Hi!
Here's my take on the Perl stand @ FOSDEM.
I think the Perl stand was a success in sum, with some visibility
issues being the downside and good humour the upside.
Visibility:
- The projector worked well, next time we bring a Perl bar stool to
put it on. :)
- The postcards were better than I feared (although their design can
still be improved.) Having said that, the were informative and
relevant, filled a information niche that was very necessary and
lots of people found them useful. The "weaknesses" in design were
easily made "relevant" by the use of the business cards.
- The business cards seemed to go over very well. My intention with
them was to introduce people to the Perl community with something
funny, true and self-deprecating. My intuition was that the techies
at FOSDEM would react unfavourably to "corporate marketing speak"
(e.g. strained positive angle on something trivial) so I made sure
that the text was plain, to-the-point and funny.
http://www.pvv.org/~sjn/FOSDEM-Perl-promo-card-front-1.0.png
http://www.pvv.org/~sjn/FOSDEM-Perl-promo-card-back-pm-1.0.png
http://www.pvv.org/~sjn/FOSDEM-Perl-promo-card-back-rakudo-1.0.png
I'll keep the originals, and if anyone needs the PDF's for printing
(with cutting marks and all that) then just contact me.
- The business card format can also be modified in all kinds of ways,
e.g. introducing projects on the back, or finding a better joke for
the front.
- The Tuits went over very well after I asked people "do you know what
they are for?" and then told them the joke. This interaction was in
fact us teaching people a joke that they could tell others (which
actually lead to others coming specifically to the Perl stand to get
a tuit or two for themselves.) I think the Tuits were a great
success _especially_ because they were a bit "cryptic" and ended up
being so funny and cool that people wanted to have more. This is
viral marketing of the best kind. Only thing that I found I could do
better was to "catch" the people that just came for the tuits and
ask them any of the other questions we had ("Have you been to a Perl
Mongers meeting?" or "Have you been to a Perl conference?")
- I was very happy that other projects used the Perl stand as a place
to tell about their own activities (Dutch and Belgian Perl
Workshops &c.) We should allow more of this, and perhaps find a way
of increasing people's participation without making too much clutter
on the table.
About the list I gave to Gabor:
Gabor Szabo said:
Salve gave me the following list of items to add to my reminder:
- banner / logo
- "more" color (it was all white)
- an eye-catcher more visible than the tuits
- something visual/screen demo
- "map of CPAN authors"
I am not sure what did he mean by each one of these and if I already
mentioned them above but I can think of creating a large map of CPAN
authors - e.g. where they are located on the world - that we can
even sell.
- banner w/logo: The stand itself needed a banner w/logo behind the
table, so people could understand faster that this was the Perl
stand. The tall banner and the projector helped, but something on
the wall behind the table would be useful.
- "more" color (it was all white). Visually, the Perl table was almost
boring in it's white/brightness. A colored table cloth (light-blue?)
would have helped a lot, and made the white cards + tuits stand out
much more.
- an eye-cacther more visible than the tuits. Maybe onion-shaped
balloons floating above the table? A laser show, programmable with
Perl? One single "WE ARE HERE" thing that makes us stand out in a
positive and obvious way would be useful.
- something visual/screen demo. A computer with a demo/slideshow of
different useful products/graphs/screenshots etc would be nice.
CPANTesters data, Rakudo tests, Screenshots of Catalyst sites (or
the Mojo Mojo wiki, which has some really cool UI features) are all
good options.
- "map of CPAN authors." Just to show people that authors live all
over the world and that the community is alive and well. Maps of
CPAN mirror sites, CPAN testers, Perl Monger groups and Perl
conferences are also good!
Finally, I have to say I enjoyed coming to FOSDEM and help with the
Perl table a LOT, and would love to help next time I get the
opportunity. :)
Thanks to everyone who made this a fun experience! :D
- Salve
--
#!/usr/bin/perl
sub AUTOLOAD{$AUTOLOAD=~/.*::(\d+)/;seek(DATA,$1,0);print# Salve Joshua Nilsen
getc DATA}$"="'};&{'";@_=unpack("C*",unpack("u*",':4@,$'.# <s...@foo.no>
'2!--"5-(50P%$PL,!0X354UC-PP%/0\`'."\n"));eval "&{'@_'}"; __END__ is near! :)
