RustConf Community Table

[ashleygwilliams]

@wifelette has pinged me about the community team table at RustConf this year! is anyone interested in leading this? we have done the table in previous years, but with our new subteam organization, i think we have the opportunity to do something a bit more organized with it.

current outstanding questions:

• anyone want to lead this effort? (even if you aren't attending, a point person would be great)
• whiteboard? (if so what would we use it for)
• stickers/swag?
• calls to action (should we try to use the table to recruit folks for specific teams/initiatives etc)

[ashleygwilliams]

pinging @rust-community/events-team for any thoughts on this! (not exactly what the events team does, but i imagine ya'll would have particularly great feedback)

[skade]

I think that would be great. My experience is that people never quite know what we do and a table and some conversation helps a lot there!

[sebasmagri]

I'd like to give some feedback from last RustConf's community table while we discuss this.

The Whiteboard idea of being able to nominate people that have done good for the community was awesome, but did not go further; probably we should have a special mention for those persons at the end of the conf? or even a small prize? (something simple, like a rusty metalic ferris prize).

On the other hand, I think the table could use a bit more of identification, being at a Rust conference on a table with just a Rust tablecloth and Rust stickers is probably not that clear if we want to communicate "This is what the Rust Community Team does", and actually a common comment from people approaching the table was "Ah, you're the community team", with an uncertain face. So probably a good poster/banner where we clearly communicate we're the Rust Community team, probably displaying pictures of events, gatherings, etc. The calls to action idea is great and I think it improves this situation.

[skade]

So, I have an issue with finding "notable" community members. That's much of a popularity contest and also runs the danger of repeating the same names over and over. Here's an interesting modification though: who don't we know of?

I agree with the identification, we'll have a similar problem if we are accepted for FROSCON at a similar time. Would it be possible to design banners and shirts until then? Just the designs, I think it would be best if the booth staff can manage the printing themselves.

[ashleygwilliams]

@skade i'm not sure i understand what you are talking about re: notable community members? i'm not sure i see any mention of this, perhaps i am missing something? in general, the identification of people usually has the goal of identifying folks we don't always think of?

[ashleygwilliams]

for RustConf, i think we can do a few things:

• use the whiteboard as a way to write out what we do and identify ourselves as the community team
• make a schedule so that we always have folks at the booth
• have notecards we hand out that suggest several calls to actions/ways to get involved

thoughts?

[ashleygwilliams]

in general, i don't usually like the idea of shirts because i really prefer to wear my own clothes, which is usually not a tshirt. maybe we can get ribbons to attach to our name tags or make a rust community team sticker that we can stick on the name tags?

[skade]

@ashleygwilliams I was referring to the whiteboard idea @sebasmagri proposed.

On second thought, agree with the T-Shirt issue, thanks for raising that! Ribbons are probably a better (and cheaper) way to do things!

The events team thought about creating a small postcard "how to run your own Rust meetup".

[sebasmagri]

And I agree with trying to avoid the whiteboard to become a popularity contest. Still, I think having an open area of the whiteboard for the attendants to write is a good idea, I just don't know now what would be adequate to encourage in that area.

[Manishearth]

Last year the whiteboard was pretty great; folks wrote kudoses on it. I don't think it became much of a popularity contest but we could switch that around anyway. If we do add some announced prizes that can make it problematic though; it's best left informal.

[skade]

Other Whiteboard idea: "What would are you like to know about that no one is writing about?"

[erickt]

I do love our whiteboard kudos, I'd be happy to help cover booth duty. What I liked about it was that we ended up becoming a routing booth for questions. Could we make that more official? We could get the other subteams to print up materials that we could give out.

I also like the idea of a ribbon or badge stickers for us and all the other teams/working groups. It'd be a great way to raise visibility for members, and a good way to start conversations.

[wifelette]

Logistics note on that last suggestion: printed materials can be great! But they'd need to be kept to 4x6 postcards (as in, on cardstock), rather than 8.5 x 11 paper.

Postcards feel more material, versus sheets of paper which can be perceived more like trash—regardless of the content—and end up there or all over the floors more often than not. Thankfully this doesn't increase costs too much, though certainly a little.

Happy to help source some postcard vendors (we have a local shop we've used before too) if this becomes a thing, and probably many of you work at companies with marketing departments who would have suggestions as well :)

(Also, if it matters, this is a conf-wide standard which sponsors keep to as well 👍)

[skade]

@wifelette I'm not that versed in US sizes, but I think these here fit? https://github.com/rust-community/resources/blob/gh-pages/postcard-contribute.pdf We have had very good experience with those over the last years.

Can you recommend a good vendor for rollups (and do you have a rough price)?

[wifelette]

I'll check out that URL and see if I can tell what size it is :)

RE: Pull up banners: https://twitter.com/wifelette/status/991447256803913728

Note that the one Breaker happens to have gone with in the picture I'm pretty sure is the slightly pricier premium one, but their regular one is just fine. IIRC the upgrade is just a slightly sturdier base, where the baseline base is already adequate.

[wifelette]

RE: Postcard: do you have the original art for that? It's not quite correct, but it's close to the right aspect ratio :) If you do you should be able to modify it to make it work!

[skade]

Standards! 👍

There's a sketch file right next to it in the repos. We used those for printing postcards in Germany, so a template for dealing with all aspects would be great. I can see if I can get exact measurements myself unless you have something at hand quickly.

https://github.com/rust-community/resources

We have a session coming up with new ones on the 28th, so content may be subject to change.

[ashleygwilliams]

@wifelette if i understand correctly the aspect ratio is not particularly important.. just that it be on card stock and be vaguely postcard size? @skade - i do not think we should do a rollup for rust conf (i dont think a community team rollup makes sense). let's open another thread to discuss that, as it is for confs that are not Rust confs.

[wifelette]

4x6 or smaller, which if scaled down this could work for as well. Many printers will have cheaper rates for stock sizes like 4x6 though, so keep that in mind when sourcing vendors and deciding on sizes.