The Ubuntu Chronicles: Amber’s Adventures in the Community :)

Part 35

Streaming Video, Loco’s and a hunting expedition for a Jackalope.

Yesterday was fun!

Jono Bacon, Canonical’s Community Manager, used UstreamTV to give a little talk about the community, his book Art of Community (due out this summer), and field questions from the 60+ people who were watching the broadcast. I didn’t have any questions, maybe I should come better prepared for the next broadcast? Which as of last evening is still to be announced. There was information on what things to take into account when planning Loco meetings. Jono was kind enough to relate a story that will be in the book about conflict resolution within community. If you missed it and want to view it the clip is available now. I would suggest you get a ustream account – which you can do one many ways, its free – you can use your gmail or open ID to sign in or you can create a new account – this way you can interact with Jono as he speaks to the masses…:) It was interesting; a lot of fun personalities were in the channel there and the information presented made me want to mark my calendar for the next broadcast. How do you find out about the broadcasts? Follow Jono on his micro blogging sites (Twitter, identi.ca, etc) , The Art of Community Site, or Facebook (again I love twitter and Facebook but hey that’s just me), as well as ustream. There are probably a dozen other ways too. I just don’t know them (so just check out Jono’s Website)

As of my last post you saw the NC Loco had organized one party in Raleigh. Now the folks over in Winston-Salem are getting together a release party there as well, and we are seeing what we can do in Charlotte for an install fest. It was a great meeting last night or at least I thought so. 🙂 I think it’s a great bunch of folks now if we just need some more members. *If you live in NC (or have a connection to NC, maybe you just like the mountains) and use Ubuntu, want to use it, know someone who does, or just want to get your “toes wet” and see how community works on a smaller scale, consider becoming a member of the NC Loco.* We really want to get the group re-energized and excited about all the possibilities for advocacy, support, and seeing where Ubuntu can work within the State. All ya’ll (going Southern on ya. 🙂 bear with while I get it out of my system) who have these awesome Loco’s I was looking at please feel free to send some advice our way. We are really wanting to target schools, starting with homeschooling and private schools, since most don’t rely of Federal Funding. Then we need some short term goals and some annual events. So later today there will be emails flying to the NC mailing lists, Forum Threads started, FaceBook and Orkut threads updated and I am sure something on Twitter and other micro blogging sites as well, stay tuned.

I also had a go at using Mootbot for a meeting last night. Awesome! Talk about being able to remember who is supposed to do what and the time lines etc. If you haven’t requested mootbot for your channel you should it’s a great tool, (well if you hold your meetings in a channel other than ubuntu-meetings (mootbot is already there in ubuntu-meetings that is)). I am sure I didn’t utilize it to it’s full capacity but I am learning. 🙂

Back to our Raleigh party, my hunting trip I mentioned in title. One of the members of the NC LoCo and I are going over to one of the restaurants in the area to see if we can’t borrow their Jackalope for the release party. I doubt they will give it to us but maybe they will let us borrow it, but thanks to some great suggestions in the ubuntu-women channel I am going armed with a ton of suggestions. If we are able to get it for the release party I will be shamelessly be telling you to go eat there. 🙂

I can’t think of much more that’s on my radar for today except: Update LoCo Wiki, get the minutes of the meeting and the log linked, the agenda and date of next meeting, and emails to the group to remind each person of their action items. Hmmm, oh yes gotta clean the house, do some laundry, head to Physical Therapy, hang out with the family, and maybe watch the kids play the Wii, and sometime during all this walk the dawg (dog for all the non-southerns). Is that enough. My new class starts Sunday, so I do have some free time 🙂

Just a day in the life of Just Me, Amber, exploring the Ubuntu Community.

Have a great day! Hope to see more people joining the NC group, and welcome any suggestions. Thanks in advance…:)