In mid-2006, the PSF agreed to hire JeffreyRush for full-time work on ["Advocacy"]. The contract was renewed for another six months starting March 15, 2007, along with a [http://www.python.org/psf/grants/advocacy/revised-tasks.pdf list of tasks to tackle].
Current Tasks:
Use the [http://www.dfwpython.org:8000/ www.python.org mockup area] to test some proposed changes, re a "spotlight" topic and a "get involved" feature, and get feedback from the community.
- Produce more "5-Minutes with Python" screencasts -- I've produced five so far.
- Python, Numbers and Array Processing
- Python and Strings
- Python and the Imaging Library
- Python and Relational Databases
- Python and Object Databases
- Python and Scientific Computing
- Work on "Starting and Running a Successful Python User Group" paper, with select members of the Usergroup Support Committee who have volunteered to help.
- Hold another online meeting of the Usergroup Support Committee.
- Begin reviewing 12th edition of "Understanding Computers" textbook. - deferred
Existing Challenges (most recent at top):
- crunching a talk down into only 5-minutes - it is surprisingly difficult
- figuring out why threads I start re advocacy and usergroups die out, lacking persistence.
For active discussion on advocating the use of Python, please join the [http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy Advocacy mailing list] and visit the [http://advocacy.python.org/getinvolved Advocacy - Get Involved!] site.