Last day *sob* the week has flown, it’s not even funny, day one I knew nobody, and in less than a week I’ve made some great friends and it was fantastic.

Final sessions for the Community track:

• Friday Roundtable
• Revamping The Free Culture Showcase
• Translations Roundtable
• Women In Ubuntu
• Membership Boards Review
• Technical Board Review
• Feedback Session

So firstly for those not familiar with the Free Culture showcase, lets explain it a little.

The Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase is an opportunity to show off high quality free culture content in Ubuntu. At the heart of Ubuntu’s ethos is a belief in showcasing free software and free culture, and with each development cycle we open the opportunity for any Free Culture artist to put their work in front of millions of Ubuntu users around the world. Although the space restrictions are tight, and we are limited to how much content we can include, this is an excellent opportunity for artists everywhere.

So the discussion was about how to make it more open to more people how to advertise it better to include as many people as possible, how to better upload and perhaps the use of Ubuntu One to upload the submissions. The use of facebook, twitter, digg, identi.ca to promote the event, these avenues can always be used for LoCo team events also. I personally try and let local colleges know about my events as student might be interested in coming along or participating in them.

The Ubuntu Women discussion happened as I’d mentioned to Maco about the possibility of a meet up at the begining of the week, and the good thing about UDS is that you can at times if space is available add a new session which we did.

We covered topics on how best to encourage women to come into the channel, use the mailing list basically point out that these resources are availabe and are a way of intereacting with folks. It was a packed session with many guys participating which is great as they had some questions on how to attract more females into their groups and participate in events.

Also there seems to be some perception that one needs to be a developer not only to be involved in -women but also within the community.  You don’t have to be the are many other areas you can participate in the project.

I’m not a developer but I like to organise things, put people in contact with others.  Translations and bug triaging always need to be done and anyone can help out and do these things. Hopefully this month the Ireland LoCo will run a Jam session that will help with these two aspects.

Finally the feedback session, the final wrap up. It was a great week with ideas floating all around the place and projects to work on.  I can only imagine how long some of the leaders action list of items to do are.

Thanks to the folks at Canonical who made this week possible. Thanks to the community who were not only welcoming but also made particpating fun. See you soon!

It’s the second last day of UDS in sunny Barcelona, the week has flow by. There has been much discussion, brain storming and mingling taking place through the week, during the day and in the evening time over dinner. I’ve been lucky to combine my summer holiday and hanging out with some awesome geeks. Win

On todays schedule we have the following:

• The Burnout Cycle (presentation)
• Better LoCo Team Development Participation
• Community Participation In Translations Templates
• Community Council Review
• Ubuntu Developer Channel
• Remote Participation at UDS

So, how does one get LoCo community involvement, how do you get interaction, feedback organsie events.  It’s very hard starting off as you may not know who to talk to or approach. A great resouce is the #ubuntu-locoteams channel. Even if you’re already established, you might be going stale, low particpation at turning up to events. Why not ask other LoCo’s what they are doing, I suggested geeknic and a lot of folks were interested in it. A day out away from the laptops and a nice way to meet people face to face. Find more information here.

Now I was very lucky to attend UDS and participate, but not everyone can. Remote participation is encourage, though perhaps it could be a bit better know. All of the talks are streamed so anyone can listen in and intereact via channel and comment on the discusion.

We also got to take a group pic, savage amount of people from all over the world involved in Ubuntu in one way or another and I got to meet them.

UDS Karmic Group picture

Half way through the week already, hard to believe. I must admit not knowing any people going to UDS it really forced me to make and effort and chat to new people which was great as I met some really great people who had some pretty cool ideas about how things could be shaped not only in the community but also in Ubuntu in general.

Todays Community Topics that I attended were

• Round Table
• Improving Bug Triage Best Practise
• LoCo Council Review
• Improving Packaging Training
• LoCo Team Conference Packs

The improving bug triage was my favourite discussion session today. It’s one I see is an issue as many folks want to take part in bug triaging but don’t know how to. Yes there is documentation out there, there is nearly too much at times so you don’t know where to start.  As a test I emailed the Irish LoCo and asked them about their experiences, where they ran into difficultly and what did they think could be done to help folks get more involved. Thanks to all the nice folks who replied, I’ve forwaded on all the replies to dholbach.