Hi,
On 2006-01-24, at 17:27 , Jeffrey G. Causey, CPA wrote:
Steven,
I normally just lurk on this list, but decided I would speak up if
only to
echo the sentiment of your e-mail. I find it very difficult to
figure out
where/how I could help based on the materials available from the
marketing
site. E.g. the "To Do" list (How To Help page) indicates it was
last updated
back in 2004, several items relate to OOo 1.1 (and thus seem
obsolete yet
they remain on the list), it is difficult (I haven't figured it out
yet) to
tell if anyone is working on an item, and it is difficult to figure
out any
priority or dependencies.
Jacqueline indicated that she would soon be updating the to dos list,
among other things. There are some things that are not there that
probably need to be put up there, like upcoming events. We generally
discuss events, like conferences, on [EMAIL PROTECTED], so if you
haven't found discussions of them here, that's one reason; another
has been that we are only now gearing up for the event season. Among
the things we also do is write press releases (drafts, etc.) of new
releases (usually only minor not micro releases, but that depends on
the micro release). We do that on [EMAIL PROTECTED], which
tends to be fairly busy around the time of a release, eg., of 2.01.
2.0.2 is coming up probably by the end of the month (Martin H. says
27 Jan.) but to find the latest information on that you need to check
the [email protected] list, which many of us do. But 2.0.2 is
but one release... there is also the Mac OS X build for MacTel, and
we need marketing help with that! Webpages, information, etc. etc.
And then there are other the other ports, like for BSD, LinuxPPC,
etc. If you want to help out, please!
Collateral, art, etc., is usually discussed on [EMAIL PROTECTED], which
is now quite active, so if you have not been seeing discussions
regarding OOo's art and related things, here, that's why. Education,
for primary, secondary, and university, on
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Although I probably should discuss this on [EMAIL PROTECTED], I would
like to raise as a topic the issue of events: which ones do we want
to go to? And, perhaps more accurately, Which ones *should* we go
to? The way it works in the NLC projects, usually, is that the
particular project may target several big events and put up a booth,
do collateral, etc. for those events. Sun is sometimes but by no
means always involved, though other companies can sometimes help out.
In North America, the situation is a little different, for a number
of reasons. So, I'd like to propose the following events in North
America that we *should* go to. Other events that are, say, local to
you, you should feel free to raise....
The most immediate:
** Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) Feb 11-12 2006 Los Angeles
http://www.socallinuxexpo.org/
OOo was invited to this and I announced it on [EMAIL PROTECTED] but
there was minimal interest, at least from OOo people. (The
OpenDocument Fellowship is attending, I believe.) We could possibly
still have a booth there, but I need to know asap. And if we have a
booth, we will also need booth beings, collateral, cdroms, etc.
Organizing a booth takes some effort.
* LinuxWorld Conference & Expo Apr 3-6 2006 Boston
http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/live/12/events/12BOS06A
I think this is really important. Boston was last year the
epicenters of a major shift in strategies for the uptake of free
software like OOo, if only incidentally, as OOo uses the OpenDocument
format. Massachusetts' main focus was on the OpenDocument format
(ODF) not OOo but OOo should be there as the *best* implementation of
the ODF for the public sector.
* O'Reilly Open Source Convention Jul 24-28 2006 Portland
no link yet, but here is last year: http://www.oreillynet.com/oscon2005/
This is a *must* conference! Last year, we actually had some
excellent presentations on OOo by community members but for all their
goodness they were not as strong or good as those presented by the
OpenSolaris group. And there were lots of developers there, too. I
felt that if there were a conference where we could really show how
capable OOo was, this was it! We need to demonstrate what OOo can
do, how cool it is, how easy it is to work with at a place like this.
And this leads to another point, one that I thought of at OOoCon but
which has since more or less fallen by the way, what with all the
other things to do: A competition that demonstrates OOo's full
capabilities. Cristian Driga, Erwin Tenhumberg, Jacqueline McNally,
and others have discussed how to set this up (a developer competition
is also being discussed) and I think it's time we propose some ideas
and rules. The competition would not necessarily be tied to any
event; it would be an event :-) More on this later...
Finally, for now, the SF LWE:
LinuxWorld Conference & Expo Aug 14-17 2006 San Francisco
http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/live/12/events/12SFO06A//CC985653
We didn't attend last year in part b/c it's mainly a suit fest, but I
think we need to show up--too many questions were asked about our
absence!
So, those are the conferences I think we should attend, as they
highlight OOo as a product *and* as a project welcoming developers
and other contributors. In the end, we may have to focus on just a
few...and it will be I am sure, the same story, of a few of us
volunteering to attend the booth, and so on. That's the way it's
worked for almost all events in the past.
And what we will need is what we always need: collateral, cdroms,
art, etc. for these. For much of that, the [EMAIL PROTECTED] list is the
designated list for discussions. But we also need press releases, and
so on, and if you want to do those, join us on [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I've not proposed some events that are quite close to my home--LWE in
Toronto, for instance, or elsewhere in Canada. But by all means,
propose some close to where you live!
Finally--and sorry for the long post--one thing I do think we need is
documentation for booth beings. It can be pretty intimidating to
attend an event as a booth being and realize that you are in fact
clueless of what to do... so, I think we need a library of useful
ideas... and a checklist of what the planner has to do.
Cheers
Louis
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