[OH-Publicity] [OH-Board] PyCon sticker printing

[Asheesh Laroia]

On Wed, 27 Feb 2013, Karen Rustad wrote:

> After a few requests from various individuals for OpenHatch stickers 
> (for laptops and the like), I started looking into making vinyl die-cut 
> stickers with Sufjan the penguin on them. I asked Jesse Noller if it 
> would be possible for us to include an OpenHatch sticker in the PyCon 
> swag bags, and he said yes! It looks like it will cost somewhere between 
> $300-$400 to print enough stickers for PyCon (plus ~500 extras), 
> depending on the vendor and the exact size of the sticker. (The attached 
> draft is about 2"x2.4" -- $355 + shipping from stickergiant.com.)
> 
> The question is: do you/we think this is a worthwhile use of funds? If 
> so, either me or Asheesh can place the order.

After a few days of mulling it over, I think: sure, yes, let's go for 
this. Here's my thinking.

I think it'll increase the chance people stop by our booth, and I'm 
enthusiastic about more people simply knowing about us. I think there are 
lots of like-minded people at PyCon who might or might not have heard 
about us, and we would love to find ways for them to get more involved -- 
running affiliated events, sharing the training missions with their 
project, joining the community and writing new ones, and so on.

Karen and I had written up some other thoughts about PyCon 
publicity planning here: https://etherpad.mozilla.org/pycon-publicity-plan

One idea I had a few months ago was to host OpenHatch "office hours", 
where people who've run OpenHatch-affiliated events could be around to 
help discuss with less-confident people how to make their events or 
projects more newcomer-friendly and diverse.

It would probably be great for the sticker to have a highly relevant call 
to action -- perhaps advertising the hours that we're doing "office 
hours." That way, the call to action shows who we are, rather than us 
defining it. ("Show, don't tell," goes the maxim.)

That publicity plan also includes people hanging out at the booth and 
selling T-shirts, and talking with people about who we are. Picking who is 
there when is worth doing in a separate thread for clarity.

So far, people love the shirts and seem to want stickers, so I say since 
it seems we can afford them, let's share them widely, and use them as a 
hook to get people thinking about us (and thinking about joining us!).

-- Asheesh.