[advocacy-discuss] Advocacy & User Groups: The Future

[Rafael Vanoni]

Jim Grisanzio wrote:
> hey,
> 
> I wanted to toss out some issues for discussion regarding the Advocacy 
> CG and the User Groups. Where are we going? How are we going to get 
> there? Who does what?
> 
> I'd like to explore this because as the OpenSolaris distributions mature 
> and become easier to install and use, the OpenSolaris community will be 
> reaching out to extremely large numbers of users. That will be a new 
> experience for many of us. We have to think in terms of hundreds of 
> thousands of people using our stuff in many regions around the world -- 
> which means cutting across some big language, cultural, and technical 
> barriers. We already have user groups and country portals in many of 
> these regions, so how do we get people involved to help engage new 
> users? How do we establish closer relationships with the distro 
> developers both on and off opensolaris.org? How do we grow ourselves as 
> a CG at a reasonable pace? And how do we manage all those new questions 
> we'll get. :) I think Advocacy can easily set up some region-specific 
> lists that can be staffed with user group members from around the world 
> to answer questions and help new people out. Just one idea off the top 
> of my head.

That sounds like a good way to escalate. I think we could go a little 
beyond region-specific lists, at least in places where the community 
grows to a large number. Setting up UGs under a country/region portal 
would automatically decentralize things. Each country could have its own 
core group in charge of voting and creating UGs - as a country's 
community reaches some level of maturity (and size).

Something hierarchical, OSUGs at the lowest level, then coutry/region 
and then advocacy.

Regardless of the overall size of the community, the advocacy group will 
continue to handle core discussions and issues. Each country/region core 
group would report to advocacy.

cheers

-- 
Rafael Vanoni
rafael.vanoni at sun.com
http://blogs.sun.com/rv