I have come to the point of realize that VideoConferences are turning into an excellent way to interact, even if language can be a bit tricky sometimes, but is like hang with your coworkers (since at offices there is no contact either), is just like take a look over your desk and see your friends, that’s amazing.

You have NO idea of how encouraged I feel when I see the feedback that you guys have push to this, when ideas are suported by people from all the world, things matter and encourage to keep working. Once again, Thank you!!

I need to thank all of those who came and hangout with us last night, but specially to our great FPL, Robyn Bergeron, who just jump to say hi and stay for a while with us (and act like the rockstar that she is, smiling while people was taking photos of their screen with their mobiles :P ), thank you also to Alexis Pardo (Peru), Hector Alonso González Mata (Venezuela), Larry Letelier (Chile), Carlos Reges (Venezuela), Alejandro Acosta (Mexico), Mark Terranova (USA), Jeronimo Gonzalez (Argentina), Joe Mac, Alejandro Perez (Panamá), Andres Pascasio (El Salvador), Adolfo Fitoria, Fran Monroy Moret (Venezuela), Jeferx BugDox (Venezuela), Hector Carrillo Hugo Alonso Ibarra García (Venezuela), Johan Camilo Manrique Sanchez (Colombia), Oliver Rivas (USA), Ricardo del Nogal (Venezuela), Edgardo Herrera (Venezuela), Eduard Lucena (Venezuela), Yury Jajitzky (Venezuela), Carlos Pineda (Venezuela), Lilibeth Ramirez (Venezuela) and Abdel Gabiel Martinez Lassonde (Panamá).

Last night VC was mostly to know ste status of our ambassadors and contributors in 3 countries, Venezuela, Mexico and Panamá; but we also had an amazing brainstorming where we were able to talk about how to improve the way we do marketing, solutions for marketing goodies, introduction to new contributors (since we had some on the VC), FUDcon ideas and even leadership, and how to expand Fedora (and FOSS) in our region. Let me show you the topics and ideas lists so you can read them and provide some feedback as well.

= FUDcon Venezuela tasks =

* One of our contributors, Hector Alonso, needs to contact UDO Cumana with us, so we can have a meeting.

= Fedora México =

* Nushio, Alejandro and? we need to contact the rest of contributors there
* Our ambassadors are contributing a lot on local lugs
* There is an awesome communication and will between local community and RH-México, however, we might need to push a bit more so we can act together. We should try to push a FAD.
* Alejandro might find useful to have a meeting with Venezuelan contributors that work on Governament to get some feedback for his classes.

= Fedora Panamá =

* Potty is the new local leader, his tasks are mostly TONS of events and run FLISoL. He needs to have a public agenda where people can know which events he will attend and how to be reach.
* Work with college new students, go back to first year recruitment. And push graduated people to go back and recruit based on their own experiences.
* Try to get involved in non-fedora events.

= Fedora =

* Lead and Delegate
* We need to spend latam budget… hasn’t been fully used
* Motivate people to DO, not only to spread.
* People cannot try to do everything by themselves… so we need to motivate the new contributors that want to join the groups we are part of on taking tasks. If we don’t act fast when they just join, they might get bored and just drop off. Nice reference to read is http://blog.melchua.com/2012/02/24/thought-experiment-design-an-open-source-new-hire-process/
* Drupal Central American event that we MUST go… Insight!

= Event box =

I think this is the main point from yesterday hangout. We have several issues to face: Shipping between LATAM countries is a NOT (too expensive, too slow, too complicated on customs), Ambassadors are not asking for funds or do it too late, Each LATAM country wants design independency and even if that’s cool doesn’t allow us to have a general branding marketing campain.

So, the main idea and steps to try to follow to use the Event Box as an option are:
* We need a local list of suppliers on each country where we can have sorta arrangement and print items.
* We need a latinamerican (or general) marketing team that deals directly between each country supplier and RH budget, so ambassadors doesn’t have to deal with everything everytime, only fill a request.
* Suppliers will have designs twice a year (per each release), so we only have to do a request without work design, prints quality, etc. this not only helps with quality, but also make items be delivered faster.
* Ambassadors need to request X amount of event boxes and explain WHY need that quantity and how will he use it.

Now, we have an idea of what might go inside that box. Boxes will be build according to the smalles event we may attend (something between 10-20 people), so if a user is going to a larger event, he only need to ask for a different number of boxes. Items will be (pls add or remove if you think is needed):
* T-shirts (5 per box)
* Stickers (50 per box)
* Flyers (50 per box)
* Special Item (one per box) this can be used as motivarot, prize or X, so ambassadors actually ASK for this boxes.
* Cd… Now here comes the best idea:

For media, we could do a REALLY SUPER LARGE request (maybe china or somewhere else) where they send us a lot of labeled media (only fedora logo, NO VERSION) and without burn. If each country have a stock of labeled but nor burned media, they can burn thoe locally and we can add on the event box only the envelope with the version name.

This not only help with prices, but also with shipping weight and, if people want to go and burn a spin, remix or different version, since there is no burned media, then disc won’t get lost or obsoletes.

I hope that people keep enjoying our hangouts, and if anyone PLEASE can help us contacting someone from google that let us use the live option so more people can join… pls let me know. Once again. Thank you! I will let you know next week when and topics about our next meeting (if you have an idea… please let me know ASAP!)

This will be a general talk about:

• How to join the Ambassadors program
• Steps to fullfill before open a trac tickets
• How to contact and interact with your mentor
• What to do once you are aproved
• What will Fedora expect from you once you’re an Ambassadors
• Tips to be the best ambassador

When: Friday at click here to know your time
Where: Google Hangout gplus.to/tatica
Language: English (first 30min) / Spanish (second 30min)

I didn’t expect this sucess, however, I embrace it. Maybe our community just need to use tools that aproach them and give them an oportunity to give faces to names and nicks. Last night was a clear example of this, where we had 21 people having an EXTRAORDINARY hangout like I had never seen… I can be completely honest and say that was as productive as a FUDcon (maybe someone can jump with an online FAD? :D )

I didn’t had a prepared conference for this time, since mostly I wanted to know how has been for Amber Graner and Selena Deckelmann to be FOSS contributors, their experience, ideas and feedback; however, everything took a different direction before and after that conversation that the 3 of us had. I need to say THANK YOU SO VERY VERY MUCH (yes, awful sentence) specilly to our amazing invited, Amber and Selena, who show us a lot of reasons to be part of FOSS communities, to keep learning, to keep teaching… and to keep having fun! but also I want to thank to the rest of the crew that join us: Mark Terranova, Alejandro Perez, Hector Alonso Gonzalez Mata, Hedayet Mabrook, Clint Savage, Pat Mcgovern, Carlos Reges, Nemecis Rojas, John Dulaney, Vinil V. Menon, Abdel Gadiel Martinez Lassonde, Oliver Rivas, Ben Williams, Miguel Alvarado, Garry Elliott, Click Mapa, Sandeep Pothuganti, Junior Paz, Javy Martinez and Fabrizzio Moreno

Now, lets make a list of interesting things that we talk about and let me show you my random notes. Please, know that this is the *crude product* comming out from my head, some of this points (I hope all) will end up beign applied or put into practice. This is not a list of goals (maybe is) but consider ir as one of the best Feedbacks and brainstorms online ever! :P

= Geeks at FOSS =

• * Weird names are AWESOME… but please, make sure to have an audio file with a proper pronunciation – Thank you.
• * ask about your friends life… they will be happy to share some details with you so you are not just a robot.

= Mentors =

• * Fedora has guides for everything, but not to be a mentor (check on this)
• * Has to know well how community works
• * Need to have amazing people skills, not enough just to be an ambassador

= Ambassadors =

• * Must know how to organize an event, learn about logistics, marketing and people skills
• * Propose talks for events that you don’t organize
• * Try to take fedora to non-fedora places, events and activities
• * To be an ambassador you need to have good ideas, but also work on turn them into goals, not only expect that someone will do it for you (or if you can’t, please, make if happen)
• * Every member of Fedora IS an ambassador

= Fedora a better place =

• * more testers
• * Better websites or way to find info at our websites
• * More brainstorming, less information meetings… push feedback
• * Focus on fulfill ideas, not only give them.
• * Show Fedora with more serious marketing (product)
• * Help tech people to show themselves more professionals and less hippies
• * Marketing are focusing on a few events… what happen with the small events and we need to be and are not fedora specifics
• * We need more marketing outside events… if we have 2.000.000 linux users on a country and we only spread fedora on an 200 people event.. we are waisting 1.800.000 potential contributors.
• * Daily marketing MATTERS
• * Passion at events and focused on fun. Gather together for the fun, not by the tittle
• * Don’t join the community expecting to get a job, join it because the fun and with fun, might come a work.
• * Curiosity
• * Explore and expand what you can do, not what you cannot or don’t know how to do
• * Whatever your motivation is… keep being motivated
• * Encourage people to make money with FOSS
• * Opensource is about friends… so find the right ones and those that make you feel a rockstar and motivate you

= Questions for Selena and Amber =

• * Are you a girl? or just a robot?
• * How is to be a community person for you?
• * What are your tasks on Free and Open source community?
• * Which is the best experience you can remember being a community leader?

= FUDCon Panama=

• * Bring a key people of each team available to allow new contributors to get sponsorship and contribute without have to wait after-event.
• * show the simplicity of contribute to fedora with people examples.

So PLEASE, if you have any further idea, or you join the conversation but you didn’t talk… feel free to add any comment. We need your ideas and feedback in order to make stronger proposals that can actually change things. Hope you tomorrow night for our second hangout, this will be about “how to be a better ambassador” (30min english, 30min spanish)“

Learn:

There is NO WAY you can be on ANY FOSS community or group if you are not willing to learn. Life itself is a learning journey that will take you to unknown places where you might get amazed. Some people join FOSS communities thinking that know everything, but soon they realize that there is no way you can know everything, and you will always learn something new, just need to keep your mind open :)

Teach:

Be a FOSS contributor is be a student and a teacher. Open Source way teach us that what we learn must be teach because you don’t know where is that next contributor that might change the source code of your world. Teach however isn’t easy. You must be patient, perseverant and if non of those work… friendly to send them to other teacher. We never say no, there is always an answer for everything.

Help:

Help people is what we do. We get up everyday and turn on our pc (some just never go off) and try to make someone life easier, either with code, design or translations, each one of us help everyday to make Open Source better. If you’re not a *people person* you can always help doing something else. I’m sure people will apreciate.

Enjoy:

At the end.. you will make friends, will find people to chat every single day, you will be able to learn different languages and maybe travel to other countries. You will find a new image that bring a smile to your face or a code line that will make you breath. Every day FOSS makes people life easier and our goal as contributors is enjoy this process. Is everything perfect? No, but like life, every single day counts.

What are you waiting to join a FOSS community? There are a lot of places where you can make a difference… just give yourself a chance :) Now… help me to spread some love! (click on each to get a full size or multiple sizes.)

and some banners :) (right click to save banner images.)

Link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bOsE5TGeU0

Buenos amigos.
Una de las cosas que mas disfruto en cualquier evento es poder encontrarte con la gente con la que hablas casi todo el dia, siempre… con esos que se convierten en tu familia a pesar de las distancias y de las buenas y malas conexiones. Es aun mejor cuando te encuentras con amigos de otros paises porque sabes que seran pocas las veces que tendras oportunidad de pasar un excelente rato con ellos. Son esos momentos en los que te das cuenta de que la tecnologia es un ecosistema completo en el que una sociedad puede surgir por completo.

Conocimiento, tecnologia y aprendizaje.
Venir a un FUDcon es un cambio completo a lo que estamos acostumbrados. Las charlas, talleres y demas actividades surgen en medio de un compendio de propuestas que siempre se hacen con previo aviso, pero se decide su ubicacion en el momento. En esta oportunidad he intentado ayudar con la logistica, lo cual me ha dado la oportunidad de comenzar una guia para el FUDcon que en Venezuela en el mes de Junio.

Pude dar mi charla en conjunto a Jared sobre “como hacer que la gent entienda que no somos empleados ni esclavos de Fedora y tenemos vida social” y terminar de preparar todo para mi taller de Blender. Asi mismo, asisti a la sesion de Drupal y a la reunion del Board, la cual segun los mismos miembros fue bastante productiva.

Creo que lo mejor del dia es que a la final pude tener un encuentro en el que comprendi mejor las diferentes necesidades entre un usuario y un colaborador (o potencial colaborador) y la forma en la que podemos ayudarlos cuando tienen preguntas. Sin embargo, es interesante conocer que en un principio, para los colaboradores que ya tienen tiempo en el equipo, ayudar usualmente tiende hacia lo tecnic y algunos no siempre necesitan la respuesta mas alocada. Es por eso que uno de los proyectos que comenzare con algunos amigos sera crear un escalon adicional en el que los usuarios que solo quieren ser usuarios puedan conseuir la informacion que necesitan sin necesidad de pasar por canales de IRC, cosas muy tecnicas y otras cosas que los hacen sentir incomodos (tanto a ellos como a nosotros).

Creo que lo importante luego de esta charla es saber que, cada persona es diferente, y aunque somos una comunidad muy grande, siempre hay una orma de personalizar las cosas para que sean mucho mas placenteras para una mayor cantidad de personas. Siempre la idea de Fedora es hacer que las cosas avancen y meoren en orden de hacer que los involucrados en este proyecto tengan la oportunidad de ayudar, aprender y disfrutar :).

Blacksburg: Una ciudad de pelicula
En el anterior FUDcon en Tempe quede impactada culturalmene por la diferencia que hay entre los paises, sin embargo, debo decir que Blacksburg (y las ciudades cercanas) son increiblemente hermosas. Es estar en el campo con las casas de madera, la gente que sabe que quieres comer en los restaurantes al estilo de los 80′s… pasear por las calles de Blacksburg es una excelente experiencia que cualquier persona que venga a USA debe tener.

Para ir a la galeria de fotos solo haz click en la siguiente imagen.

Y como bono.. John Dulaney amenizando la velada con su musica :)

10 chicas colombianas muestran sus tetas naturales como campaña de Soho para que las niñas y jóvenes que con apenas 15 años ya piensan en modificar sus cuerpos artificialmente se lo piensen dos veces. Conozco amigas que por casos médicos se ven “casi obligadas” a requerir operaciones de bustos, pero esto son contados con los dedos dentro de la inmensa cantidad de mujeres que lo hacen por gusto.