Disappointment about the appearance of our CLT booth

Hi,
let me throw in a few ideas here.
I organize the booths for sidux on conventions in Germany
(CLT, LinuxTag, FrOSCon)
At CLT and other conventions in the past sidux was sharing a space or
neighbouring the debian booth.
This was not a coincidence. I ask Orga to have sidux placed next to debian
I do this for 2 reasons:
- sidux is debian
- I am trying to create a better relationship between the 2 projects
(have not made much progress as far as relationship goes)
Does anybody have a problem with neighbouring booths or my reasoning?

CLT 2009 Setup
The debian booth was not very well organised for reasons mentioned above in
this thread. I am sure a project as big as debian can do better.
I agree with Julien BLACHE that tables are not ideal for a setup if they are
placed towards the divider to the next booth because it makes supporters sit
with their backs to the user (at least some)
CLT does not provide professional gear as does LinuxTag so projects have to
arrange with what is there.
I had a higher round table at booth entrance as can be seen on
http://tiny.pl/bk6w and http://tiny.pl/bk6c where supporters could talk at
eyelevel and have a demo maschine. If a more thorough talk or support was
needed the user could move to a row of 3 tables with another demo box and a
few notebooks.

Merchandise
Merchandise is what part of the users want. I think projects should provide
it. It makes a booth look a bit more approachable. Users are shy. They see us
as developers and technicaly skilled way above their level. I know this is
generalizing and not as true for Chemnitz, where the crowd is quite
knowledgable, as it is for LinuxTag or CeBit. But that is my impression
overall.
Andreas is right in saying it is good practise to be open, friendly and
approachable and go ahead and make eye contact and give a 'Hello, can I
help?' as an opener. It works.
When it comes to CDs (i 'donated' 150 Lenny CDs, debian didnt have any due to
above mentioned organisational problems) as giveaway i think they are a must.
I agree we do not have to feed the collectors but this specimen is not seen
much on CLT anyways. I was quite disappointed to find about half of the CDs i
provided in a corner after we took down the booth. That was not very
friendly.

Problems with sidux/debian booth at CLT
Let me phrase some possible problems that might have been created by sidux.
Someone mentioned that we had more than the 4 booth staff granted by Orga. (I
never understood this as a limit but only as a limit to how many staff will
have all the benefits like no entrance fee, free food...) Yes, all in all we
were 11. sidux e. V. (german equivalent to a foundation) organises these
events and gives members the chance to be part of the project.
I instructed these members to not just hang around at the booth but get the
full experience with attending talks and workshops and look at the other
projects. From my view this worked out. We had a max of 5-6 supporters there
at the same time and those were needed. We had quite a few people bringing in
problematic notebooks and i know at least of 2 that got ~ 4 hours support
each binding 2 supporters already.
I know it was quite crowded there, namely on Saturday which was very busy
allover. What are the impressions of the debian staffers regarding the
situation?
As a result i would like to propose for sidux and debian to talk before
conventions (here on the list or on #debian.de) about the projets plans for
their booth to have a better experience for the user. They are who we do it
for.

greetz
 

-- 
Ferdi Thommes
2.Vorsitzender
sidux e.V.
_________________
we are sidux - resistance is futile - you will be assimilated

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