Linux Australia wants to boost its PR stocks

Sam Varghese
Friday, 27 May 2011 13:16

Opinion and Analysis

As the number of events organised under its patronage increases, Linux Australia (LA), the umbrella organisation for Linux user groups Down Under, is actively looking for people who can be part of a media sub-committee.

The idea, according to LA president John Ferlito, is to form a team that can provide the expertise needed for media relations across all the conferences.

The main event organised under the aegis of Linux Australia each year is the Australian national Linux conference (LCA); user groups bid for it each year and the seed money for organising comes from LA. The profits provide LA with both its running expenses and also the means to sponsor other conferences or worthwhile endeavours.

Apart from the LCA, Linux Australia, through a sub-committee, runs PyCon, Drupal Down Under, and WordCamp; it has also provided a grant to The Ada Initiative, a project that seeks to increase the involvement of women in free and open source software.

The call for people to join the media sub-committee was put out on May 20; Ferlito said that nobody had, as yet, put their hand up.

He said he was against the idea of having a paid public relations professional handle the job which has often proved to be the organisation's Achilles' heel.

Instead, Ferlito said he preferred to have someone (or some people) from the community handle the job with LA meeting all their expenses. Such an individual or group could, he said, operate across all the conferences and thus avoid duplication of effort.

It would also avoid the need for different people to learn the skills required for the task and also lead to a measure of familiarity with the media people concerned, never a bad thing when it comes to publicity.

Ferlito said there was a certain amount of duplication of effort when it came to organising the various conferences as different people were involved each year. But, he said, the aim was to reduce the duplication of effort as far as possible.