![\"Kubuntu_Party_2.1\"](\"\/\/www.kubuntu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/c532\/Kubuntu_Party_2.1-300x188.png\")
<\/p>\nLast night (Friday 15th April, 19:00 UTC) we held the second of our Kubuntu packaging parties. Using the new conference server provided by BigBlueButton (BBB), things worked like a dream.<\/p>\n
Our last party was difficult to orchestrate as we were operating across multiple channels. Internet Relay Chat, Mumble voice server, and Google Hangouts.\u00a0Our BBB server provides all three of those functions and allows each user to decide how\u00a0they prefer to use it. One can listen and watch, use the chat function, or turn on mic, or mic and camera.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It was a brilliant party, with a great atmosphere,which is not easy to achieve in a purely online setting. Fred Dixon (Product Manager at Big Blue Button) had told us that BBB could host up to 100 people in each conference Room, and we have 4 Rooms !<\/p>\n
All together we estimate around 40 people came to the party, with 18 in Room 1 at its peak.<\/p>\n
During this party, Ovidiu-Florin has been productive!<\/p>\n
The theme for the party was packaging, although the primary objective was to “Make Friends, and Have Fun!” The packaging didn’t really hit the ground running, and as the night went on, it took on more of a back seat. The bottom line being that we didn’t get further than “Getting Setup”.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/packaging.ubuntu.com\/html\/getting-set-up.html<\/a><\/p>\n It is clear that Kubuntu Parties are a great idea, but the focus must be on “Making Friends and Having Fun!” The party atmosphere takes on a life of its own, with the conversation flowing in different directions, based upon who is talking, and who has recently arrived. We feel that this very loose format of welcoming guests, and getting them involved in the conversation, and in particular focusing on open questions that invite them to introduce their own topics, works best.<\/p>\n Having a single presenter controlling BBB, interacting with guests, running the packaging exercises, and screen sharing is too much for one person. The next party\u00a0 (Friday 20th May 19:00 UTC) will involve a greater number of hosts, who will share responsibility between Host, Screencast demos, managing the room and driving invitations via social media.<\/p>\n Both parties were allowed to overrun and take their own directions. The first party resulted in our discovering and being given Big Blue Button. Party 2, took on a similar un-conference direction and style. However, this allows the party to fizzle out in a sparkle rather than ending with the fireworks, and leaving people wanting more. We’ll change this for the next event closing the party on time, but allowing 30 minutes to say farewell and wave our guests off.<\/p>\n One of the objectives of Kubuntu party was to share knowledge and enable learning. In reality the community have shown us that they see a different purpose for Kubuntu Party, “Having Fun and Make Friends!”<\/p>\n Sharing knowledge is still an important requirement for growing and developing a healthy Kubuntu community, and we are looking at two potential ways to do this.<\/p>\n One way to do this would be separate Kubuntu Dojo learning events, this is appealing as Big Blue Button is designed specifically for on-line education.<\/p>\n Our other way of approaching this, is to introduce Kubuntu Dojo as a segment section of the Kubuntu Podcast<\/a>. This too has some nice advantages, one in particular is the ability to edit out that specific section, and post as a standalone video. This would\u00a0 build as a library of easy to access multimedia based knowledge.<\/p>\n They attract a wide audience from beyond the Kubuntu community. At this party we attracted party-goers from; UBports project, Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Devon and Cornwall Linux User Group and of course Kubuntu.<\/p>\n To make these parties even better we need YOUR HELP. Firstly a party can only be a a party when there are party goes, so ensure you come along to next event on Friday 20th May @ 19:00 UTC in our Big Blue Button conference server<\/a><\/p>\n Invite your friends, and share this news on your social networks, IRC and the wider community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last night (Friday 15th April, 19:00 UTC) we held the second of our Kubuntu packaging parties. Using the new conference server provided by BigBlueButton (BBB), things worked like a dream. Our last party was difficult to orchestrate as we were operating across multiple channels. Internet Relay Chat, Mumble voice server,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[129],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kubuntu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kubuntu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kubuntu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kubuntu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kubuntu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2620"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/kubuntu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2628,"href":"https:\/\/kubuntu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620\/revisions\/2628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kubuntu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kubuntu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kubuntu.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Managing the interactions<\/h2>\n
Tightening the time frame<\/h2>\n
Kubuntu Dojo<\/h2>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n
Kubuntu Parties are fantastic fun, and they work!<\/h3>\n