---------- Forwarded message ---------- Hello everyone,
As I mentioned in my previous message [0], Google Summer of Code 2010 is on! Over the next few days, we'll be updating the program website with more details, but over the coming weeks we'll need help from the community to make this year the most successful yet. Take a look at these help wanted listing and be ready for calls for volunteers in each of these areas. Folks who help out will be receive our eternal gratitude and some truly cool, never before seen Google Summer of Code swag. That's right, awesome new GSoC goodies for those who help out. :) So, without further ado, here's how we'll need your help with GSoC 2010. Apologies for the long message, but there are many opportunities for you to lend a hand to improve Google Summer of Code! -----Spread the Word in Person----- Consider hosting an information session at your local university, user group meeting, etc. about Google Summer of Code and encourage your friends to apply. If you let us know in advance that you'll be scheduling the session, we'll advertise it on the program calendar [1] and program meetups list. [2] If you send us a blog post about the event, we will publish it on the Google Open Source Blog [3] like we did for the meetups in Brazil, Chicago and Peru last year. [4] We'll be preparing a program presentation as soon as the new program logo is available that you can use and adapt for use at your school. We had 20 presentations before the program last year and I would love to see us meet that same number (and, hopefully, have even more meetups worldwide). Which brings me to my next point.... -----Updating the Program Presentation----- Last year, Joel Sherill was kind enough to update the program presentation with new data from the last instance, 2008, and to update the presentation template to the 2009 logo theme. Would someone like to assist with that once again this year? If so, please email me off- list. You can find the old presentation templates online [5], 2010 logo to follow. -----Making Cool Program Related Videos---- Are you an amazing movie maker? A budding documentarian? Want to make your YouTube debut? We can always use help making videos about the program. If you're a past participant in the program, you have access to directly upload videos to our program YouTube channel [6]. You can also email us the video for us to upload to the channel, or you can just send us the YouTube link and we'll favorite it in our channel. Last year we had more than 40,000 views of all of our YouTube videos for the program, and that's informational videos only, excluding the many thousands of views we had on screencasts and films Google Summer of Coders made about their projects. Please do consider making a video about the program and many, many bonus points for making the film in a language other than English. (Not that we don't want English. We want cool videos. But localization is awesome.) -----Flyer Translations----- Last year, many folks were kind enough to help us translate the program flyer into more than 50 languages. We will have a new flyer template for 2010 available soon and would love community assistance in translating the flyer. It would be just fantastic to see the flyer available in more than 75 languages this year, at least that's my humble goal. You can check out the 2009 flyers now [7], and if you want to get the jump on translating go right ahead! The language won't be changing substantially, only the dates (see [0]) and the template. -----Posting Flyers----- If you're too busy or too shy to give a presentation on GSoC at your campus, please consider flyering instead. I plan to do a post on the Google Open Source Blog [3] about all the fantastic work our GSoCers did to spread the word about the program, so if you send me a photo of you and the place(s) around your campus where you posted the flyer, it may end up on the blog! And either way, you'd get the aforementioned awesome swag! -----Notify Your Local Student Computing/Tech Groups----- As mentioned by Borja Sotomayor in his post Spreading the Summer Love is Easy [4], one great way to let folks know about GSoC is to email your local student groups to let them know the program is happening. Start doing research on local LUGs and student groups that might want to know about GSoC and once you hear that the program website is up to date, send some email, etc. Borja's post contains some great advice. Of course, we don't want you to spam anyone, so if you're not a regular member of local tech related mailing lists, consider emailing the list admin about whether or not your post is appropriate *before* you send it. Use your best judgement, though. If you see announcements of conferences, calls for papers, etc. on a list it is usually ok to send a note about Google Summer of Code. -----Social Media----- Spread the word on identi.ca, Twitter and Facebook. We're on identi.ca (@gsoc and !gsoc) and Twitter (@gsoc) and we have a Facebook group. [8] More updates coming through all those avenues in the coming weeks. -----Your Great Ideas----- We can always use help from the community about awesome ways to spread the word about GSoC and bring more students into the Open Source fold. If you have great suggestions, we're all ears. GSoC 2010 is on!! :) [0] - http://groups.google.com/group/google-summer-of-code-discuss/browse_t... [1] - http://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/google.com/embed?src=gsummerofc... [2] - http://groups.google.com/group/google-soc-meetups [3] - http://google-opensource.blogspot.com [4] - http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009/03/spreading-summer-love-i... and http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009/03/spreading-summer-love-i... [5] - http://code.google.com/p/google-summer-of-code/wiki/ProgramPresentations [6] - http://www.youtube.com/user/googOSPOstudntprgrms [7] - http://code.google.com/p/google-summer-of-code/wiki/GsocFlyers [8] - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Google-Summer-of-Code/72468835990 Cheers, LH -- Leslie Hawthorn Program Manager - Open Source Google Inc. http://code.google.com/opensource/
