Organizing Events

Type of events

CentOS can be promoted at different types of events:

• User group meetings
• Conferences
• Exhibitions

and there are a few ways to promote CentOS:

• CentOS booth
• CentOS presentation
• CentOS installation/showcase

We prefer to have both a booth, as well as one or more presentations that involve CentOS.

Preparing the event

First get in contact with the organizers and see if CentOS can be present at the event without cost. Make sure you communicate that we target both business users as well as consumers. Since we are a volunteer organization we cannot afford to pay for the booth or pay for the entrance to the event.

Preparing for a presentation

Depending on the size of the event, we may want to have more visible/involved people give the presentation, like the project leader or one of the builders. Depending on the subject or audience, more technical or more business-oriented.

Also often it helps to give a presentation in the local language to reach more people, or have simultaneous translation if possible.

Preferably the presentation should define Enterprise Linux in general, and CentOS specifically so people grasp the basic idea behind CentOS. Our aim is never to force CentOS on people, CentOS is not always the best solution and as long as we highlight our strong points and weak points, people are smart enough to make their own judgment. And if we do well in explaining the pros and cons of CentOS, people may remember CentOS later when there reasons for using something else are changing.

Preparing the booth

Before asking for a booth it is important to know in advance what we want to use it for, and have at least one but preferably two persons (that speak the local language) at the booth at all time.

We usually have the following "services" at the booth:

• A TFT screen showing slides in local-language about:
  • general CentOS information (definition, release-cycle)
  • possible CentOS presentations at the event
  • CD/DVD availability and donations
• CentOS flyers, business cards and stickers
  • Business cards are useful to write information/solutions/names on the back
  • Stickers are a giveaway (to people that promise to use them)
• On-the-fly burning of CD/DVD images for a donation
• Booth personnel that can answer questions
  • Often you have to address people directly that pass by
  • Giving an explanation often attracts people, especially when using slides
  • Don't spend too much time talking with the same people if other people have questions
• An access-point that advertises information about the booth and CentOS (if allowed)
• A demo system to showcase something quickly (or allow people to search for something)

Promo material for booths

All the promo material can be found under the Promos Material Page

Here is a collection of funky compiz spin scripts:

• Compiz spin scripts

  • dogtail-test.py

  • lame-spin.py

  • spin.py

  • spin-1.1-dag.py

More information

• Check out the Debian events page

• Let us know about it on the centos-promo@centos.org mailinglist