 So if you are clapping by just seeing my slides, why do I need to talk anything? Okay so Here we are As most of you might already know I'm tolima I Have in the past time very very much free time. So I spent a lot of my daily work on organizing various Debian presentations at fairs exhibitions world shows and well Actually, I've been everywhere who wanted to have Debian there. So could I have please the next slide? So why I am now here is Said we have a small problem Debian gets invited to many many events ranging from South Korea to Toronto to some South American events actually, I Countered last year how many invitations the Debian project got and I think it was Around 15 invitations which we needed to Decline thanks just simply because we didn't found a volunteer to take the time and Present Debian at the small event The funny thing is That's just a pity. There are people who want us to appear some even white really beautiful males Dear Debian project. We want you. Please come visit us. We are such nice people and we really want to have you here And well, all we can say is Sorry We tried we didn't find a volunteer perhaps next year That's not nice so but The funny thing is That it's not really Complicated, I mean We have some how-tos you need to write some mails You need to be polite So that would be the small summarize of my talk and well In you know When I got involved in the Debian project The first thing I made was organizing the Debian presentation at the Linux World Expo in Frankfurt It was the first event I organized It is while it was back then one of the two major free software events in Germany and Well, it went pretty well. I didn't fail Also, I didn't had any experience It went well visitors were happy. We got some good feedback Well, so believe me if I say that organizing the booth is easy So at first please the next slide Since I know it's early in the morning and that you might not have got your coffee Well, perhaps we start with a small brainstorming What do you think is needed for a? Good event Okay for the video the answer was coffee Interestingly, we will come we will come to that point later So I think t-shirts are very important because all the people come to the Debian booth and want to buy a t-shirt Could you please stand up? So and but where's the camera here good. He is wearing a t-shirt. It's one of those Oh, that's another one. Okay. He's wearing a Debian t-shirt and I think it's one of the UK style t-shirts you bought so that's Possibly a major important point because on many events people will simply come to the Debian booth to buy some merchandising stuff Oh damn anyone has a keychain one of our keychains Another example is So key chains here where you can put your key or anything else and Show beautiful how you like Debian Just by wearing it That's a major point What is it? They're just talking about merchandising People come to Debian booths because they love Debian and they want to show it They won't do this at any event for example You might get to some business orientated Linux event Where people might be more interested in a nice ties and a cool t-shirt so you We get to that point later. So What did you say Andreas? What was what do you need name tags? Name tags That's another major important point People who go to a booth don't want to talk to an Anonymous representative they want to talk to a real person as Funny as it sounds by wearing a name tag and giving them the chance to you give them the chance to see you as a person not just some Yes, I'm someone who is majorly involved and might know what he's saying by just said you show them your name They will trust you more Sounds funny, but some Psychologists might be explained it better than I but it's That's it. You need a name Um, yeah, it's an Amazon point if I think Yeah, yeah Yeah, I am I stand up. Yeah probably something more attractive that That only volunteers so not only a few geeks around the booth But something nice to show to people and catch their eye or something that's a demo or whatever That's this is what I think makes a good or bad both Don't worry. I will mention your bubble box so Yeah Maybe even more important. You need a code of conduct for those manning the booth You're there to help the people who come and look and not to code and hack Yeah, I think I have a picture of some We will take a look at some Example booths later. So anything else you need good point Well For something completely different what about giving away DVD CDs Might be sound very strange people come to the Debian booth to get a Debian DVD but events where That was forgotten You don't need to have some sponsored pressed DVDs or some special editions with The latest bagpots or something It's cool. If you can organize a shut thing, but Having the possibility to burn Okay, first she's in there but having the possibility to to Burn images on demand It's okay most is often okay so People will come to you to your booth as for CD or DVD They are often satisfied if you tell them wait, please give me five minutes and come back. I will Need to burn it. Of course, you need to have playing CDs and the images ready That's okay That's a nice thing is that The people won't go away for five minutes So they will Stand with you. You can have a nice chat with them It's not a kind of fan forget things. Oh, oh, you have CDs. Oh, thanks. Bye you have the More or less unique possibility to to draw them deeper into the project Perhaps tell them how to report bugs or show them how to use Depth tags or something or point out how Good deviant is internationalized We we we had visitors at booth who didn't know that the installer is available in their own mother tongue you Okay, she and then you Well, I've often seen that people come to a DB and I'm speaking in this camera, you know That that people come to the DB and booth for technical support So it's probably better to have a quiet spot on the side where you can take them And fix their stuff because I've often seen that they come with their laptops or even with fully fledged computers and ask you to fix some minor or major problem and it's Think it's good if if they don't really block the booth itself But you can take them to a nice spot on the side and said well, of course somebody can help you if you'll have a seat here We'll take care of it Which leads us more or less to his point the code of conduct We had events where We had such a small silent area Which we couldn't use for fixing visitors computers because I was sitting DD's hacking I know it's quite unusual to sit somewhere and heck But what it happens, so if you I have my personal assistant to hack for me Or I think, you know, if you have such area it's okay, but you need a strict code of conduct to not sit there and hack I've got a question to the code of conduct We are all volunteers So I think it would be really hard to Tell the people if you like to help us at the boot There's a code of conduct that you have to have to follow. I Think a lot of people say yeah, then I would do not help you and then you do not have enough people to to do the booth Well, we We have a code of conduct to Maintain your packages properly. You need to fix your box and also and it's pretty much the same with volunteers you Have a volunteer who wants to do some job and well, we have a small Minimum criteria which they should fulfill. I Well, I I don't know of any volunteer has been thrown away because we told him to behave a little bit so Okay, now finally you on the CDs We found that charging a minimal fee for them will make it so we can have at least run out During the middle of the second day instead of the first hour it's What's the translation of Anyone knows the translation of the German idiom Beutelraten Backpack wetsk, you know Yeah, it's usually a good idea in What might be problematic is that if you got your CDs or DVDs sponsored by some people and Then again charge money if you give them away What we usually do in Germany to solve that problem is that we Give the CDs away against or against For a donation of at least no sand zero sand So it's it's a So it's some kind of you give me you give me money It's much as much as you want and I give you a CD This was away those Packwets thanks Which will just come take a CD and throw it away later But it's still okay for most of the others of Course is there's a Smallish kid 12 year old You're a deep developer. Could I please have a DVD? Could you sign it for me? Which happens I Don't think it's necessary to charge them any money for the DVD Okay, I think we mentioned pretty much every point and Yeah, if people see that it's a Debian booth, it's a good idea Yeah, so there's a point Mr. Fine mentioned was that it is good to have some posters and flyers Flyers are especially important because your visitors will then Remember that you've been there That they have been there Most probably even what you were talking about which is a major point Another point Which I would like to mention this Said you should try to have at least one Debian developer nearby I know it's ridiculous to say that at the Debian conference but Hands up who is not a Debian developer in this room Okay, okay so As But as you know if you want to join the Debian project you need your GPG Your GPG key signed by at least one developer So there are people who are interested in joining the project Coming to your booth and asking your key to be signed It's their key to be signed. Sorry. I'm a bit confused It's okay to tell them, sorry, I'm not a DD yet But I can sign anyway if you want your key to be signed Wait for an hour, then we'll be Mr. Fine here who is a DD who can sign you? It's even okay if you answer something like I'm sorry We have not a DD here yet, but he will be here Tomorrow at 12 or something like that. Just give them the opportunity to have the key signed. They are really really Not to say pissed off but disappointed if they travel to an event Meet some Debian folks But well, it's for them Nothing more than a nice chat So Anything else left? Okay please okay The answer was have a piece of paper and a pencil you can write down what you tell your visitors I'm impressed I would have things that if I do a talk set Such early in the morning. I need to do anything myself. Okay, so I'm gonna have but it's the next slide So next slide Okay, a Small example of a booze Okay, who can tell me what these guys are doing wrong They're facing away from the crowds Okay, so does one point that is not the point I would like to have mentioned Perhaps you come a bit nearer to the picture and he will recognize it yourself and won't beat my also Roman in the crowd I think the background of the desktop is does not fit to the booth Okay What's hard to see if you are sitting back this is a well more or less naked woman It might work at the booth at a some kind of Porn or woman-related event. I don't think it's a proper thing to do at the free software conference Yeah, but but that's a good example. I didn't notice the people are facing away from the visitors Please it's not the avian It's I don't know what it is. It's not a debian booze If if it had been a dubian booth I guess I would have had a big dubian logo, which is missing so says I See another I think major fault on it on the right side. They have a lot of space for poster But only put a for Small printout on it. So they do not use the space they have and if you're standing maybe two meters from this sign You cannot read it That's not even their own. That's the sign So the organizer of the event put there so they will find their booze So they didn't even print something themselves so Yeah, I I hate it if I see such thing because I consider it just a waste of the resources of the organizers who are Offering the booth for free and the least thing you can do is to try to organize a proper booth What is another arrow that can't really be seen on the picture very well is that what the people were doing is not actually like demoing their system emulation Software but they were playing they were playing a game on the on the left laptop Where you had to answer quiz questions and for every wide question a nice lady would undress herself a bit more They were destructed let's say they generally were distracted by non-booth activities And I think we can agree that people who should stay for Debian booth Should agree in a code of contact to not do such things Please give me this next example. Okay another point Not really another point But what I wanted to say before in the brainstorming section it would be nice if we had some well Debian boost package something like that all of Debian boost live CD which Brings a default booth Layout to the computers we have It's on my to do It's on my to do list for about two years. I think it will be Done within the next ten Okay Here we have That is a Debian booth from last Linux tag Actually, it isn't the picture I was looking for but it's for Best picture of that boost I could find it's not your fault. It's my fault Okay Now image in what we have already said We have some Debian stuff. You can see more or less that this is the Debian booth We have here an empty area where you can talk with people about the problems What do you think happens The first impression is that it is quite it is really not crowded by people so it's not really attracted for people So we should serve some coffee What happened later that day that people showed up that some Debian folks Debian folks woke up and they immediately crowded This part of the booth Put up their notebooks started taking chatting All the stuff you use you usually don't do at an event What you can see is that they tried to put some some stuff on to Show here is Debian I Don't think it is working very well, but actually I don't know how I would have done it any better Because the booth itself didn't have much opportunity for to show your own thing What would probably be nice is if you have here a really big red swill For people to see it And Another thing you could see is You see this kind it's a two-sided kind of booths And what you apparently don't see us that this booth is small as empty So at this Debian booth there was exactly one computer To show Debian stuff and Well This mission was either buzzy And all people didn't know the password or whatever to use it to show some stuff And not not not imagine the situation you are a volunteer For Debian booth You get there you see a visitor who's waiting and apparently has a question and Yeah, there's this computer you could use to answer his questions or to at least help him By showing him the right mailing list to ask or the right I at sea channel And you can't do it because you don't know the fucking password So another point which we should have added previously in the brainstorming is that you Communicate to your volunteers That you make sure that they know how to use the computers What questions could arise? And all the and all that stuff I mean What's generally a good idea is to prepare some kind of FAQs you can expect at the event depending of the kind of event you are going to Stuff like when will edge be released or Well, how does support for the Debian distribution work? And of course the people at the booth Should be able to answer the most common questions And I Think that's pretty much about that example What about having some kind of advocacy when brainstorming Some advocacy of what's really cool is Debian Waves this kind of computer or this That's I think that's part of communicating with your volunteers And of course it's it's a major part of the role of organizing such event to inform yourself of the nature of the event For example, if you go to see bit People might be interested in seeing how Debian runs on the AMD 64 port They might not be that interested in seeing how Debian runs on the HPPA port to give one example, so There was one other. Oh you I Think common problem that that I often see on Debian booths is that The people who are advertising Debian there have been using it for years And when they are asked what's so great about Debian like visitor comes by and says so, okay What's what's about this this OS? They will say the things that they like most about it at the moment like yeah, you know We now have 64 bit support and we have this that and you can compile some things in this that way Because yes Debian also is highly stable It's running on thousands and millions of languages, but it's always been like that So we don't realize that anymore as such a special feature So but to somebody who's who's totally ambient to Debian This is actually what's much more important than say the umpteenth port on whatever other architecture but People aren't aware of it because we've been with Debian for years and it's been doing that for years So for us, it's normal. So maybe it would be good to have a like a list of things To to to mention or to show maybe a poster that people can just read or something Or if you have some kind of Beamer projector What about a nice set of slides Running there in a loop mode showing the most important Information for your visitors Having a poster is nice But you can't You can't react to visitors with a poster if you see that Most of your visitors ask a question which isn't answered on your poster You can well put posted notes on it or something like that I Think it's a better idea to to just change your change your change your slides Okay, last example, please Okay said was the booze at at No, it was in this millennium. I think it was a small booze in in In Yes, no, but it's kind of land such in Deutschland Frankreich and Luxembourg Sorry Okay, this is the Debian booze at an event in Luxembourg It's a nice thing is that we could find many many things to improve here but Forget it several no visitors at that event and so it would have been wasted time to do a proper booze more or less It's just another example of well we we have here You could guess it's Bag of those key change key chains. So we have to attempt to have some merchandising here It could have been well better placed Please there's fancy hardware which didn't work very well at that event Original we had some posters right here, which you can Which you can't see even if the picture was utter because the organizer of that event Asked us to turn them down from the walls Yeah What you can see here is someone with a back to the visitors Not very nice if there had been visitors What you can't see on this picture is that this is an example of an event where no deviant developer was present So we couldn't do much things Christoph back wasn't DD at that time It's an older picture. I think from 2004 one second So doing the event we had the idea to to Well use it to do some buck squashing all that kind of stuff But it was a bit complicated because we had no DD there to sign our packages When I was just start had only been using Debian for a few months I wound up You know, I volunteered to help with the booth and wound up running the booth for and Without any help It's try and get at least two people for the whole day, maybe if there's not it maybe if it's a Lightly attended event like that. You don't need two people the whole day, but the events I've gone to To his absolute minimum Make sure and get your booth set up before the event opens and We would really like to have a nice banner, but it's a money problem in General it shouldn't be a money problem if you Wired a nice mail to our be love DPL Asking them for some money for To print some posters and flyers small banner and that kind of stuff We didn't have any problems with that in the past Yeah, what one final thing I would like to mention Another point you can't see on this pictures So you went took place in the inner suburb of Luxembourg Pretty much away from anything so we were sitting there the whole day waiting for a visitor and Nothing to eat nothing to drink and Well, well we had internet We could have tried to find some pizzeria to order some food something like that But it it sucked say that so If you organize the booth and have your volunteers here the least thing you can do is to take care of them and I've still some time left. I think so at least no one is throwing me out. So I will continue Yeah, take care of your volunteers one point You might need them next year when the event takes place again Point number two You can't expect your volunteers to be nice to Your visitors if they are hungry thirsty and don't have been on the toilet for the last six hours Nothing so so try to organize Something to drink some some Sandwiches bread falls anything just so they have the possibility to Take something to eat hide behind some kind of wall so they won't be seen and eat their stuff In general, it's not looking very nice if there are People many staffing the booth Having or They're Filled with food or if the visitor has come and asked You should try to avoid that so you have Yeah, about the volunteers. I think one of most important point especially in crowded events is to Identify the volunteers to be so that visitors know who is a volunteer and who is not so asking them politely At least to wear a debian t-shirt would be a good idea so that they are immediately identified as the debian people and the volunteers of the of the booth We had such experience in the solution Linux front in France, which is very very crowded with many volunteers But no one knows who is the volunteer? if you can Try to set some kind of standard so for example in one year we had a Big sponsor for the Linux tag so we used part of that money to to Create a common set of polo shirts With all the same logo and all looking the same because the problem you might have said all your volunteers are Boring some kind of debian shirt But all your visitors are wearing them too So you have a point to it, okay Yes, always make sure when you accept an invitation to man a booth that there will be somebody there I Know really I was invited once No, really we got an invitation once to to a to a business oriented Exhibition so I said yes, of course. Well, it was in another city So I didn't really know who was there, but they said well I can go but it was in the same time as they've come So I didn't have anybody to send it. Well, I thought they were we would willing But in the end well having an empty booth is not nice for the organizers. So we never got invited again and it's disappointing for your visitors to because they Well, it happens that people just go to an event because they read that Debian will be there It happens especially if they want some key signing or something like that So ten minutes. Oh, so if a good timing so To summarize up next slide, please Inform yourself about the event What is it kind of it will it be visited by business people or will it be visited by geeks? If it's visited by Geeks, you might want to wear your cool shirt If it's visited by business people You might want to at least wear trousers without holes in it Well sometimes You even want to wear a real Shirt not a t-shirt and maybe even a sack hole and take care of your hair. Okay, so Next point What questions will they ask? will they be more interested in Getting their own software into Debian or will there be mainly users who might have some kind of technical problem with Their preferred desktop environment or something like that It's no problem. It's okay if you don't know the answer What you should be able to is to point them somewhere where they can find the answer So if they are KDE users Or something like that you might want them to the To the user list in their language if they have a problem packaging their software You want to point them to the mentors list even if you don't know how to Start that KDE software or fix that deep edge problems. They have Just a question. I haven't read the the booth how tools but is there some kind of well Frequently asked questions of visitors up. So for instance, what is the best distribution and what is the answer to this question? Yes, I'll show you the URLs later on the second-last slide I think so Yeah, what can you do to answer that questions? So next slide please and As said take care about your volunteers Okay, take care about your volunteers They must be happy to make your visitors happy Yeah, give the next one if you are at a larger event It might be happen that sooner or later your volunteers or even yourself burn out If you get asked the same stupid question 20 or 30 times a day and you need to answer it more or less the same way It's Boring and just Burning out so If you notice that you Or any other volunteer at the Debian booth show signs of being Not as nice as I usually are is giving answers to visitors with a slight tone of being Annoyed You might want to Try to tell them politely to take a small break It it happens it happens even to well professionals like me I hope you saw that I Had quotation marks about the professionals I said and And before you Fuck up with visitors take a break go ten minutes walking around Preferably somewhere far far away from the place where the event takes place Take a walk look a little bit. It's a sunshine problem most probably don't even take your notebook and We'd even private a project or something like that. That's a pretty stupid idea if you want to Clear up your mind So you might need a break So last slide please So We have already written down some how-to's It's a major Debian website even translated in many many languages And something is a wiki which is more up-to-date and Here are the frequently asked questions. I think They might need an update in the meantime because we released edge So That's all as my talk of course we are free to discuss until we are thrown out here Yes, it would be nice if there was a Current flyer that we could just print out I Notice for our event We there was a a flyer that was a little bit out of date and formatted for a Three or a four or whatever the European standard format and so didn't fit on letter-sized paper and we had to Munch it around and it was still quite out of date and Actually this is this Flyer with this with which is made with latte and translated into many languages which is used by I Think many events So there's code of that flyer is somewhere mentioned on the first URL and Well, I think that it is maintained on alias So feel free to help us maintaining it and make it fit on your paper But I think we have the a4 version of this flyer with one side German one side English and we have printed several thousand things and Maybe we should just spend some money the Debian project has to send For example 300 of the flyers to other people that are stuffing a booth in a English speaking country So it's it's I think much nicer because they're really good printed and And nobody has to get the slartish file adjusted Find somebody who prints 20 or 50 things We already have them in a huge amount or can produce them and then we just have to chip them to other events Yeah Yeah, feel free to ask for help for resources for merchandising stuff We have a lot of Stuff flyers t-shirts key chains. I think we have still several thousand key chains available Not here Okay What I forgot to add to my slides is that's a several mailing lists where which you can use to coordinate your event to ask for help and The least thing you should do is to write a mail to events at Debian orc They can help you they can try to advertise your event they can add your Event to our home page so people will know that you are there and all the kind of stuff and And well that they can create contact if you need flyers and he has some We most likely know it So I'd like to give us another recommendation Maybe more work to do but after the event it could be a good idea to write down a small report and Post it to the Debian events dash na or dash EU mailing list It's probably interesting for others to know how it went and what happened at the event Yeah Might be even more interesting if So there's a main organizer from the demons that of the event changes over the years So he can take a look at old reports to Get a feeling about the event What has gone wrong? What could have been done? What could have been done better for that kind of stuff? Yeah It does also help a lot to have a place where you can put some stuff which is easily accessible and Which cannot be seen like from everywhere around because people will bring Bags and a lot of stuff and it just does not look nice if that's lying around somewhere on the booth and Yes, we had that picture of Linux talk and there was actually a lot of place But it could just be accessed through that top. So When there was something standing on it, you could not get there and well, it just sucked Yes Correctly, but there was no other place to put stuff. So Well, the Things that were standing around there were provided by the organizers and so you might talk to them before the event and check what kinds of stuff will be available and Yes, that might help. I Think that's already part in the how-to-three vote That you take care about that I'd like to Advertise a bit further the how-to's on Degebion wiki because What they mainly hold is an extensive list of extensive checklists that are really handy There's checklists there. For example, what you need for a booth They hold all the things that you always need and never bring like adhesive tape or Yeah for you because everybody brings a poster but nobody brings tape that's what usually happens And so there's a list what to bring for the booth There's lists when you try to when you want to write reports on the event like what information should be included in the report Those lists are also separated like what kind of information should go into an official report And what kind of information should go into an intern report to other developers? and then there's also a Draft code of conduct that is loose enough so people don't feel annoyed by it, but it's still well guarantees for us for a minimum minimum amount of Decency So there's there's lots and lots of lists there that you can just print out and take off So they're really handy and I just keep on talking until somebody takes this mic off me No, I have my own Okay, so time's up If you like Just wait to catch me while I'm here. We can talk Further if you have any points left, which I didn't mention yet Or just what the email is it to me or I said to events at DB and org So many thanks for showing up I'm really impressed to see That many people here even early in the morning I'm especially impressed to see you more or less awake many thanks