Local community

[Bemk]

Our schools admin is in hospital because of surgery. He dreams of setting up a Linux community. The only problem is that he doesn't have time and I want to surprise him when he gets back.

Any advices for me on how to set up this community (only for our school members interested in GNU/Linux)? Once I get this running I'll try to get a website going to make part of the community available to the world. Internal school things will obviously have to stay inside the school but I'll try to get things as open as possible. I'll post the URL on LFO when I have the website going.

Please help! I don't have much spare time so I'll have only a small amount of time. I've got a lot of projects and the admin already had surgery, so I can expect him to be back in a couple of weeks.

Hope it will go well.

[Freston]

What a cool idea! I'm a bit *ehm* on the other side of the country, so I can't help physically, but is there anything you had in mind??

[Bemk]

I know that we need to get the board of directors with us. I think setting up a small community outside school and then bringing it into school would be the way to go. That way I've ensured that the community is set up anyway and we have something.

I don't exactly know exactly how the admin wants to do this, but I just am trying to figure out what it means exactly to have a local community and getting something, like the main preparations done. That way I can ask for a bit of help when the admin returns. We have 3 admins at our school so I'm going to ask another one what would be the best way to go with.

In the mean time I know here are people out there who know more things of this that I do, so I'd like to ask those people. Both this admin and I would love to see the school convert to an Unix based system by the way, so that would mean converting to either Mac/(GNU/Linux)/*BSD (braces placed to indicate that both words are part of one),

I feel like setting the community up would be a huge step in the right way.

Just give me some general advice and I hope I'll get it right with the help of the other admins.

I think I know the first step and that's to find Linux users at school. I alread have 2 friends who are so that's a nice beginning. Then I need somewhere to do the meetings and that's where school actually starts to play a role. We can make part of the meeting space on-line, I've got a friend who's capable of doing that, only problem, he runs Windows on his servers and I don't like that. We're going to be a local LINUX community and NOT a local EVERY OS community.

[rokytnji]

Well, you can take my advice or leave it. My New Years party went further to converting windows users over to linux than anything I ever saw. So free food and drinks goes a long ways into getting a persons interest Bemk.

[Freston]

So free food and drinks goes a long ways into getting a persons interest Bemk.

This gave me, as what is best described in German, an aha-Erlebnis (experiencing the feeling that goes along with the thought 'aha!').

[intermezzo]I dunno if anyone remembers, but I had a thread a while ago, because I was handing out Linux machines at work. For those who don't (all of you! ) in short because it's all not too interesting. But our company was discarding machinery ranging from 1.2 to 2.0Ghz with completely empty disks. We talked about it, and decided it was the best idea to sell them to employees. The profit of the sales would go to a charity, and no price was set. Everyone could pick one up for a donation.

I convinced my boss that I should install Linux on some of the machines. People could choose whether they wanted Linux or an empty machine. Soon, the people requesting Linux where outnumbering the people who requested an empty machine. I was thrilled. I believe I put out a total of 30 Linux machines easily, and even wrote a system that would install all those machines magically.[/intermezzo]

What I learned back then, and I should have known better, is that people are not interested and never will be. They take it because it's free. Once home it annoys them and they throw it away easily.


So as with every project, every time, and i am harsh on this one, think about your audience. I don't know what school you go to or how big it is, but don't imagine you will be interesting to more than 2%. And of those, only 25% will come. Focus on these people. They are important. Lure them in with free food and beverage. I will give you Frestons five step program to successful project management


0) Find out for yourself what you want to do, why you want to do it and how you can tell you accomplished your goals.
1) Divide this up into tasks that can be carried out individually
2) Find out who shares your goals and may want to join
3) Share your thoughts and feelings about the project, and divide tasks
4) Use evaluation moments to encourage project members to take responsibility for their work on the project.

Ad.0 So no 'active Linux community'... that's not a goal. Merely a dream. Set your goal realistically, like 'five people attend'.
Ad.1 No 'build website' in your tasklist! Rather 'website explains blablabla, website links to blablabla, this and that info goes onto the website, website is updated weekly'
Ad.2 No project is an island
Ad.3 Just to get things clear. When you get older you will find there are always people trying to hijack a project to further their own goals. Set them straight from the onset will safe you truckloads of problems later in life.
Ad.4 Some people want to do their part, but need to be remembered their importance regularly. You always catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar.
Ad.# never, in any of these steps may you omit free food and beverage. Make arrangements for some collective budget (in Dutch: een pot) to pay for it all. It'll feel like 'free' if they pay a minor fee in advance.

[elija]

Advice from the experienced can be found here

[Bemk]

Thanks, I'll take a look at it later, right now I'm going to see a baby, in Den Haag. Thanks again.

[questio verum]

Bemk,
I like the suggestions at Elija's link. A Linux Users Group (LUG) might be the way to go. Or at least it might be a good source for ideas. Most LUGs (at least here in the states) are eager to evangelize their favorite OS. I found a link to a Dutch group here. Since I don't speak Dutch, I can't comment on the usefulness of the site. Maybe you can find some other useful LUG sites as well. Aside from that, I like Roky's idea. Maybe an 'Installfest' would be a good way to kick things off. Just make sure everyone understands this isn't another LAN party. Otherwise, you could end up with a totally different demographic.

I think you're on the right track, assembling a core group extra-circularly first. Building alliances and motivating people usually comes off better on this scale if you do it informally. Good luck with it!

qv

[waterhead]

I agree, it sounds as if you want to create a Linux Users Group (LUG). There is some info on setting one up found here.

Linux Online - Linux User Group HOWTO

You may be able to get help from a local LUG, if there is one. The same web site has a list of LUGs worlwide.

Linux Online - User Groups

I am a member of the MilwaukeeLUG:
MLUG TikiWiki : HomePage

[Bemk]

Thanks all, I'll try to use it all, but I still need to discuss everything with the second admin and if I can't get things started with him I'll try to get things started on my own.

Again thanks! Please keep on posting and I'll try to use it when it is a good one. The NLLGG is a LUG I already knew, but I needed some extra info. For Dutch peoples you can use it very well.