[Infopoint] Infopoint - lets make it happen!!

[Tony Whitmore]

Steve Parkes wrote:
> very selective snipping because I agree with tony on most things here
> anyway.

Aww, shucks. ;)

> When we started WolvesLUG we attempted to get students interested and
> failed.  Perhaps it's just because jono and myself are just so scary ;-)

Students have a lot of people trying to sell them something, it can be
difficult to get heard. We meet at Southampton Uni and made contact with
their local CompSci club organisers. They were really interested in
promoting the LUG within their department because a lot of people didn't
know we met there. So with a contact in the SU or other society at a
Uni, things could be a lot easier.

> Not sure what other areas are like but the wolves fairs are far too
> cramped to make a good impression with a number of people

We've been lucky, I know. It's also why I'm reluctant to move to the
busier Southampton fair.

>> Yes; I recall someone posting on either SBLug or WolvesLUG about a
>> stand in a local library.
> 
> Mo in Kinver, perhaps someone needs to get him interested in Infopoint?

Definitely!

>> The Infopoints Katherine and I have done recently have normally had
>> us, and occassionally one or two other for a portion of the day. I'm
>> not sure if it's sustainable in this form, as spending an entire day
>> at a computer fair is quite tiring (and I doubt I'm the best
>> ambassador for the 'cause' with my great personality etc.
> 
> This is a local problem.  The same people are involved in these things
> time and time again.

Nah, it's national. Worldwide probably. There are always those who have
more time to put more time into LUG activites. You always end up with a
core of people who do most of the work.

> Perhaps we need a set of pages on the wiki where people can volunteer
> for local infopoint jobs.  I can certainly do things other than man the
> stalls.

We have a page on our wiki where people can volunteer to do things other
than man the stand.

http://www.hantslug.org.uk/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?InfoPoints/ResourcesVolunteered

We set this up when we started doing InfoPoints and have called on
people as necessary.

> As for personality I am not the right type either as I will rip peoples
> heads off for being dim.  Can we clone Kat?

:) The best guy we have on our InfoPoints is not a highly technical
Linux user. But he's damn keen. He chats away genially with people who
come up to the stand, explains what a live CD is and so on. I think it's
what people call infectious enthusiasm.

> We should contact Conanical and ask for a bulk order of cd's to be sent
> to a region organiser every couple of months to make sure each region
> always has a supply of cd's.  I know they have a massive budget for this
> sort of thing and would rather know that the 100 cd's they send get used
> than send 10 to thousands of people who will bin most of them.

It's good idea. We need to scale it correctly though. I don't want a
loft full of unused Ubu CDs. :)

>> I would, but that dodgy server isn't working at the moment. I'm
>> willing to provide the hosting for it if necessary.
> 
> can we do this?
> 
> we need to pool the resources in a place they are always accessible and
> as has been pointed out Angel hasn't been that assessable for the last
> few weeks.

If there's reliable hosting and jono's happy to let it go, I don't see
why not. Would it also be worthwhile registering a domain name, rather
than being a subdomain of jonobacon.org? Perhaps it would give a better
impression?

(No, I'm not implying that association with Jono leads to getting a bad
reputation. ;) )

> it depends on who we are targeting.
> 
> I see three core groups
>   1) Linux Users to join as Advocates (LRL attempted to target these)
>   2) Home Computer Users -> current(?) target at fairs
>   3) Business Users -> added benefit of needed consultancy
<snip>
> reaching group 1 have been covered, group 2 have been targeted at
> computer fairs with mixed results but it seems we have a concensus to
> target them directly in different places.

We could still do much more wrt group 1 though.

> We could even start a newbies to linux list for the infopoint project
> and help these new faces find their feet before they feel strong enough
> to survive a lug.  Some arn't exactly that friendly unfortunatly.

Yeah, quite. The trouble is that a lot of the less-helpful people
actually think they're being really helpful and not-at-all patronising.
It could be difficult or impossible to control the quality and attitude
of advice being given on the newbies list, especially if these people
wanted to "do their bit" and signed up to the newbies list too.

> If we start a newbie list I will look into hooking it up to a forum and
> rss feed so we can all subscribe in the format of choice.  Combined with
> a wiki we could build some excellent resources for advocacy and newbie
> projects combined.

I know there are some international Linux newbie forums, would a UK
specific one be of benefit? Or should we just be directing people to those?

Tony
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