Another report from FOSDEM

[Salve J Nilsen]

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! :)