<> <> = Training - How to run a Jam, jcastro 2010-02-26 = {{{#!IRC alright who's around for the How to Run a Bug Jam session? * jcg_ is here for Global Jam training woo hoo, we've got one! Anyone else! I am... * maiatoday is here for Global Jam training Me! i am... alright, let's give it like 2 more minutes for the stragglers https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGlobalJam o/ * jcastro notices mhall119|work shows up to every one ok let's get started please shout out which LoCo team you're representing (if any) Iowa I'm Jorge Castro and I'm from US Michigan Iowa ZA jcastro: gonna be my first global jam NC Ubuntu-fr * mhall119|work does his homework ubuntu-us-fl awesome, so we have a nice mix of people from around the world. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGlobalJam <-- First things first, this page has all the information we'll need as you are planning your jam if you find a place where the information is unclear or could be better written you can feel free to add things or fix errors, or whatever remember that if you can't understand something in our docs, there's a good chance someone else might not either! ok so for the global jam the first thing you need to determine is .... are you going to have one? https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGlobalJam/Events this is a list of teams that have already committed to having a Jam don't worry, it's common for teams to not add their information until later on we have no shortage of procrastinators! :) have you guys decided if you're going to participate? We intent to participate in some fashion us-nc is planning an event ok, so assuming you want to participate usually the first thing you need to do is find a venue. also, loco.ubuntu.com can track your loco events now, and there is a global event for this Global Jam yes of course, don't know where yet ^^ it's step 1 here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Jams I'd like to try but it may be small a venue can be anywhere from a hall, to a pub, a person's house, or whatever works for your team we've had some in a library, etc. libraries are good, we've done several meetups in libraries usually you want to get the venue sorted as soon as possible since it can take time to get that squared away remember that your venue should be geek friendly. so take into accounts things like power, internet, etc. you can always ask people who show up to bring power strips and any gear you might need. one thing that is very useful for people is to get a projector this is useful because one person can have their laptop on the big screen and you can walk through examples of how to triage a bug or things like that it just makes it easier for people to follow along. any questions on venues? if you choose a library or other public space, ask if you're allowed to bring food and drinks, don't assume there is the ubuntu-event-planners list if you have any questions or need tips yes, also remember your age requirements if you have a Jam in a bar and it's 21 and over and you have 2 18 year olds show up and not allowed in that can suck. :( ok so now that you have a place you actually need to figure out what to do you can do Transations, Bug, Packaging, Doc, Testing, and (whew) Upgrade Jams these are kind of the officially blessed types of Jams however remember that if you want to do something else then go for it! So if you've done an awesome marketing job and you get flooded with 25 random people from the street who are interested in Ubuntu you might want to just go into Installfest/Tutorial mode for example one new kind of Jam this cycle is the Upgrade Jam https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Jams/Upgrade this one is important for a few reasons first of all, you need to plan it more in advance, since it needs lots of bandwidth, so having a closeby mirror of the archive is handy and it's also important since this is a Long Term Support Release that our upgrade experience is totally solid as a rock. the nice thing about this jam too is that since the Jam is while we are still in Beta then that means you can contribute to testing upgrades right there on the spot for Lucid! (this by the way is why we time the Global Jam to be after feature freeze) that allows everyone to have one weekend kicking the tires I won't talk too much about packaging and translation jams since they have seperate sessions Bug Jams are another kind of Jam we do this one alot in Michigan however it's most effective when you have a more experienced bug person handy to teach people how to work with bugs ok, any questions on the type of Jams? anything on doc jams? oh, good point I think this is the 2nd time we've had doc jams? so, doc jams are split into like, stuff on the wiki yes and docs on the system is there a URL for info on testing jams? wiki cleanup/updating wiki pages can be a nice low-barrier entry thing for people https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Jams/Testing ty so perhaps people can claim parts of the wiki to clean up "ok guys, for an hour let's concentrate on this section of the wiki over here" or something depending on how knowledgeable you are on the area thanks for bringing up testing jams at a minimum, even if you totally fail at the entire jam, getting a Live CD of Lucid and doing a hardware submission is really easy to do so if a person feels like they're not technical enough to get started, start them off with a LiveCD after they do the hardware submission they will feel like they've accomplished something right away and will be encouraged to keep going if you take someone and throw them knee deep into triaging kernel bugs or something they'll just feel lost "Welcome, first time here? First time Linux user? Great, let's get you started on Pulseaudio and ALSA bugs!" <--- not recommended. :) the hardware submission thing is a slick little gui, the instructions are here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Jams/Testing * side note, even when not doing Jams this data can be useful, so consider having a USB key or CD during other local computer events like LUG meetings, etc. every submission helps! any other questions on the type of jams? also, don't be intimidated by any kind of structure if some people wanna do bug stuff and some people want to do testing and some people want to concentrate on docs then that's totally fine! also, if it's your first Jam you might feel like you didn't get much accomplished remember that while working on ubuntu is helpful, really the goal of the Jam is to bring your local team together so don't think of it in terms of "bummer we only triaged 5 bugs in 10 hours" or something if people are having a good time and learning stuff then it's a success some Jams lean more towards the social side than others, and that's fine too you don't need to be like cracking whips or something. :) any other questions on types of jams? just a comment, I am glad that it is ok to have a mixed jam so, whips are optional then that means that we can arrange it that the experienced guy doesn't get flooded by new people yeah, remember your LoCo team runs your LoCo! It's not anyone else's place to dictate how you run your own events we just make sure we write things down as general guidelines so things that work we can sustain, and things that don't work we can share with other teams so they don't make the same mistakes! ok, so now that you have a place, people, and know what you want to do you need to tell people this involves mailing lists, perhaps putting up signs at a local computer store (or whatever) or announcing on LUG lists, your section of the ubuntu forum, etc. you should also make sure you are listed on this page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGlobalJam/Events as the jam gets closer people will go to that page so it's important that people know where your group will be also don't assume that you don't need to post on places I used to add it to the local tech google calendar http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/ and was like "this is a waste of time no one reads this" and then some people showed up and were like "oh we saw this on that calendar" and I was like ... !! any marketing you can do to get people there helps any one have tips or tricks in this arena? blog about it yep we had people show up to -fl events from a posting on planet, who had never contacted the loco directly also, these little hacking-space communities that are sprouting up are good places to find possible geeks and to advertise also in case you missed it there are banners and artwork here for you to use: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuGlobalJam of course if you make your own signs and materials or whatever feel free to stick it on the wiki so others can reuse it any questions on marketing? blogs, tweets, buzz, ml, forum... <-- us-nc advocacy lead .. first jam & terrified https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Jams <-- add them here if missing have we a tweet group or something for the event? jcg_: my first jam was pretty much a disaster, but it's ok! yeah, #globaljam is the hashtag and the irc channel will be #globaljam ok, the actual Jam itself ... if your venue is large or confusing, it might be a good idea to put signs up also, testing the internet connection, etc. for a bunch of Jams (especially bug jams) people need a Launchpad account it's recommended that you tell people to sign up for launchpad BEFORE the event. My first jam the entire first hour was everyone signing up for launchpad which in hindsight was a waste of valuable time! you should also tell people about tools you might want to use for example the "gobby" program is popular because it lets people work on documents at the same time where for more info on gobby? (looking) http://gobby.0x539.de/trac/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobby ty apt-get install gobby http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/55361 ok so while you are "Jamming" it's useful to hang out in the IRC channel so you can leverage the other groups not easy to do that and help the beginners on the same time ¬_¬ YoBoY: what we do is have one person they send out the occasional tweet or whatever "Woo hoo Joe Smith just triaged his first bug! #globaljam" or whatever and if you get stuck you can always find help in the IRC channel where a bunch of us will be if you have problems! of course friendly competition with your neighboring LoCo team is encouraged! "Take that Ohio you scumbags!" ok so that wasn't a good example the nice thing about when it actually comes to running the jam people in other time zones are already jamming so before you even start Planet is filled with pictures of jams happening all around the world this gets people excited, so remember to take pics and post them online at the end we like to post a pic from each team that jammed! you should also blog your experiences good AND bad, remember that it's totally ok to have problems it's just important that you write it down. "remember next time, bring more CDRs" or whatever also feel free to leverage experienced LoCo people in this channel and on the mailing list sometimes you feel like "I don't want to ask anyone I might sound dumb" but no one is going to make fun of you for being new! in fact, even after 4 or 5 of these something will always not go right, it's the ability to learn and be flexible that will gel your LoCo into a finely tuned instrument of Ubuntu awesomeness. also, something groups always forget is you can have Jams whenever you want! we coordinate One Big Jam for Everyone once per cycle in the beta time to kind of line everyone up but if you want to run Jams whenever you want that is encouraged in Berlin they have Jams /all the time/ they're a large LoCo and have been doing it for years but there's no reason you can't run Jams whenever you want any questions so far? that kind of covers my spiel part, I can answer specific questions you might have * jcg_ may be too ignorant to ask a question This is where it woulda been nice to have some questions written down... please do! It's my job to make sure you have the right info! (and of course, this isn't the end of the tutorial per se, you can always follow up after) jcastro: do you have material to make presentations ? yeah, we have a bunch actually but one needs to know what to ask? lol https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Presentations You probably can't answer, but how much of this is public advertising, and how much is LoCo bonding? YoBoY: totally steal what you need Iowan: depends on what you want to do. Iowan: I tell no lies, our first Jam was more of a Beer Jam than anything else. It'll be our first... tanks I have mulled actually putting "Beer Jam" on the docs but then no one would do the other ones! Hey jcastro, I've been reading along. I'm a home user of ubuntu and getting involved with the Ireland LoCo. Encouraged by what I've heard so far. What would your best advice be for a non tech user to be as useful and productive possible at a global jam. airurando: you're in luck, because Ireland has an /amazing/ LoCo. yip:) airurando: if you're new just show up with your laptop and the right attitude! airurando: however it's harder in some places that don't have established locos to kind of bootstrap themselves but you get out of it what you put in it if you show up and there's only one other person at least there's 2 of you to work on something remember, don't judge success by the amount of work you get done, if it's your first time it won't be much anyway concentrate on having a good time, helping others, and learning! Thanks will do, and thanks for this tutorial it has been reassuring awesome, well, I idle in here most of the time, so if you think of questions please go ahead and ask! or feel free to hit up the mailing list! Will future training sessions repeat, or build on this one? jcastro, extremely good presentation .. far exceeded my expectations! heh * airurando has taken notes ok, I'm out for food, I'll see you all around! Feel free to idle in here, even without the presentations it's a good place to be! I have just over a year's exerience with Ubuntu and now I'm knee deep. Is there any docs or training regarding advocacy issues? thanks jcastro MANY thanks from Iowa thank you jcastro }}} ---- CategoryJam