Saturday 19 September 2009

SFD Start Guide

This start guide is designed to introduce you to SFD and give you some tips and pointers for organizing your own SFD team event. If you have any questions please join and use the teams mailing list or email info [AT] softwarefreedomday [dot] org. You can also chat to us on #sfd on irc.freenode.net if you want to bounce ideas around or get more advice. If you are on orkut join the Software Freedom Day community to share your ideas.

Forming a Local SFD Team can be a fun, effective community building experience for your local user group and community. Software Freedom Day is an outreach day where you can inspire newcomers with the values and quality of Free Software and communicate the broader issues of Software Freedom through a variety of activities of your choice. Is there something locally relevant to your country or region that you need to express? Is there some great local success story you want to tell?

Software Freedom Day is your chance to stand united with the entire Free Software world with what you care about. Freedom.

Contents

  1. How can I celebrate Software Freedom Day?
  2. Steps to building your team
  3. What should we do?
  4. Preparing for the day
  5. Advertising the event
  6. Tips for the day
  7. Follow up for the event
  8. Some guidelines to make SFD a positive celebration:
  9. Code of Conduct

How can I celebrate Software Freedom Day?

There are two primary ways to celebrate SFD:

  1. Join a local SFD Team and help make their SFD event a success.
  2. Make your own SFD team!

SFD will be most effective if we keep some target groups in mind:

  • Families
  • Government
  • Small Business
  • Big Business

Steps to building your team

  1. Sign up for the SFD-announce mailing list. This is a low bandwidth announce mailing list only. Team discussions happen on the sfd-discuss list which you are also encouraged to join.

  2. Create a team page on this wiki to prepare - you will need to sign up or log in to be able to edit pages. Please make sure you read the instructions for creating a new team page.

  3. Register your team. If you register before the deadline (see the Registration page) then your team will receive some goodies to help you make your event awesome!

  4. Check out the competitions page for ways your team can win great prizes! Make sure you also keep up to date with the mailing list for announcements and to share information with other teams.

  5. Report on your event! You can create your own team gallery, and we'll have an easy report webform for you to fill in after the event.

The average SFD event usually requires only one or a couple organisers to ensure the event is in hand. You can often recruit helpers from:

  • GNU/Linux User Groups
  • Special Interest Groups (Python, Perl, Debian, whatever!)

  • Universities & schools

  • Computer clubs

We have found that the excercise can bring the local groups together as well as grow the community as a whole. The number of helpers required depends on the sort of activity you choose, but generally, the more the better. That way people have a good time and it also becomes a social event. If your volunteers enjoy themselves, they will pass on a good vibe _and_ offer to volunteer next year too :)

Remember, we are all volunteers so it is a matter of what we can, when we can :) Always remember to thank your volunteers and make sure they have a good time.

What should we do?

Be creative! You can organise any kind of SFD event you want. But just to get you started, here are a few ideas some people have had:

  • Have a FOSS picnic or BBQ
  • Run a booth at a market, fair or computer day
  • Get together with schools, universities and other people who can benefit from Free Software
  • Run a competition, best FOSS developed music, graphics, short video
  • Set up simple public booth and hand out CDs.
  • Run some demo machines in a public space and show off your FOSS
  • Hold installation workshops and combined FOSS installfests in schools, businesses or other areas
  • Hold a seminar on IP, Free Culture, Patents, etc
  • Have a cultural event - food, drink, music (jam session? - "open-source music").
  • Organise an expo to highlight local FOSS success stories

Preparing for the day

Below is a basic checklist that should cover most events that you would plan on running:

  • Got your volunteers organised?
  • Do you need insurance for your event? (some people can look to larger organisations to help out with this. Ask around)
  • Do you have schwag to hand out? CDs, flyers, balloons? Anything shiny that will give you the chance to engage in discussion. We are proud to be able to offer to teams free materials including some balloons, tshirts, stickers and CDs to help you look and be great on the day! 
    • SFI encourages you to distribute any Free/Libre Open Source Software. Please keep in mind that what you distribute should be pleasantly usable by your target audience.
  • Have you advertised the event. See the point below for advice on this
  • Have you liased with any other SFD teams in your region or country? Sometimes this can help with pooling resources and having a stronger all round effort
  • Do you have decent signage prepared so people can find/recognise your event?
  • Is your event in an easy to find place that is useful to reach out to a broad new audience?
  • What do you need for your event? Do you have any companies/orgs that would sponsor your requirements?

See the StartGuide for some friendly do's and do not's to ensure the day is positive and effective.

Advertising the event

Want to have your voice heard? Below are some simple tips to help make sure your event is loud and heard by your community and region. There are also some generic and team marketing materials available.

  • Make some great posters! You can get ideas and the official SFD artwork at the Artwork page.

  • Get a well known person involved
  • Announce the event on FOSS usergroups mailing lists, at meetings and on website announcements
  • Invite some friendly media people, buy them coffee, explain in advance what you are trying to achieve and then invite them on the day
  • Get a wide variety of people involved. The more diversity you can achieve, the more spheres of influence you are able to tap into
  • Release media statements to the local papers, radio stations, and TV channels well in advance to peak their interest in the event
  • Put up posters at education institutes, town halls, and any other public areas where locals where get interested
  • Run competitions and announce the winners on SFD at an event
  • Make sure you blog/flickr/technorati all your entries as sfd08 (replace the 08 with the appropriate year)

Tips for the day

  • Ensure your volunteers are well briefed, understand the do's and do not's, and are comfortable with whatever they are doing
  • Ensure you have the contact details of the main people involved
  • If you have a large team, allocate team leaders for each event and liase with them rather than trying to organise everyone yourself

  • Meeting everyone for a coffee/breakfast before starting is a good way to talk to everyone and get everyone on the same page before the event. Plus they all get the caffeine they need :)

  • Ensure you get _all_ the names of volunteers, because you'll be in a lot of trouble when you send out thankyou emails and forget someone
  • Check the weather forecast and have a backup plan in case the weather is bad. Make sure everyone knows the backup plan

  • Take loads of photos! If you have multiple teams, task one person from each to photograph all activities, particularly anything or anyone newsworthy :) Make sure you post photos into the SFD photo gallery.

Follow up for the event

  • Write up how you went on the SFD TeamReports page and also post any great photos in the Gallery there

  • Link to any blogs, press reports, and photo galleries of the day
  • Send thankyous to your volunteers and to any user groups that participated. If applicable, ensure you give a brief report on the event at your next user group meeting
  • Send thanks to any famous people and sponsor organisations that helped out, hopefully that'll get them keen to help the next year

Some guidelines to make SFD a positive celebration:

  • DO present the capabilities and practical benefits of FOSS.
  • DO NOT pretend that FOSS is perfect for everyone or everything.
  • DO have the ability to present FOSS ideology clearly and concisely to interested people.
  • DO NOT beat uninterested people over the head with ideology; this will confuse and intimidate them. Instead...
  • DO let the quality of the software speak for itself and its ideology.
  • DO have demo machines present if possible.
  • DO your best to connect people with a local FOSS community.
  • DO provide contact information for your SFD team so people can subsequently contact you for more information.
  • DO get contact information from interested and willing people, so you can proactively follow-up with them later.
  • DO proactively follow-up with people who attend your SFD event.
  • DO find and cooperate with other SFD teams in your area.
  • DO start other SFD teams in your area - this is cooperation, not competition!

  • DO NOT -- seriously -- DO NOT bash Microsoft or SCO or any other false Great Satan. Software Freedom Day is not about any individual companies or people; Software Freedom Day is a positive community celebration of Software Freedom.

Code of Conduct

Please be sure to read the SFD CodeOfConduct. It'll help your event be positive, fun, on message and great for newcomers.