Dear Community,
KDE works within a well-defined budget. This is important: it gives
focus to KDE's work and helps us define what we want to achieve while
factoring in long-term goals. [0]
I am writing now on behalf of the Promo team to let you know about their
team's budget for events this year, which is as follows:
- FLOSS events (FOSDEM, FOSSAsia, Linux Tags, etc.): 3000€
- Non-FLOSS events (STN, events for educators, artists, etc.): 3000€
- Reserve funds for events we had not anticipated, but are too
interesting too miss: 2000€
As 2024 kicks off and the Plasma 6 mega-release looms large, we will all
start planning to attend events in order to promote the KDE community's
achievements. In order to provide some guidance, Promo will send a list
of prominent events soon which they think can reasonably be funded
within the given budget.
== Now What? ==
Do you promote KDE's work by tending booths and giving talks? What does
this budget mean for you?
If you want to represent KDE at an event, Promo is here to support you.
To give clear direction to your work, Promo has provided a list of
guidelines in the attached markdown file "2024_Events_Budget.md" (see
'00_Budgets' directory in Collaborate for the most up-to-date version of
the guidelines). These guidelines are to be referenced /before/,
/during/, and /after/ an event. They will make sure the 2024 budget is
being used most efficiently and effectively. Here is an example with
sample goals for FOSDEM in February:
https://phabricator.kde.org/T17027
Events that do not have a clear promotional value will unfortunately not
be funded from Promo's annual budget. Keep in mind: This does not mean
you cannot attend an event and get funded! Many events are still worth
going to even if they do not have promotional value. Your way forward in
a case like this would be to negotiate travelling, accommodation, and
other expenses with some other team, maybe with the Board itself. See
here for general KDE reimbursements page:
https://reimbursements.kde.org/
No matter how you fund your travel, you can still rely on Promo to
provide free stuff to take with you when available, such as stickers, or
banners, and we will happily advise you on how to proceed.
== Contact ==
To contact the Promo team, you can join the Matrix room for public
communication:
https://matrix.to/#/#kde-promo:kde.org
For private chat you can reach Paul or Aniqa either using email (both
are in CC to this announcement) or Matrix:
- Paul: @bro666:kde.org
- Aniqa: @aniqakhokhar:kde.org
There are many big events coming up for our community and I am looking
forward to a very successful 2024 for KDE!
Cheers,
Joseph
[0] 2022 KDE e.V. COMMUNITY REPORT (see "Financial Working Group" for
KDE's Income and Expenses in 2022): https://ev.kde.org/reports/ev-2022/
--
Joseph P. De Veaugh-Geiss
KDE Internal Communications & KDE Eco Community Manager
OpenPGP: 8FC5 4178 DC44 AD55 08E7 DF57 453E 5746 59A6 C06F
Matrix: @joseph:kde.org
Generally available Monday-Thursday from 10-16h CET/CEST. Outside of
these times it may take a little longer for me to respond.
KDE Eco: Building Energy-Efficient Free Software!
Website: https://eco.kde.org
Mastodon: @be4foss@floss.social
This year The Board has assigned Promo a fixed amount of money for attending events. While not low, we must be careful and selective on what events we will be spending this money on.
**The overall annual budget for 2024 is as follows**
* For FLOSS related events (FOSDEM, FOSSAsia, Linux Tags, etc.): 3000€
* For non-FLOSS related events (STN, events for educators, artists, etc.): 3000€
* Reserve funds for events we had not anticipated (see below), but are too interesting too miss: 2000€
We will be elaborating a draft list of the most prominent events in 2024 (in which everybody is invited to participate) and whittle it down to what we think reasonably can be funded with the given budget.
This is not a bad thing. It will give us focus and help us choose more carefully events we want to attend, and help define why we are going and what we want to achieve.
We have written down some guidelines on what we would looking for to fund an event attendance through Promo.
Take a look and see what you think:
### Before the Event
We would like to see
* a list of valid promotional goals
- Valid goals could include:
+ Collect details of principals and educational board members who would seem open to testing KDE software in their schools
+ Collect details of organizations/corporations that are willing to use KDE's software or collaborate with us in some way
+ Convince a collective to use KDE software, be it Plasma or specific apps
+ Broker collaboration deals with other communities to work on joint projects
+ Help a group of people install Plasma or a specific KDE app
+ Recruit new developers/development teams for KDE
+ Run workshops
+ Raise funds
- Invalid goals could include:
+ Raise awareness
+ Hand out Stickers and merch
+ Deliver a talk that could be a blog post
* a list of materials that will help achieve those goals, including devices for show and demos (large screens, tactile screens, loudspeakers, microphones, mobile devices, "naked" hardware, etc.), devices to count and register the number of visitors to the booth, printed cards (if it is that kind of event), pen and paper (or their digital equivalents) to write down contact details, stickers, merch, etc.
* a list of activities that will help achieve the goals, such as demos, talks, workshops, etc.
### During the Event
We would like you to
* Carry out the demos
* Actively engage with the audience (i.e. do not only let the audience go to you but actively pull them in)
* Document everything with photos and videos at all stages of the event if some can be later reused in promotional materials, so much the better. Make sure you ask for permission from subjects to publish their likeness. Get people talking on camera about their views, either candidly or in response to your questions.
* Take note of the number of visitors, most common questions and comments, most common activities visitors engaged in, etc.
### After the Event
You will have to
* Write an internal post-mortem containing
* A list of goals achieved and the next steps to be followed relative to each goal (e.g. "have a call with the XYZ organization/company", "email Ms. H G information", "Start sponsorship admin for the A company", "download info of G to Mr. K, head of the L school", etc.). The more specific the better.
* a detailed description of the event
* a description of the profile of the attendees
* a description of the booth or talk and materials you took with you
* a description of all the information you collected (except for sensitive personal details, like contacts of leads)
* a description of what and how attendees interacted with you and your material, pointing out the most and least popular materials, merch, etc.
* a "lessons learned" section, deatiling what worked, what failed, and what you would advise we do next time
All these can be bullet points
* Write a blog post we can later include in the Annual report
* Transfer leads and other useful promotional information to the promo team with instructions for the next steps
* Transfer recorded material (photos and videos) to the promo team
### Events that can't be funded
All events that do not have a clear promotional value will be have to be denied, as budget is limited this year.
#### Important caveat
This does not mean you cannot attend an event and get funded! Many events are still worth going to even if they do not have promotional value, but then they you must not expect funding to come from Promo's overall annual budget.
Your way forward ina a case like this would be to negotiate travelling, accommodation and other expenses with some other team, maybe with the Board itself. Failing that, you may have to cover the expenses yourself.
You can still rely on Promo to provide free stuff to take with you if available, like stickers, or banners, and we will happily advise you on how to proceed.
