Introduction

Brief introduction to the team, meeting, and theme if possible.

Team Page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MassachusettsTeam
Meeting Chair: Martin Owens (DoctorMO)
Meeting Minutes by: Martin Owens (DoctorMO)

Present

The following were present during this meeting:

Members Present

• Brian DeLacey

• Joshua McGinnis (joshuam)

• Martin Owens (DoctorMO)
• Mike Rushton (leftyfb)
• Sara Abbott (deviousdr)

Others Present

• Sunny Shin (shin-seu)

Future Events

• Regular Meeting on the Forth Thursday of each month.
  • Locations include, during summer we can hang out at a little seating area across the road from John Harvard
  • The Burito bar near by has a free wifi network and good food (although no mustard)
  • We must better understand parking in the area and document where the best places are.
• Quarterly Installfests.

  • Harvard or MIT rooms are available for request through Joshua McGinnis

• Ad-hoc PR events arranged at least 4 weeks ahead of time.

Ideas

We should always start people out with a dual boot machine as a matter of policy until the user is happy with the ubuntu install. we can print out advice slips which invite people back if/when they require windows or ubuntu only installs. We should be happy to provide a back track facility at any installfest where a previous install of ubuntu does not meet the needs of the user.

Joshua McGinnis agreed to handle PR with his contacts at endurance, he shall see what can be done in arranging such activities with the help of everyone else when required.

Microcenter may be interested in doing tutorials or teaching similar to some of their current tutorial schemes, but instead based on Ubuntu; we may wish to start with free training for similar computer stores and repair shops.

Dell has a number of Kiosks that we may wish to get involved with to help support ubuntu.

We could create videos for posting on you-tube that people in the area could use as helpful tutorials; Martin Owens has contacts in this field including a number of actors, directors and production people if required.

There are three areas of focus when engaging in public awareness that each require their own unique approaches:

1. Small Business and Non Profit Organisations
2. The General Public
3. Students and Collectives

Small Business

In order to approach this group, we will need contact from an interested business and we can arrange meetings or invite key people to attend meetings from there. The proactive plan is to ask canonical, dell and other more local connections to refer interested local businesses to our group.

General Public

This group is a dispersed and non organised group, very hard to target with any campaign or advertising. We think word of mouth and public events such as handing out cds or having stunts including writing articles for local news papers and various community groups would be the best way to attract this group. although this group is more likely to be happy with Ubuntu once they know about it. Although some expressed that a direct flyer campaign would be more annoying than productive in spreading the word to the general public, expressing a desire to see more targeted advertising.

Students

A number of contacts in various Boston based universities mean we have ways of letting students know about ubuntu in a centralised manner. the problem may come from the university it's self requiring certain windows tools; we may want to think about asking classes involving such software to become agnostic towards the tools used. Best way to spread the word is through posters on message boards and talking with various university student bodies about arranging special events.

Materials

Public Relations

• Ubuntu logo t-shirts (cafe-press? other ubuntu source)
• Posters and flyers
• Ubuntu CDs
• Volunteer Badges

Installfest Events

• Deb cache server
• Networking gear to allow any kind of connection
• Couple of dedicated MSDs (Mass Storage Devices)
• USB and Firewire based burner (for backups)
• USB wifi device that will work without configuration
• Install CDs, at least 1 Alt CD and 1 server CD
• Roll of Case badges for those new to ubuntu (as a reward for switching etc)