Czajkowski

An Overview of LoCo Guidance

< ubot4> lococouncil is The Loco Council is itnet7, czajkowski, paultag, huats, leogg, popey – they are there to help, just ask! You can send them an email at loco-council@lists.ubuntu.com

We have made up a page to help teams and encourage teams to use it and TRANSLATE IT https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoCouncil/LoCoTeamsBestPracticesandGuidelines/

When you organise events, vary it, don’t always have them soo geeky, try and have non geeky events, people will come along more often than not if they feel they don’t have to be a technnology expert, and it also means people can bring along families so vary your venue

A log of the talk is HERE which has some questions and answers from the presentation and here is my  Collectors Card

I am very pleased to announce the new Conference packs for LoCo Teams, this came from a session at UDS-M in Brussels of this year but also was something we’ve been looking at for a while.  So it’s great to see an action item marked DONE (which makes bacon happy) but also has a positive effect for a lot of people.  We wanted to encourage teams to become and stay an approved LoCo Team and how we could possibly help. With that in mind we looked what was currently available, we talked to many people on what they thought might be helpful to them. When you attend an event you are representing your team and Ubuntu, so to present yourself in a professional manner we looked at things like a banner for teams.

The LoCo Council would like to thank Jane Silber for this as she was one of the people in the session who encouraged us to bring this action item to light and also we’ve had great help from Cezzaine Haugh and also Canonical for making this happen for all LoCo Teams, thank you very much!

The following has been approved for conference packs, and the wiki has been updated to reflect this

Once off gift to approved loco teams
When a LoCo Team is approved, part of what they need to do is nominate someone to receive and manage their LoCo Welcome Pack, which Canonical will provide.

• x1 PVC banner – (one design only)
• x1 Table cloth – (one design only)

Pack A – Approved loco teams

• x55 Lanyards
• x2 caps
• x25 mixed sticker sheets
• x25 pin-badges – (These have yet to be produced)
• x2 t-shirts (release t-shirt) for give-away/booth staff
• x1 Official Ubuntu Book (prize/give-away) – (Only while stocks last, we will not produce anymore than the amount received after each release)
• CDs (250 Desktop, 25 Server, 25 Kubuntu) – (To be requested via shipit as per usual process)
  
• Name badges (Loco to produce their own)
• Ubuntu leaflets (Loco to create a project to produce their own ideas)
• Ubuntu video (Canonical to provide – will be available for d/l on wiki once completed)
  

Pack B – UnApproved loco teams

• x25 mixed sticker sheets
• x55 Lanyards
• CDs (75 Desktop) – (To be requested via shipit as per usual process)
• Name badges (Loco to produce their own)
• Ubuntu leaflets (Loco to create a project to produce their own ideas)
• Ubuntu video (Canonical to provide – will be available for d/l on wiki once completed)

Also discussed and decided last week on was:

• Ubuntu leaflets – not relevant in most countries due to various languages. Loco council will introduce a community driven project for loco teams to design their own Ubuntu leaflets based on brand guidelines and access to assets. Assets for these can be found at: http://design.canonical.com/the-toolkit/ubuntu-brand-guidelines/
• Name-badge designs - this is mainly when hosting their own events. Again Loco’s to create their own using assets and brand guidelines.
• Ubuntu video to run on machines at events – Canonical is currently working on a generic Ubuntu video in English and a few other languages – this will be added to the wiki page once completed.

I’ve had some time recently to review a lot of wiki applications for LoCos.  It is truly amazing the amount of work some teams do and is a great source of ideas to try for other teams.

With that said, I’ve also seen some wiki pages which are less than clear on what the team is doing which makes it very hard to judge. So I thought I’d put down some best practices to make it clearer what is expected.

So firstly let’s recap:

The LoCo Council has been tasked with identifying Approved LoCo teams which were approved over 2 years ago and thus are due for re-approval. The criteria for re approval is the same as for approval which is outlined on the getting approved instructions and the LoCo Council guidelines can be found at the team approval guidelines.

It should be noted that from the day your LoCo is approved, you should continue to document all events and history of your LoCo for this re approval process to make it clear and visible to all.

Now it is safe to say some teams do not continue documenting their work so when it comes to re approval time it’s panic stations, all hands on deck!  Things you can do to help elevate this are the following

• Use the LoCo Directory to log all of your events it will make it easier to write up about them and possibly in the future link to past events
• MONTHLY Reports folks, only a handful of teams use them and there are more teams there that SHOULD be writing monthly reports, list your IRC meeting, any real life meet up, projects people are working on in relation to Ubuntu.
• Take photos of your events it’ll help in the long run, assign someone at each event to take photos and even create a gallery in one place to link to them

When it comes to the creation of the Application be it for Approval or ReApproval it’s the same thing just NAMED DIFFERENTLY.  You just need to document it. LOTS OF DETAILS PLEASE! We’d rather have too much then not enough details as the meeting is short and we have a lot of teams to get through.

What is expected of a LoCo Team

• All teams must provide the Council with a wiki page (in English preferably) with details outlined in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoGettingApproved.
• The team should have demonstrated a significant and sustained contribution to the Ubuntu community, from participating in a ubuntu-related project, documentation, localization, development (bug reports and packaging, marketing, participating in FOSS events, release parties. All of these abiding the Code of Conduct and following the LoCo team project’s policies.
• The team should have public wiki pages and an open public mailing list set up, these initial resources indicate open participation and they provide the Council with a log of the Team’s activity.
• The team should have an entry in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoTeamList.
• The team should have been running for at least 4 months and have had a consistent set of interactions with each other (council members should look at mailing list activity to assess how much activity there is) – you should also assess IRC activity where applicable.
• The team should have a good roadmap and a good set of goals that they want to achieve, The Approved status is only a confirmation of their effort and it is also a commitment for further community activity.
• Leadership within the team must be build upon fairness and openess. The team must be in agreement with the fair apointment of a leader. This leader must represent the team in different situations in an efficient and effective manner, so the leader’s commitment towards the team is paramount.
• Has there been much conflict in the team, and if so, has it been resolved?: This is a very important sign of a team that is mature enough to face further situations in the future. Resolving issues is definetely a learning experience for LoCo Teams.
• Do the council feel this team could be trusted with additional resources such as additional CDs and being sent equipment for use?, Extra resources encourage more participation therefore, Being able to administer their resources is paramount, making sure that the team has what they need to promote ubuntu locally .
• Is this team setting a good example to the community? The Team must serve as role for new teams. The teams participation in LoCo team communication channels (Mailing list and IRC) is also encouraged, this way the team can be sure of that the great work done by this team gets shared with the whole LoCo Team community.

We also know that from time to time things don’t run smoothly, but how you cope  resolve and work things out is what we would like to know about.  It’s not a bad thing unless you hide it.  On the wiki page tell us how many is in your TEAM, IRC Channel, Mailing list, Forums and link to them.  We need the details, please don’t expect us to go looking for them, your team is one of a number of teams being reviewed.

When it comes to the IRC meeting if you are called for one, don’t come alone.  You are not in the team alone.  You don’t run the team alone.  BRING PEOPLE  TO CHEER THEIR TEAM ALONG!  It’s a team effort remember this when doing the application ASK FOR HELP, ASK  FOR CONTENT, you may miss something when someone else has blogged or taken photos of something.

Remember the LoCo Council idles in #ubuntu-locoteams if you want us to look over your application to give you some pointers just ask.  Remember being called for reapproval is a normal procedure and do not panic

Finally some really good applications just to give you an idea of what we’re looking for are the following

1. Colombian LoCo
2. Italian LoCo
3. French LoCo

I’d noticed a while back there was a session on the fridge for LoCo teams that was vacant and thought how best I could use it to get more discussions going with teams.

We’re trying out the LoCo Health Check sessions on the 1st Tuesday of each month in #ubuntu-locoteams. In this session if you have any queries from your team or ideas you want to get some feedback on this would be a great place to bring them up and chat to others in the community.

The idea is we the council will add some topics we’d like to share with the community or get feedback on.  There is also an area for you to add a topic you want to hear about or bring up and get feedback.

Meetings take place on #ubuntu-locoteams the agenda is open for anyone to add items to, but if you do add items, PLEASE turn up.  This is open to EVERYONE in EVERY TEAM. Come along and meet more people in the Ubuntu Community.

So I’ve been pondering and mulling  trying to figure out how best to interact with LoCo Teams.  I’m on IRC and run a screen session so even when not there folks leave me a message.  It’s handy but I know not everyone uses IRC. Then we have a mailing list LoCo contacts list which isn’t being used as much as it can be, we’re working on that.  Then there are the forums, I’ve never been a forums user.  Finally we have social media Twitter and Identi.ca. So there are lots of ways to share your information with one another.

I thought it might be an idea for teams, members, anyone who wants to really to use the tag #locoteams If you create a search on what ever client you use, then you’ll be able to see what teams are planning, discussing, or announcing.  This would be a great way to kick start discussions and also share information with one another.

The Ubuntu community is a large international group of very enthusiastic and smart people who come up with new and exciting ways of sharing and promoting Ubuntu. Why not share that information with more people, use the #locoteams tag when you tweet and tell people about the work you are doing or just to get ideas flowing, maybe you’re stuck and want to bounce ideas off one another.

I am on twitter and identi.ca @czajkowski and do post a lot on Ubuntu, but also on rugby you have been warned! but I will as will other LoCo Council members be using the #locoteams tag where we can