Home

Software Freedom Day 2007 Coffs Harbour Team Report

Mon, 2007-09-24 13:47 — Matthew Davidson

This is the third year that Coffs Harbour has had a Software Freedom Day event. Each event so far has been in a different, progressively larger, venue and featured presentations and demonstration computers for people to play with, and of course sharing of free software.

Statistics

There were 1200 A5 flyers distributed prior to the event

Our press release was emailed to about 20 local media and community group contacts

We prepared attendee surveys that people were invited to fill out as they entered the event. We had a number of prize draws in the afternoon where winners were randomly picked from these surveys. We received 28 completed surveys, although total attendance including volunteers would have been roughly double this number (approx 60 people attending in total). We were very pleased to have some visitors from Kempsey Shire Linux Users Group, over a hundred kilometres away.

We had 8 volunteers involved throughout the planning for our event, and an additional 4 or 5 volunteers on the day, for at least part of the day. One of our volunteers travelled up from Woy Woy (about 500km away) just to help out on the day.

We had 6 prepared presentations from 4 different speakers, and a number of ad-hoc discussions and demonstrations throughout the day.

There were about a dozen demonstration computers brought in for the day by volunteers.

We gave away:


Community Sponsorship

For the third year running, the Coffs Ex-Services Computer Club covered the not inconsequential incidental costs, including flyer photocopying, balloon inflation (with helium - well worth the expense, they looked great), and blank CDs, totalling about $200. This year they also provided two laptop computers.

Our local Linux user group, Club Linux Coffs Harbour, arranged the venue - generously provided by Park Beach Bowling Club at no cost.

The Coffs Harbour Education Campus Student Learning Centre provided three laptops and a data projector.

Business Sponsorship

Among the Software Freedom Day volunteers and speakers were the proprietors of local free software-based businesses Alma Technology, OzEtech, and four local independant IT workers - all of whom are involved in the new project announced in the afternoon (see below).

We had some prizes donated from local businesses. Local hardware retailer Computerland donated a USB memory flash drive. WOW Sight and Sound donated two packs including a USB drive, baseball cap, and CD cleaning kit. We pre-loaded these USB drives with the PortableApps.com Suite and removed any OEM-installed proprietary software.

Alma Technology donated prizes for over-18s: a six-pack of free-as-in-beer up-market lager, and a bottle of whiskey. The precise relationship of these items to the theme of the day will only become apparent after consuming said items, and will be forgotten again by the following morning.

Publicity / Press Coverage

Our press release was emailed to as much of the local media that we could find, but we received no media enquiries in response. We understand that something was published in the local daily newspaper, the Coffs Coast Advocate, but we haven't yet verified whether it was a full story based on the press release, or just an entry in the community noticeboard column.

The Southern Cross University Students Association kindly circulated our fliers, and emailed our press release to all of it's members on the Coffs Harbour campus.

In the weeks leading up to SFD, I gave a talk on free software and SFD to two local Rotary clubs, and set up a stall and spoke briefly at a local business networking group event. At each of these I distributed CDs, SFD flyers, and other promotional material, and had the Coffs Ex-Services Computer Club laptops set up as demonstration machines.

Over the couple of months leading up to SFD, we printed and distributed over 1200 A5 flyers.

Project Launch

The Coffs Free and Open Technology Network was officially launched on Software Freedom Day. This is an informal association of IT professionals based in and around Coffs Harbour who develop, sell, or support products based on free software. Our aim is to develop a network of local businesses who respect their clients' freedom, with a sufficiently broad range of skills that within a few years most of our local community will be able to have 100% of their technology needs met with free and open technology.

This is an extension of already existing practices of collaboration and client referral between the businesses involved, with some branding and educational initiatives designed to raise the awareness of the local community on issues around technological freedom, and advice and assistance to encourage other local IT businesses to shift to supporting free software.

This is a very exciting project, and one that we hope will become an example for other regional areas to follow.

Survey Results

Participants were asked:

  • for contact details and whether we could contact them re: upcoming events
  • what they were interested in
    • Introductory info about free software
    • Free software and business
    • Technically advanced stuff
    • Other
  • Hardware Platform / OS
    • PC
    • Mac
    • Free OS
    • Windows
  • How did they hear about SFD?
    • Flyer
    • Computer User Group
    • Email
    • Friend/family
    • School/uni
    • Media

28 people responded, and of those 28:

24 were happy to have us contact them in future.

19 were interested in introductory information, 8 in free software for business, and 7 were self-confessed geeks. 3 people nominated other specific areas of interest: "networking", "software I can buy/get today and take home", and "Linux for Mac".

20 were PC users, 5 Mac users, and 3 didn't nominate a hardware platform.

18 were windows users: 13 using some variant of XP, 2 Vista users, and 2 still using Windows 98

5 were already using a free Operating System at least some of the time. Specified OSes included Ubuntu (x3), Slackware(!) and Fedora (once each)

7 people said they heard about the event from the flyer, 10 from one or another users' group, 3 via email, 6 from friends/family, 1 from their educational institution, and two from the local paper. One person said they'd attended one of the Rotary Club talks, and one was apparently in the club on the day and happened to see the balloons.

(Answers to questions weren't exclusive or compulsory, so responses don't add up to 100%)

Lessons Learned

Never assume the venue's technical infrastructure will work as it did a week or two earlier. At a different venue last year we verified on the weekend before SFD that we'd be able to get Internet access via the local network, with automatic configuration of demonstration machines via DHCP. On the day of the event, we plugged our computers into the network to find no DHCP. Much frantic guessing of the network topography ensued, followed by a slightly delayed start to proceedings.

This year we thought we were safe, given that the venue had been used for the monthly Club Linux meetings since the start of the year with practically flawless Internet connectivitiy. So we set up at a relaxed pace, plugging into the LAN with around half an hour to spare to find... no DHCP. Gratitude is due to the administrators of the venue's network, Coffs Coast Computers, for responding to an urgent weekend service call.

Regardless, most of the things we were demonstrating that required Internet access could have been mirrored on local machines as insurance.

There is no such thing as too much publicity. It's been a weakness for every SFD event we've held so far, and it's where we fell down again this year. We had a slightly higher attandance than last year, but did not double the numbers as we were hoping for. It's worth appointing a volunteer with the sole task of personally contacting the media and community organisations. A bulk mailed press release is not enough.

Not everybody likes public speaking, so you have to really work to find the people that do. A couple of our most exuberant performers from last year moved out of town in the intervening 12 months, and although we had some wonderfully extroverted volunteers doing sterling service at the back of the room with visitors on the demonstration computers, and some rather reluctant speakers who ended up doing very well, yours truly ended up spending an embarrasing amount of time at the front of the room. Fixing this bug for next year will also require the personal touch, individually contacting prospective speakers, and twisting arms where appropriate, rather than a bulk mailed plea for help.

Outreach to local IT businesses not already involved from day one was minimal. There are people in the Coffs area deploying free software who didn't attend, for want of a personal invitation, and people not deploying free software who might have attended had they a better idea what they would get out of it. Identifying these people well in advance is a priority for next year.

This year we thought it would be a good idea to post a schedule in advance, and to split the day into a morning session for a general audience, and an afternoon session for a business audience (this being Coffs Harbour, businesses trading on a Saturday almost universally shut at noon), so that people could plan to turn up when their own particular interests were being addressed, without having to hang around the whole day. This proved unworkable for the following reasons:

  • the schedule was still being finalised on the day
  • most people have pre-existing obligations to do things on a Saturday, and will turn up when they can regardless of any schedule

We lost a lot of our audience half way through the day by announcing that we'd be starting our "business session" after lunch. Given that this was when we would be promoting the Coffs Free and Open Technology Network, and would want as big a crowd as possible, and that much of the business session covered things also of interest to a general audience (such as OpenOffice.org), this was a mistake. Keep it general and introductory all day is the rule for next year's SFD. SFD is not the place for technical or narrowly targeted material.