Are you ready for new members?

In a few days, many Ubuntu users will unwrap new hardware, plug it in, and have a fantastic experience.

Some users will get inspired to join the community to solve bugs, add features, contribute code, and much more.

Support Gurus: use Find-a-Task

New, enthusiastic users often show up in the many Ubuntu help forums.

Encourage them to try Find-a-Task to see the variety of ways they can help.
Just send them over, and we'll do the rest.

Team Leaders: Is your team ready?

Is your team ready to welcome, train, and integrate these new volunteers?

Has your team looked at it's Find-a-Task roles for volunteers? It's easy to add or change your team's listings.

Is your team approachable? Can you be contacted easily by a new volunteer? Is your web page for new volunteers accurate?

Improving Find-a-Task

Find-a-Task is the Ubuntu community's job board for volunteers. Introduced in January 2015, Find-a-Task shows fellow volunteers the variety of tasks and roles available, and links those roles to the team web pages.

Please share your suggestions to improve Find-a-Task to the Ubuntu Community Team mailing list.

UOS Overflow Session: FInd-a-Task

The Ubuntu Online Summit has added an overflow session on Find-a-Task, the Ubuntu community's volunteer job board. The job board tries to link volunteers with a wide range of jobs that need to be done.

• Does it work?
• Have you tried it?
• Do you know anyone who has joined a team after using it?
• Is your team listed on it?
• How can it be improved?
• Is it the best gateway for undecided new volunteers?

Join us tomorrow, 05 Nov at 1800 UTC to discuss the future of Find-a-Task, and the best ways to recruit new Ubuntu Members.

Watch Live at http://summit.ubuntu.com/uos-1511/meeting/22644/growing-new-community-members/
Or join us on freenode IRC:  #ubuntu-uos-overflow

See you there!

Is your team ready for UOS?

The Ubuntu Online Summit (UOS), 03-05 November 2015, is only a few days away.

Is your team ready to welcome, train, and integrate new volunteers inspired by UOS?

Has your team updated it's Find-a-Task roles for volunteers? It's easy to add or change your team's listings.

Find-a-Task is the Ubuntu community's job board for volunteers. Introduced in January 2015, Find-a-Task shows fellow volunteers the variety of tasks and roles available.

It's for everyone, new and old

UOS is one of the events that energizes the Ubuntu community. It is a great time for volunteers to change tracks, to try something new.

Your Find-a-Task roles should reflect that. Don't limit yourself to new enthusiasts. Your roles should welcome experienced members, too!

Improving Find-a-Task

Please share your suggestions to improve Find-a-Task during any of the UOS Community Roundtable sessions.
See you there!

Point New Participants to Find-a-Task!

Find-a-Task is the Ubuntu community's job board for volunteers.

Introduced in January 2015, Find-a-Task shows fellow volunteers the variety of tasks and roles available.

Are you using Find-a-Task?

Volunteers can browse the many ways to contribute to Ubuntu, and choose their favorite. No hassle, no pressure, no sign-up, no commitment.

New enthusiasts don't know about Find-a-Task. (How could they?)
It only works if *you* encourage new volunteers to try it.

It's for new participants

Take a quick look, and see the variety of volunteer roles available. We have listings for many different skills and interests, including plenty of non-technical tasks.

It's also for longtime participants

Life moves on. Jobs and family and hobbies change.

Losing interest in your current role, or have less time for it? Renew the magic - use Find-a-Task to try something new and different!

Real friends don't let their mates burn out or drop off.  When you see a friend start to teeter or flame out, guide them to Find-a-Task and help them recover with a different role.

Adding Listings and Improving Find-a-Task

It's easy to add or change your team's listing.

Please share your suggestions to improve Find-a-Task on the ubuntu-community-team mailing list.

You should be using Find-a-Task

Find-a-Task is the Ubuntu community's job board for volunteers.

Introduced in January 2015, Find-a-Task shows fellow volunteers the variety of tasks and roles available.

The goal of Find-a-Task is for a volunteer, after exploring the Ubuntu Project, to land on a team or project's wiki page. They are interested, ready to join, and ready to start learning the skills and tools. 

However, it only works if *you* use it, too.

Try it.

Take a quick look, and see the variety of volunteer roles available. We have listings for many different skills and interests, including many non-technical tasks.

Is your team listed?

Hey teams, are you using Find-a-Task to recruit volunteers?

• Are your team roles listed?
• Are they accurate?
• Is your landing page welcoming and useful to a new volunteer?

When it's time to update your postings on the job board, simply jump into Freenode IRC: #ubuntu-community-team.

Gurus: Are your pointing Padwans toward it?

Find-a-Task is a great place to send new enthusiasts. No signup, no login, no questions. It's a great way to survey the roles available in the big, wide, Ubuntuverse, and get new enthusiasts involved in a team.

It's also handy for experienced enthusiasts looking for a new challenge, of course.

• If you're active in the various forums, refer new enthusiasts to Find-a-Task.
• Add it to your signature.
• If you know a Find-a-Task success story, please share.

Improving Find-a-Task

Ideas to increase usage of Find-a-Task are welcome.
Ideas on how to improve the tool itself are also welcome.
Please share your suggestions to improve Find-a-Task on the ubuntu-community-team mailing list.

Is your team using Find-a-Task?

Find-a-Task is the Ubuntu community's job board for volunteers.

 

Is your team listed?

It's the place for volunteers to find new, interesting, fulfilling ways to contribute to Ubuntu.
It's the place for them to discover your team or project.

Get listed today!

We have made it super easy to get your team onto Find-a-Task: No login, no editing. Just jump into #ubuntu-community-team with a volunteer role in mind:

Example:

• Category: Programming
• Role: QML De-frobber
• Very short description: Get rid of QML Frob with the Ubuntu Frobbing Team
• Landing page: http://wiki.ubuntu.com/FrobbingTeam/QMLDefrobber

That's right...you can list technical roles, too.

Nah, I don't want volunteers

If the old way is working for you, and your team has lots of spare capacity, then more power to you! Please share your secret sauce.

But if you could use a few more hands to grab a work item or two, a Find-a-Task listing is fast and simple.

You really should, you know.

Introducing Ubuntu Find-A-Task

The Ubuntu Community website has an awesome new service: Find-A-Task

It's a referral service - it helps volunteers discover teams and tasks that match their interests.

• Link to it!
• Refer new enthusiasts toward it!
• Advertise your teams and projects on it!

Give it a try and see how it can work for your team or project.

How do I get my team listed?

So easy and so fast.

1. What volunteer role do you want to advertise?
2. What's a very short, exciting description of the role?
3. Which Find-A-Task paths do you think this role is appropriate for? 
4. Create a great landing page on the wiki. (example)
5. Drop by #ubuntu-community-team and let us know.
• Role: Frobishers, 
• Description: "Help Frobnicators add fabulous Frob!"
• Path: One, in the Coding and Development submenu
• Landing URL http://wiki.ubuntu.com/FrobTeam/Frobishers

Your landing page:

This is a volunteer's first impression of your team. Make it shine.

When volunteers show up at your wiki page, they are already interested. They want to know how to set up, who to contact, and how to get started on their first easy work item. They want instructions and details.

If you don't provide what they want, they may move on to their next choice. Find-A-Task makes it easy for them to move on.

Credits

Tremendous thanks to:

• Mozilla and 85 contributors who created the excellent AskNot that's under the hood of Find-A-Task.
• Thanks to Benjamin Kerensa for the initial suggestion of using AskNot.
• Thanks to Elizabeth Krumbach Joseph for assistance, and for all her previous hard work on a similar tool, much of it incorporated into Find-A-Task.
• Thanks to Michael Hall for coming up with the name, and for getting Find-A-Task online at last.