G'day all,
Just some thoughts i've had. I look forward to the president's report at
the AGM.
= Lindsay's Slug report, 2005-2006 =
Over the last 2 or so years there's been change in the Slug demographic,
with a gradual increase of new users and sysadmins over the traditional
Slug base of coders and developers. This is most likely due to Linux and
FOSS in general becoming more visible in the wider community, and the
technology becoming easier to use.
This year's committee has started listening harder to what our members
want to get out of Slug meetings. We've taken what we've heard and
shuffled things up to see what sort of response we got, and so far it's
all been positive.
In September we had the desktop applications walkthrough, which provided
a breif overview of applications on the Linux desktop. The feedback the
committee received from this was significant, with a number of Sluggers
commenting that seeing a talk about using Linux on the desktop
practically was just what they were looking for.
We've diversified the programme by lowering the barrier of entry in the
technical talks sessions, with Erik de Castro Lopo's talk on "Career
development for geeks", and Chris Deigan's talk on "/home away from
home" catering to both newbies and old hands alike.
We also changed the format of a number of our meetings to increase
community discussion, prime examples of this being the "distribution
roundtable", and the live broadcasting of the "LA update" from Slug.
The Slug wiki was established, building upon the activities list by
giving people quick access to information about what's in the works for
Slug. This has allowed the Slug community to become more involved with
the organisation of Slug through consolidating the process of posting
ideas about special events and interest groups, and volunteering talks
for Slug meetings.
On the flip side, the committee lacked a number of times when fostering
this community involvement, with the downtime of Slug's old server
'maddog' on a number of occasions. The intermittent downtime has also
extended as far as knocking out Slug's traditional medium for
communication - our mailing lists.
The downtime has hurt Slug's community both online and offline by
discouraging people from becoming more involved because they can't
access the resources to do so, effectively raising the bar we have been
working hard to lower.
However, the committee hasn't been a passenger to the problems, taking
proactive steps in stabilising maddog when problems first arose early in
the term of the committee. Unfortunately our steps fell short, and our
temporary propping up of maddog didn't quite last until our new server
'rusty', provided as a Xen instance by Solutions First, was fully up and
running.
Our new arrangement is expected to return stability to the Slug website
and mailing lists, and allow us to concentrate on growing our community.
The next year presents us with a number of opportunities to do this:
Focus
Although more people are picking up Linux and running with it, once
they've installed their system they want to do stuff! We should continue
to try and evenly split our focus between our developer roots and new
users. This will allow us to cater for our change in demographic whilst
not alienate our traditional base.
DeckFest
A "DeckFest" is an event in a similar vein to an InstallFest, but with a
focus on "decking people out" for using Linux and FOSS practically. This
event would run over a day or weekend and would bring together some of
the best minds of Slug to deck out new and existing users with skills
and knowledge about the cool stuff they can do with FOSS.
Advocacy
We should let people know how rad we are! We have one of the most
vibrant, enthusiastic, and active LUGs in the world, with a community
involved through the mailing lists, monthly meetings, irc, and
spontaneous events. If you've been umming and arring about bringing
someone new to Slug the last few months, now is the time to do it. Tell
your family, friends, and co-workers about us and what makes us great!
People initially turn up to meetings because they want to find out about
technology, but we suprise them with community. New Sluggers should be
welcomed like family and treated like old friends.
LCA07
Linux.conf.au is coming to Sydney next year! This is a great way to show
off to the international Linux community who we are and why we're
awesome. You can do this by just rocking up to the conference, but also
by volunteering to help out with keeping the conference running. The
Seven team are currently nutting out the last few organisational
details, but if you want to put your name down as a volunteer give them
a buzz.
We have a great community of users who do and know cool stuff. I want
2006 to be a year of growth for Slug, not just in numbers, but also in
the quality of the community. Participate, advocate, celebrate!
Lindsay
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