greater reward of bringing a more diverse group to Ambassadors via Advocates & release parties.
Not everyone is equally comfortable requesting support for an event. Preventing stop-energy from the Project will cultivate more types of people into Ambassadors.
- Let's help ambassadors gets more done by easing some the administrative
functions and putting them on Mindshare and FAmA
- Let's make budget requests more predictable
I like how this enables contributions from people who want to organize and get things done, but may not be able to go to events often or even at all. +1
My ability to attend events has ebbed and flowed over the years, and when it's ebbed I usually *want* to be involved/helpful in some way.
- Let's let people step back when they need to by creating Emeritus
Ambassadors
Yes please. +1
I like to participate in the larger discussions and provide some of my own perspective over the years.
I don't like feeling that I'm misrepresenting my activities in the Project now that I'm not as active as an Ambassador or Mentor.
When I got to community events, I often pack Fedora logowear so I can step up for booth duty or whatever as needed. (Rarely needed, there are always so many enthusiastic Ambassadors, but always offered & ready to go.)
The Emeritus designation is a respectful way to make a niche for folks in the position of needing to temporarily or permanently lower their activity level and still retain a contributing position in the community.
Best regards,
- Karsten
I would like to begin by thanking you - for taking the time to organize the topics and thoughts in a manner that makes is easier to see the rationale and for putting it together to seek feedback.
I am in general agreement with the themes/topics and thoughts mentioned in this note. Hence, choosing to top-post rather than inter-weave commentary.
I want to highlight that this is a good moment in time to think about how the role of "Ambassador" originated and where it will be in the coming years (say, a 5 year horizon). I do not want to whip out my crystal ball and predict the decimation of the role. That said, I will state that the "evangelism" aspect of the Ambassador role has outlived its useful purpose for many parts of the world. Ambassadors are seemingly becoming more entrenched into sub-communities and meta-communities - thus amplifying the Fedora message in a much more organized manner. The number of active/vocal/visible communities across the spectrum of FOSS projects has increased manifold in the last decade - we should consider the future of the Ambassador role in this context as well.
This is a segue into another important point - as a project - how are we making sure that we are investing (money; time; mentoring; swag; advocacy) in regions where we are under-represented and thus being able to build a better outreach mesh.
I have not been a very active participant in the Fedora project for a while. However, I continue to see that there are wide swathes on a map where we haven't made much progress in being able to create a presence. And, for some reason, we have not been able to marshal will-power to commit to changing this. A general push-back I've heard on this topic is - we are small, we can only choose to do the things we can and get maximum impact from there. That is a fair argument - but I will ask - how long with this status quo continue?
Presence leads to outreach leads to participation leads to contribution - a very simplistic formulation, but not completely untrue. Jared, the detail in your note lays out a very elegant process improvement and efficiency hacking approach. We need to bolster this with a plan of how we help individuals in roles that require outreach to grow. What does an Ambassador grow into? How can we help him/her realize that growth? How do we enable systems that facilitate Ambassadors to share stories of their successes so that lessons are more easily shared?
If we merely consider the last point - sharing of success patterns - at present, we have no means of being able to undertake this at regional or, global levels. The general assumption is "each region is unique in challenges and thus lessons will differ". And yet, I read responses to your email and see that challenges tend to share similar themes and the points of pain resemble each other. There needs to be systems and methods that allow for posting/discussion/sharing/publication of activities the Ambassadors are currently undertaking and perhaps we should also consider venues other than "post to mailing list" for this.
I like the notion which emphasizes that the mentors have a key role to play in the success of this plan. We should figure out ways to nominate more mentors in regions and make it less a "merit badge" and more a responsibility.
/s
On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 6:47 PM, Jared K. Smith jsmith@fedoraproject.org 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.
TL;DR:
- Let's clarify our focus on editions and objectives
- Let's make it easier to hold small events like Release Parties
- Let's get more people involved by creating Fedora Advocates
- Let's help ambassadors gets more done by easing some the administrative
functions and putting them on Mindshare and FAmA
- Let's make budget requests more predictable
- Let's let people step back when they need to by creating Emeritus
Ambassadors
First, let me state on a personal level how incredibly impressed I've been with the Ambassadors during my time in the Fedora community. They do incredible work, and I want to see that great work continue. At the same time, I've seen common "pain points" too. The Mindshare Committee is proposing the following changes -- not as something set in stone, but as a way to start a discussion about the overall Ambassadors program. We hope to spend the next few weeks listening to your feedback and incorporating it into the plan, with the goal of having the plan solidified in place by May 10th so that it can be voted on by the Mindshare Committee before the end of May.
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.
- Lead public-facing events with a Fedora presence, and request reasonable
funds to support such events. Be able to work in a Fedora booth and both represent the Fedora community, but also demonstrate Fedora in a way that attracts new users and contributors to the Fedora Project.
- Be available for contact from new users and contributors who need help
getting started in Fedora.
- Understand Fedora's limited resources (volunteer attention, time, and
budget) and uses them efficiently and effectively.
- Communicate with the rest of the community, and stay current on
developments in Fedora
We think it is important to note that an Ambassador may not do all of these things personally all of the time. In particular, an Ambassador should be willing to sponsor the attendance of others at events to speak or work booths where their specific expertise is valuable. For example, sending someone from the Kernel team to a kernel conference to represent Fedora may be a better use of our resources than sending an Ambassador who is not a kernel expert. This is a great way for us to address audiences with specialized needs that Fedora can help but for whom we may not have skilled ambassadors.
It is also important that ambassadors are communicating with related groups. For example, communicate with the Join SIG if you're focused on being available for new users and contributors or communicate with the Rust SIG if you are going to attend a Rust event.
== 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.
== Administrative Functions ==
It has been my experience that our ambassadors really enjoy sharing the Fedora message to those they come in contact with. However, when it comes to administrative functions such as budget allocation, many of our ambassadors are less eager to participate.
Therefore we suggest that the regions and individual ambassadors, as much as possible, be relieved of the administrative functions (approving budget requests, and so forth). We propose to split the administrative roles between the Mindshare Committee (budget approval, driving conversation, etc.) and FAmA (FAS group management, administrivia, etc.).
The purpose of this change is to enable Ambassadors to focus on the details that matter most: finding meaningful events that align with Fedora's goals and initiatives and how to deliver the messaging. Mindshare wants to support and enable Ambassadors to succeed at messaging. Mindshare, with the help of FAmA, also wants to alleviate the burden of administrative work, and provide greater transparency into budgets and the decision-making process. More information about FAmA is below.
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".
Continuing with the theme of predictable budget requests, we would like to make things as streamlined as possible. Mindshare will try to work in tickets as much as possible. A request can be approved by a variable number of Mindshare committee members. Tickets will stay open for some time as well to ensure consensus.
- Budget requests of $250 or less require two Mindshare members to +1 and
must be open for a week.
- Budget requests of $500 or less require three Mindshare members to +1 and
must be open for a week.
- Budget requests of more than $500 require a majority of Mindshare members
to approve and will typically be brought up in a meeting.
== 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).
== 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
=== Other notes ===
- Costs (up to $100 USD) will be reimbursed after the event. We will not
send money before the event. No more than $25 can be spent on transportation. No money may be spent on swag.
== 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.
== 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.
== 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
ambassadors mailing list -- ambassadors@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to ambassadors-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org
Glad to see new improvements in overall program and also effort to make sure that Ambassdor's will put effort on the task that is more important.
On 16 April 2018 at 18:47, Jared K. Smith jsmith@fedoraproject.org wrote:
== 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.
Nice, we are touching to mentor program as well.
- Pravin
As I see, more of the concerns can be summarized this way:
- Budget request from non-Ambassadors - Swag distribution process - Documentation to support the proposed changes - Converting the document into proceses - Avoiding abuses both Advocates and RPs organizers
The positive comments, looks to me, like going this way:
- Lowering the burden to new people that want to contribute - Low friction process to RPs - Ambassadors Emeritus
From my POV I think the next step should be to work on the steps that are being positive, and pass to construct a document about the way to work on concerns.
I'm really happy to see many people reacting to this, and I hope we can continue having this discussion. Please share this thread as many times as you can, in your respectives meetings: APAC, EMEA, LATAM and NA. We are her to work together and improve, as ambassadors and as project.
Last but not least, I see a comment about how an ambassador grows and that a mentor is not a "merit badge". Well I'm partially agree with this, For the ambassador growth, we need to be conscious about something: We are contributors, most of the ambassadors don't make a living being ambassador, we need commitment and need trust, and as we see, the Council and the Mindshare Committee have the will to trust in us. There is no measurements to see how an ambassador have grown from the start, that is a measure that each one needs to have, because it answer to personal goals. And for the mentors, this is so true, being a mentor is not a merit badge, is a huge commitment about something in what you truly believe: The Fedora Project.
Thanks for your comment.
I agree with everything you wrote, thank you. The main issue in my region (EMEA), and others can confirm, is low number of active ambassadors.
I hope all these changes can help us to involve more people.
Kind regards, Nemanja
== 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
=== Other notes ===
- Costs (up to $100 USD) will be reimbursed after the event. We will not
send money before the event. No more than $25 can be spent on transportation. No money may be spent on swag.
I really like this idea, make a Release Party easier to organice is a great step for the good, just curios about something, Fedora 28 have been released, request for F28 release parties can follow this new process or we must still open tickets in per Regions instances?
On Thu, May 3, 2018 at 3:52 PM, William Moreno williamjmorenor@gmail.com wrote:
== 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
=== Other notes ===
- Costs (up to $100 USD) will be reimbursed after the event. We will not
send money before the event. No more than $25 can be spent on transportation. No money may be spent on swag.
I really like this idea, make a Release Party easier to organice is a great step for the good, just curios about something, Fedora 28 have been released, request for F28 release parties can follow this new process or we must still open tickets in per Regions instances?
Right now please use the traditional process. The new process hasn't gotten all the documentation from Mindshare yet.
regards,
bex
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