Hi Wikey, > > To your question: > > I think the nature of the meetup should (for now) be primarily* about > first-mile user-education*, so installation and troubleshooting queries > about Ubuntu would take priority. > > Of course, if there's a mailing list/forum/FB group (I definitely prefer > the latter), people can project in advance what they want to discuss - and > then go get their own coffee table during the weekly meeting - no problems > there. If somehow we have enough attendees that we get at at least one party > going off to discuss user-land kernel hacks in a corner - I think it'd be an > over-achievement already. > > Sorry to chime in an old topic, but I rarely read the list. Here's my thoughts, based entirely on my experience running HSKL.
- Weekly meeting is good, but it's too frequent. Best is bi-weekly. People tend to just linger around and not do anything productive if they 'feel' compelled to meet every week. Over time, the crowd will become less and less and disinterested. - Expecting people to project in advance what to ask often fails in the long run. As a community leader (if you want to be one), you have to decide the topic for every meetup (at least for the first few meetups), prepare the materials, control the meetup (e.g. 30 mins of presentation, 10 mins of Q&A, 30 mins of hands-on, etc). Consistency, discipline and focus is the key to a successful meetup. - Focus on "people". Who is your target? Non-geeks? That term is just too broad. Make it specific. How about primary/secondary school students? If you focus on specific people, you will see them coming through the door, and you will feel glad. It gives you motivation. It drives you to do what you want to do, and achieve what you want to achieve. It makes you want to go the school and beg the headmaster/mistress an hour of school time so that you preach Ubuntu. They're your drugs. Goals are more attainable if they're concise. And yes, I completely imagined this being in a *public location* for ease of > access - also, it's good for branding and visibility (i.e. spreading the > meme, and getting it to go viral). > > If you meant something visible like a coffee shop, then HSKL is not one. But HSKL will always be there for the community to use. > > - This is basically about *fixing the last-mile of open-source software > propagation*. Most people don't get into FOSS because they're not geeky > enough by nature - so why don't we help them by meeting up face to face and > de-geeking the technology a little bit? > > Focus on primary/secondary school students. Why students: for the simple reason that they are the most free to choose what they want to use in terms of operating system. Professionals for example, don't really care much because they use what their company provides, and most likely it's some proprietary software, unless their work environment is otherwise. Open source is not about being geeky or non-geeky. It's about freedom to choose. "I am interested in helping non-geeks with Ubuntu, for free" Sheet (once we > hit 15 people, I'll set up the FB page): > I don't believe in starting something only when you get enough people. I think the minimum number of people you need is 2. When I started HSKL, we got a lot of interests. 15-20 people attended the meetings. So I started delegating. But nothing happened for a good 6 or 7 months. So I started again, just me and another guy. No meetings, no arguments over where to rent, no consensus, no votes - just a "get that goddamn thing off the ground" attitude. And another one helped. And another. And finally a good one month before renting a space, we have 30+ pledges - people who willingly donated their money because they know that you're doing it for the greater good. Best of luck, --mel
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