Our Next Session

The next session is called Support Saturday #8. This page pertains to that session only.

It is scheduled to occur on Sat Sept 11th, 2010. Our space is fully booked and ready to go. Support Saturday #8 will be announced to the whole group and will open for RSVP's on September 1 2010 provided that we have adequate volunteers and a sufficient level of organization.

*** Our location is downtown, beside Waterfront Skytrain. Our meetup.com event page will provide the exact address and transit directions.

Setting The Stage

The goal for SupportSaturday #8 is to Exercise our flexibility and still provide great community support. As advocates and Ubuntu enthusiasts, it's in our best interest to ensure that everyone we know is having the best Ubuntu experience possible. It's also important to ensure that we are nimble and able to adapt to changing circumstances. Our new venue is a good one, though it will test our flexibility as it differs in configuration from our previous ones.

Our previous Support Saturdays were, in a word, amazing. Let's continually keep up the momentum. Let's also bring our best ideas and enthusiasm into each successive event.

Ubuntu Vancouver uses SupportSaturday to spread Ubuntu all across the city. We show people that great software is made better with great community. People come for help and leave feeling the Ubuntu spirit. Problems solved with a friendly smile. People come for demos and information and leave feeling enthusiastic about Ubuntu!

Cheers,
Randall
Ubuntu Vancouver Buzz Generator

Planning Info

If you are planning to help organize the event and/or be at the event as a SupportHero crew member, then add your name to the list below or contact one of the event managers. SupportSaturdays work well because they are organized and planned carefully.

Please read emails that are sent on the Support Heroes mailing list and from the meetup event.

Also please subscribe to this page. VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT!! Click here to do that.

Please add your notes and information. In general, it's better to add comments and information that clarify what's already here.

Our eighth SupportSaturday is scheduled for Sept. 11th 10am - 2:30pm. (The crew will begin set-up at 9:00am. The venue will open for support at 10am. Support activities need to be fully concluded by 2:30pm to allow tear-down and clean up.)

Planning Meetings

SupportSaturdays work well because they are organized and planned carefully. This is a key differentiator and is often where other groups fail. If you are intending to be a SupportHero{in}e crew member, please ensure that you are able to make at least one planning meetings. Also, please join the support.heroes mailing list.

SupportHeroes and SupportHeroines

Please add your name and details to this table if you are planning to attend to offer support.

Venue

Please check the meetup.com event page. -RR

Proposed Flow:

Upon arrival, attendees will sign-in. Since all are members of Ubuntu Vancouver, sign-in will be a simple name/email on the clipboard. Attendees coming for help will be briefly interviewed by a "triage" person and the output of that will be a "Support Request" (same forms as last time).
"Support Requests" will be posted on the bulletin board and managed by the triage/registration crew. In the event that a Support Hero/ine is available s/he will grab a "Support Request" that looks promising and get the person needing help.

Registration Area

Configuration this time will be a "classroom setting." All functions will occur in a single room.

Tech Room

Configuration this time will be a "classroom setting." All functions will occur in a single room.

ToDo

• Identify tech team, energize the support.heroes mailing list - ST

• Post event, finalize overall structure, prepare marketing materials - RR

Lessons Learned

Please document any lessons learned from prior support events (e.g. Windowless Wednesdays, install-fests, etc.). We'll use that information to make SupportSaturdays stronger. No need to repeat mistakes. Please refer to our "Lessons Learned" page for the list.

Equipment List

• Please initial each item you will bring and indicate quantity.

Non-Tech Materials List

• Please initial each item you will bring and indicate quantity.

Food/Snacks

Please consider bringing some snacks or drinks (or both) to share. It is a nice way to make people feel welcomed, and also helps keep SupportHeroes happy.

Event Marketing

Event to be marketed exclusively through our meetup channel.

Terminology:

SupportHeroine: A female volunteer who is attending the event to offer technical assistance or to provide marketing support, or general organizational event support and has been part of the planning process.
SupportHero: A male volunteer who is attending the event to offer technical assistance or to provide marketing support, or general organizational event support and has been part of the planning process.
Requestor: A person that has RSVP'd "yes" for the event and has indicated that they need assistance.
Drop-In: A person that saw our poster and just showed up, or was "dragged in" shown in or flagged down. (Normally this shouldn't happen unless we have postered an area.)

Suggested Help Procedure (pre-event)

1) "SupportHero" reaches out to Requestor via email, acknowledging the request and asking the Requestor to quickly scan a list of bug reports, if applicable. Outreach targets are documented in the table below. See: Issues Reported at bottom of this page.
2) Requestor responds with more info. This could be a bug number, or more descriptive information about the issue.
3) "SupportHero" asks Requestor if s/he would be comfortable filing a Launchpad Question. If so, Requestor submits question to: If so, skip to step 5. If not, skip to step 4 below.
4) "Support Hero" submits a Launchpad Question describing the issue on Requestor's behalf.
5) "Support Hero" monitors Launchpad responses to question, and conducts further research.

Suggested Help Procedure (at event)

Here's a nice diagram of how this should all work. http://www.ubuntuvancouver.info/wiki/doku.php?id=manage:action:techsupport

• Also refer to the main SupportSaturdays page. Stefan/Randall have some great ideas documented there on how to maintain flow, and how to match the best help to each situation.

Incoming Support Issues

When people RSVP for the event at http://meetup.com/ubuntuvancouver, they are asked a series of questions.

1. Are you coming for assistance? If so, please tell us briefly what services you need.
2. Please tell us about your computer. What hardware is it? (Make, model, RAM, CPU, disk space)
3. Are you currently running Ubuntu on this hardware? If so, which version?
4. Do you have a recent backup of your personal data? (If not, we highly recommend that you copy all data to an eternal disk. If you need help doing this, please let us know here)
5. Please specify your email address. This will only be used if we need to gather more information in order to prepare to help you.This is a collection of the RSVP responses from people who are coming for specific help:

We can (and should) also follow-up directly by email where applicable). If you follow-up, please inform the group so we're not 'peppering' the same person with questions.

Issues Reported
Inbound Issues will be mailed to the SupportHeroes list as they are reported.