PROJECT: Transition "Fedora Virtual Release Party" to "Fedora Global Watch Parties"

[jwflory]

Summary

Oversee the transition of the twice-annual Fedora Virtual Release Party to asynchronous Fedora Global Watch Parties to achieve better global time zone inclusion and provide more media material to promote the Fedora release cycle.

Background

Problem statement: The Virtual Release Party is a great way of including our global community together in a shared time and place. However, it historically leans to the North American time zone as a preference. It is difficult to scale our global engagement because of the high workload required for executing a live event for two days. It requires a lot of time and attention, and requires working on Saturdays, which are also less than ideal for the people executing the event. The high amount of labor required for the event in contrast to the live engagement during the event is difficult to justify. The engagement at virtual release parties has dropped significantly since peak COVID times (in the range of 1,200 virtual attendees at the F37 Virtual Release Party to under 300 in the last few release parties).

Proposed solution: Evolve the format from a singular Fedora Virtual Release Party to plural Fedora Global Watch Parties. The new format would look as follows:

• 5 to 15 minute pre-recorded sessions on a narrow, defined topic about the upcoming release
  • Can be technical/change-related, or about community work done during the release
• Speaker is matched with a helper who will record their session for them live in a Google Meet /etc.
• We will keep the video, edit it for the Fedora YouTube, and publish on date of the Global Watch Parties
• Global Watch Parties: Three times for people to attend and view them live together
  • Changing from two days to one day.
  • Three slots for different time zone groups: APAC, EMEA, NA/LATAM
    • CommOps to help moderate/run these virtual slots
  • Drive viewers through Matrix
  • Monday: Change YouTube video permissions from unlisted to public
• Kick-off with leadership:
  • NA/LATAM session: 10-15 minute opening remarks by FPL, FOA, FCA
  • Talk about the new format, highlight any exciting new things, release the badge QR code

Details

• 5 Nov, Tue: Engage CommOps issue tracker for F41 Party
  • “Hosts” for virtual slots
  • “Studio” for recording help
• 6 Nov, Wed: Recruit topics/speakers for F41 programming
  • Programming decisions from Thursday onward
• 6 Nov, Wed: Draft complete for Community Blog announcement article to schedule on 7 Nov, Thu
  • Fedora Magazine pointer
• 7 Nov, Thu: Social media plan, schedule as much as we can, make reminders for what we can’t

Outcome

• Run events that are easier to execute, require less live overhead, and open up new contribution opportunities for people to help
• Create more short-form content that can be used to promote Fedora releases in other contexts, e.g. at conferences, booths, and other events (i.e. F41 Release Party @ Berlin, GNOME Asia).

CC: @jasonbrooks @amoloney1