2008/11/15 JoergSimon jsimon@fedoraproject.org:
Hi Ambassadors,
yesterday i could share my thoughts about improving the Ambassador Membership Experience. http://jsimon.fedorapeople.org/fad08.pdf
Today we touched the Topic certain times again - and the Idea to give a "Ambassador Classroom" to teach new Ambassadors and answer their questions once a month, seems attractive. What do you think, would it make sence to try this out and offer this in the "Ambassador Welcome Message" that new sponsored Ambassadors get?
Sorry for the really late response on this. On the upside it has given me a bit of time to consider a response. I like the idea of mentoring in principle however in practice I fear that it will be difficult to achieve.
I think to really preface this conversation that we have to define what an ambassador does. So when people ask me what it means to be an Ambassador, I tell them that Ambassadors are around to be liaisons between the community and the project. In some ways we try and show people the awesomeness that is Fedora, in others we try and build relationships with potential contributors, and even other projects. Ambassadors IMO are the face of the Fedora Project.
The wiki page says this: Fedora Ambassadors are people like you and me, who go to places where other Linux users and potential converts gather and tell them about Fedora — the project and the distribution.
So from my perspective - there are things that I do as an Ambassador and things I also don't do, or at least don't try and put my focus there. For instance, I don't try to convert every person I meet into a Fedora user. I am happy to talk to them about the benefits of Fedora and the philosophy behind it. I do constantly look for people that I think are capable of being good contributors to the Fedora Project.. I have set my primary focus as an Ambassador to be the recruiting of new contributors. I think I am maginally capable in that respect. That isn't, nor should it be, the focus of every Ambassador. I am also trying to grow into the position of recruiting OSS projects to package for Fedora. I don't know if I am succeeding here or not - with just 3-4 projects that I have contact with thus far, and a lot of interest but no forward movement that may take some time to develop or even see if I can be successful with.
That said I don't know how to teach any of the above. I've been sitting here trying to figure out what needs to be taught in order to be an Ambassador and here is the shortlist that I have come up with:
*Understanding the Free Software movement in general. I think the following should be required reading/viewing for anyone: - Revolution OS (the Movie) - Free Software, Free Society (book by RMS - freely available as a download) - Cathedral and the Bazaar by ESR - Homesteading the Noosphere by ESR - probably a number of others that aren't coming to mind at the moment.
Now I say that cautiously - I don't think that we ought to necessarily become RMS-ites or ESR-ites, but exposure to the ideas and being able to talk intelligently about them is useful.
*Next I think it's necessary to understand how the Fedora Project works - that means knowing the org chart, but more than that the entire flow. I once worked in a job, where I was unavoidably the public face of the organization. I was expected to handle most things on my own and at my level, but I also had to know how and where to escalate, and even where to point people to in the event that it was 'above my paygrade'. To accomplish that I was essentially forced to spend multiple two week periods 'embedded' in the other groups. So in trying to train the Fedora Ambassador we'd 'assign' them to Documentation or Translation for two weeks, after which time they'd spend two weeks in Bug Triage - attending meetings (or at least reading the minutes) and perhaps even doing the work. If a person who acts as an Ambassador for Fedora can't describe for a potential contributor the process to get involved in Docs or Art or Packaging then I perceive that as a problem. I'd even argue that subscribing to the f-a-b list should be mandatory. Most of the policy questions you'll be asked (MP3, DVD, etc) have been clearly defined, but as an Ambassador you need to be in the loop with regards to what's going on in the organization.
*Perhaps before any of that I think that people should understand the principles of the Fedora Project and why they are important. I can't tell you how disheartened I was to see discussions on the f-a-l advocating inclusion of proprietary, closed source kernel drivers in Fedora. If a person doesn't get the principles or doesn't agree with them the last thing they should be doing is being the face of Fedora.
Now that said - the thing we don't want to do is unnecessarily raise the barrier to contribute. (Which I think can be avoided). That means that there needs to be a welcoming mentorship process. I'd argue that we leave the 'join' portion the way that it is - and keep the 6 month probation period (at least there used to be one before you could get money) What we follow that with is a list of what's involved and most of the work I envision from the above is placed on the new Ambassador.
So let me step back a bit and say - With one or two exceptions I don't really try and recruit people to become Ambassadors. I know we as organization have done so. Ambassadors I think would be most ideally recruited from within. While I didn't do this, (I started in Ambassadors and marketing, and both were worse off for it :) ) I think that we'd have better Ambassadors for it if we did. There are people like ianweller who are heavily involved in a lot of aspects of Fedora and in my opinion would make a great Ambassador rather than $randomlinuxuser we pick up at a conference.
Thoughts?