#92 Swag for PyCon SK (March 2019)
Closed: Complete 4 years ago by bex. Opened 5 years ago by churchyard.

PyCon SK happens on 22-24 March. We plan to leave Brno on the 21st. We can get anything from the Red Hat office.

We would like to have the Fedora tablecloth for the event and all the remaining Fedora Loves Python flyers and stickers from DevConf CZ / FOSDEM (are there any left?).

Any other Fedora branded stickers are appreciated, but no new production is needed. if they are no more, we are good. Czech "How to use Fedora" (Fedora: Příručka začínajícího uživatele) booklets would be also nice.

Fedora presence was always strong on this conference:

This year, we plan to repeat what we did at DevConf CZ (hack on MicroPython with Fedora booth).

We don't require any funding, just the tablecloth, stickers and flyers.

Is it possible? Is there anything left? Thanks.

This is a copy of https://pagure.io/ambassadors-emea/swag_requests/issue/39


@bex can you send them some swag?

+1 = @churchyard please give an idea on the number of things you need - we have a lot of stuff - you may not actually want it all

IIRC there is cca 400 visitors. Please allocate something with your best judgement. Thank You.

I'll work on getting these items together in a week or two - let me know who will collect htem in Brno.

Yes, I'm happy to be the courier.

Metadata Update from @jsmith:
- Issue priority set to: waiting on external (was: awaiting triage)

5 years ago

I'll pull the swag this week - I've been distracted by my laptop dieing.

Metadata Update from @bex:
- Issue assigned to bex

5 years ago

Metadata Update from @bex:
- Issue priority set to: None (was: waiting on external)

5 years ago

Metadata Update from @bt0dotninja:
- Issue tagged with: needs event report

5 years ago

Event report : Event happened. There were no leaflets or Fedora handbooks. We gave out all the yellow bags and cca half of the stickers. The tablecloth is in Brno, in the Python Maint team, I suppose they'll talk to @bex about returning it. Not having the leaflets was actually quite unfortunate, giving the combined nature of the booth. People only interested in MicroPython didn't get any marketing material to browse later. Quite a lot of people said they will give Fedora a try, but they had nothing to take with them to support the idea. This is a big deal since there are no DVDs to take as a reminder. I'm quite sad that getting the swag we need is overcomplicated by a process and yet blocked on one busy person.

Also a note: The booth idea (combined with MicroPython demos and ad hoc worshop) worked much better on Devconf.cz, where people already got Fefora. While debugging Windows and macOS problems and reminding people that on Fedora, the thing Just Works, might be a good argument for Fedora, it makes people leave, not change their OS.

@churchyard I am rather shocked and disappointed to read your comments. When we spoke on 14 March and you assured me that the lack of leaflets was OK, I interpreted that to mean that it was OK. I wish you had shared with me that you really needed them as my offer to have additoinal leaflets printed at that time was genuine and we could have trivially had them ready.

Additionally, as we discussed, there were no Fedora Hex stickers left in Brno on 14 March. Because we are looking at a new logo I arranged to have some shipped from the US to help deplete our stock there. I just realized that you were not included on the email to @pviktori where I informed him that Czech customs had held up the combined RH inter-office package. As you know customs inspections are not within my or anyone else's control. It is unfortunate that the stickers arrived on Friday and were not able to be taken.

I'd be interested to know which part of this process was overly complicated or blocked. As I understand it the procedure was:

  1. You opened this ticket
  2. Mindshare discussed it and approved it
  3. We had a direct conversation about estimated attendance and delivery - you nominated someone in Brno to bring it to you
  4. We confirmed all the dates and arranged for the tablecloth to get used by both PyconSK and Chemnitzer Linux Tag.
  5. Everything was ready, except the stickers held by Czech customs

Your feedback and corrections to my notes/memory are appreciated.

@churchyard

Also a note: The booth idea (combined with MicroPython demos and ad hoc worshop) worked much better on Devconf.cz, where people already got Fefora. While debugging Windows and macOS problems and reminding people that on Fedora, the thing Just Works, might be a good argument for Fedora, it makes people leave, not change their OS.

Does discussing building their projects in Linux VMs and containers create an opening for Fedora with non-Linux users?

When we spoke on 14 March and you assured me that the lack of leaflets was OK, I interpreted that to mean that it was OK.

It was OK. It would also be OK if we went with no swag at all. I'm sorry if my comment sound harsh - I'm just trying to provide honest feedback (I am probably not very good at it and might sound like a rant - but it was not meant like that).

When I say "Not having the leaflets was actually quite unfortunate" it is an ex- post observation. When I said "it's OK not to have leaflets, if they are none" it was an expectation. So here I try to say that my expectations didn't meat the reality. This is as much feedback for me as it is for you.

What I'm sad about is that the leaflets are gone and nobody seems to know where they are.

It is unfortunate that the stickers arrived on Friday and were not able to be taken.

That was actually not a big problem at the end, we ended up with plenty remaining stickers.

I'd be interested to know which part of this process was overly complicated or blocked.

I'll try to get back to this later today.

This is the process as I remember it.

  1. I've opened a ticket in wrong place, because the process has changed since last time.
    That's alright, processes can change over time and will know better next time.
  2. I've opened a ticket here. I also noticed the Chemnitzer ticket and tried to coordinate the tablecloth delivery a bit.
  3. A committee voted whether we can request the swag (or at least that's the impression I got from people saying +1s). It feels a bit weird given the fact that another committee already approved to produce the swag for this and other conferences.
  4. I was asked in the ticket how much swag we want and I've provided the expected number of visitors so somebody more experienced can make the call.
  5. 3 weeks later I was contacted by @bex
    1. I was asked how big the event, what is the number of expected visitors; I provided the info.
    2. I was informed that @bex cannot find leaflets as they were most likely not returned from previous events and I've said don't worry about producing more this late. How do we track the swag? Who has it? No one has admitted to have any of the Fedora swag from DevConf/FOSDEM.
  6. @bex gets hex stickers sent from the US, yet the package gets blocked at customs and arrives one day later.
  7. We've collected the swag in the Brno office.
  8. A tag in the ticket indicates an event report is needed.

The overall problem with the process is that the state of things is a black box. We wait three weeks to know if something is missing or not. I need to wait for somebody to actually look somewhere to see if it is there. At the end it would be much easier for me to just get all the swag approved in the council ticket and keep it in RH Python Maint office space, but I don't think that for everybody to maintain their own pile of swag is generally good. Querying for swag should be easy - it would be easier for me if swag status was documented and tracked - i.e. I could see that there are no leaflets and instead of requesting to get them I could have requested to produce more. I realize that that might be too complicated on your side of things, so I'm not proposing let's do it - I'm simply stating that for an ambassador who is not that deeply involved in this, it all feels a bit tricky.

I want to know that there will be swag for the conferences to come. Can you help me with that?

  • What time ahead before the conference should I request the swag?

  • How do I make sure it is available? Should I open more "produce swag" tickets or ask @bex directly?

I realize that I might sound inconsistent. I've clearly said it is OK if something is not available and than I criticize something not being available. So let me try to explain this a bit more explicitly.

  • I've made a decision (before the event) that all kinds of swag are optional, e.g. we can live without the leaflets if they are not available. The presence of leaflets would make the overall booth impression better, but it was not crucial. I consider all swag as nice to have, not a must.
  • I think (after the event) that not having the leaflets was unfortunate. I blame both me (for making a bad decision about the optionality of them) and the process (for them not being available).

What I'd like to change for next time:

  • I will evaluate our swag needs more carefully and take this experience into account.
  • I'd like to have swag available so I can literally just open a ticket to track the hand over.

I hope this makes thing more clear. I'm not mad at anybody, I just try to explain my thoughts.

@churchyard PR #115 which is in progress starts to answer a lot of the procedure questions.

Do you have any other feedback unrelated to the swag about the event? Should Fedora be doing this again? If so, what do you think our messaging should be?

We had a strong presence on Slovak PyCon since the beginning of the conference (2016). There are lot of teachers and other people who I'd categorize as potential Fedora users not knowing anything about Fedora yet - a better "material" than highly skilled software engineers who already use macOS, Arch or Debian for 10 years and have no reason to change.

In previous years however, our booth got a bit boring for the attendees - so this year we've decided to make it more interesting by providing MicroPython ad-hoc workshop with prepared tutorials (originally created for DevConf, located at https://github.com/hroncok/devconf-esp32-tutorials). This makes more people to come and some of them talk to us about Fedora. Some are just interested about the hardware. What we miss is a "hook" for them to have reason to return to Fedora and give it a spin - when they leave the booth, they don't have the hardware and they have no motivation to get back to this. I would categorize the booth visitors as such:

Already has the hardware (ESP32, ESP8266, microbit, etc.), is interested in what we have

Those people were generally impressed about how easy it gets to set this up on Fedora. They wanted links to our materials (the current gihub repo is very "WIP", not presentable) - if we investy some time to get the materials branded with Fedora + add some interesting information about it + make it available online as well, this would be a good category of users to get. Yet the category is quite small (~20 on PyCon SK 2019), so probably not worth the effort.

Would like to check if MicroPython is good for them or just play

This is the larges category of people. It includes Windows, macOS, other Linux distributions users - including Fedora. During their hacking, we can give them intersting facts about Fedora and try to talk to them about how it is good. For most of the Windows / macOS users a ready to use Fedora is needed - we had a spare old laptop, but maybe having Python Classroom Lab bootable USB sticks might be easier. That would allow them to check Fedora on their own HW.

Not interested about the hardware, only comes for Fedora

Does not happen much on PyCon SK, but reduces the problem to traditional Fedora booth - we give swag, talk, explains stuff. I don't consider this anyhow special.


Interesting notes:

  • several visitors told us that they didn't come earlier because they just assumed a Fedora booth (and they were not interested in that), but they've realized there is something extra this year and that made them come. That has 2 important facts hidden:

    • we should have advertized more (ask the organizers to put our "workshop" to the schedule, etc.)
    • having this kind of booth actually helps getting more visitors
  • on the other hand, several visitors told us that they haven't even noticed it's a Fedora booth (the tablecloth was covered by actual visitors sitting at the booth and hacking) - we should make Fedora more visible - at least bring a rollup or a put a very large Fedora Loves Python banner on the wall behind the booth


Conclusion: yes, we should do this again. here is a list of things to consider, with priorities and difficulty level:

  • brand the workshop materials, make them available online as well (low/hard)
  • advertize the workshop trough conference organizers more (high/easy)
  • brand the booth with stuff visible even if the booth is full of people (high/unknown)
  • have stuff to give to people that will make them come back (high/medium)
    • can be the materials themselves for the hardware people (low/hard)
    • brochures and leaflets about Fedora and Fedora/Python for the others (high/easy)
  • have Live Fedora Python Classroom USB sticks ready for Windows / macOS users (high/easy)

Thank you for the expansion @churchyard -- very intriguing and thought provoking stuff.

Thinking about the micro-python, should we approach Fedora + Python as a dev/deploy platform and not be concerned about leading with/pushing the desktop install? This puts us in the use us in the cloud, on a server, in an IoT-like object or a container space instead of the "throw away your mac/format over windows" space.

WDYT?

Definitively a yes, however not something I can use in an argument ATM: every Python I ever deployed is either dead (OpenShift 2) or static GitHub Pages + Travis CI or PythonAnywhere.com. So having some reading material would be great (disclaimer: I haven't try to Google anything right now). Deploying Python apps to the free OpenShift Online service used to be super cool, however anything free AFAK was killed with the OpenShift 3 transition.

Definitively a yes, however not something I can use in an argument ATM: every Python I ever deployed is either dead (OpenShift 2) or static GitHub Pages + Travis CI or PythonAnywhere.com. So having some reading material would be great (disclaimer: I haven't try to Google anything right now). Deploying Python apps to the free OpenShift Online service used to be super cool, however anything free AFAK was killed with the OpenShift 3 transition.

There is a free starter plan here: https://www.openshift.com/products/online/

We may want to talk to our friends at OpenShift about how we could develop a doc/demo for shows that shows Fedora/Python on Openshift

@churchyard has given the report and has pointed some of the improvements which are in progress of getting merged. I think we can close this one. @bex @churchyard do you have anything to add?

I am good. Thank you @churchyard for the great event and the great planning/retrospective here!

Thanks and sorry again for the ungrateful tone, it was not my intention.

Thank you again for your help here @churchyard

Metadata Update from @bex:
- Issue close_status updated to: Complete
- Issue status updated to: Closed (was: Open)

4 years ago

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