On 19-Dec-2011, at 6:10 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan wrote:
Do think about it. No matter how
excellet facilities are provided, how yuai enthusiasm is shown,
physical outreach programs actually have very little or zero impact on
getting new people on board. This is an observation that I have made,
as well as a few others have made.
Thanks for your inputs Srikanth. :)
Outreach is very tough, I agree with. Globally, we have about 1 lakh editors from a
reader base of about 500m. That's works out to roughly 0.02%! It takes a lot of hard
work to try and identify editors. In an outreach session, if we get 1 regular editor from
a group of 25, that's 4%. The work that I'm proposing is to see what we can do to
try and improve this because volunteer time is limited. For instance, are there any types
of audiences that will make volunteer outreach efforts more productive? Are there ways
that we can conduct sessions that will improve the chances of getting new editors? Are
there things we can do after workshops to encourage and support newbies to become regular
editors.
Also, there are several examples of outreach efforts resulting in building communities.
Odia is a prime example. They're still small but they've reached where they are
now through a series of outreach efforts. They're also continuing their outreach
efforts.
Outreach does take time and effort and skill and persistence and patience! Don't lose
faith!
Nitika