[Menai-LUG] Meeting/Seminar?

[Kevin Donnelly]

Every so often the members of NWLUG and the (semi-defunct) MenaiLUG raise the 
possibility of a meeting.  I'm going to trail an idea here that goes somewhat 
beyond that, just to gauge the interest (if any!), since it's a couple of 
years since I last had a tilt at this.

At the last Northern Bloc meeting, I was speaking to one of the Business 
Development people in Anglesey.  They have a nice new centre in Llangefni, 
with rooms which can be hired out for businesses to use.  He was not against 
the idea of using this for a LUG meeting, but said that it would obviously 
need to be able to demonstrate some direct relationship to business in the 
area.

Thinking about this further afterwards, I wonder if there is an argument for 
trying to expand this.  That is, instead of a meeting for us "converted", try 
to do something that is specifically aimed at expanding the bubble.

This would be something along the following lines:
- 1-day seminar/workshop/expo on using Linux now/practically/for real work
- scheduled for some time in May or June, to give a bit of time to organise 
this
- publicity through local papers, Federation for Small Businesses, and 
"official" bodies like Business Eye, etc - ie specifically targeting local 
small businesses
- combination of talks, hands-on, and demos split into "tracks", eg small 
office end-user, office servers and networks, creative, education
- any local business that is already providing services (equipment, software, 
web-design, hosting, etc) based on FLOSS would be welcome to demo/talk
- all screens used must be running Linux (ie everyone must show they are 
eating their own dogfood)
- publicity material to be bilingual, handouts to be bilingual sfap, and a 
couple of the talks/demos in Welsh

Deliverables (apart from the actual event):
- show that there are support structures in place for local businesses if they 
want to experiment in this area
- demonstrate the range of software available, and within that, prove that the 
vast bulk of ordinary business tasks can be carrried out using Linux and 
other FLOSS
- show that choosing FLOSS is not an all-or-nothing option; it can slot into 
your existing setup, some FLOSS runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac, etc
- set Linux in the wider business context, eg no vendor lock-in on data 
formats, bottom-line savings ito security and licenses, support for minority 
languages, etc

This would need a fair bit of planning (assuming others think it would be 
worthwhile/practical to do!), but I would be willing to lead on that if I 
could get input from others.  What I could not do is develop/deliver the 
programme single-handedly, so that's why I would like comments and 
suggestions on scope/content, volunteers, etc.  I tend to think that Linux is 
now at the stage where it is actually a pretty practical choice for a large 
number of end-user IT-related tasks (Ubuntu and openSUSE spring to mind as 
pretty polished distros), and just reading the list suggests to me 5-6 people 
I think would be quite capable of contributing a talk or demo to an event 
like this, if they wished to do so.

Obviously, the event would need to be reasonably high-quality, and the talks 
would need to be relentlessly practical (in both senses: not "here's some 
interesting code which draws a penguin on the screen", but "this is how you 
could meet all your email needs by using FLOSS", and not "you could use 
Sendmail or Postfix for that", but "here's a walkthrough of one system, 
showing email clients collecting the mail, and webmail access through a 
browser").

So, any views on how doable this would be, or not?

-- 
Pob hwyl / Best wishes

Kevin Donnelly

www.kyfieithu.co.uk - KDE yn Gymraeg
www.eurfa.org.uk - Geiriadur rhydd i'r Gymraeg
www.rhedadur.org.uk - Rhedeg berfau Cymraeg
www.cymrux.org.uk - Linux Cymraeg ar un CD