[ubuntu-uk] Improving Support

[pmgazz]

I work with the voluntary sector as a community interest company 
providing paid support (and end up also giving a lot of free support).

Among the networks of orgs who provide MS and proprietary software 
support to VCS (I think I'm one of 2 providers who seriously supports 
Ubuntu) there have been several attempts to set this kind of thing up 
(MS for VCOs) - so far, all attempts have floundered.

I've thought about the IRC approach - but it'd need dressing up with a 
web interface as 'online support' rather than 'chat' as I can't get 
anyone to use an undisguised IRC channel (we have one on freenode).

Among the problems are not only finding geeks who can work patiently and 
creatively with the general public but also that the people who're 
available to give support often aren't around at the time of day when 
it's needed. Support providers tend to park in the channel then wander 
off - confusing to non-techies who just come in, lurk for a couple of 
minutes and then run away if no-one greets them. It's hard to get 
commitments for 'n' hours per week and, of course, hard to be assured of 
the quality of support offered by random volunteers.

It really needs thinking through, but it would be such a fabulous 
resource if it could be worked out - I'm interested in this if I can be 
of any help.

Paula

On 28/05/10 00:37, James Tait wrote:
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> On 27/05/10 19:12, Matthew Daubney wrote:
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>    
>> That's quite a long list! Here's an interesting side question, what
>> would help motivate you to improve the way you support people? How do
>> you think it could be improved?
>>      
> That's a much more difficult question to answer, which is why I neatly
> side-stepped it!  To be honest, I don't know.  I can't think of anything
> that would make me *want* to help more, because I *want* to help anyway
> - - I'm just restricted by available time between work, family and
> personal projects.  I'm conscious that my contributions are public and
> open to peer review, which can be a double-edged sword, so I try to make
> pretty sure that what I'm saying is accurate and correct before I submit
> it.  But I don't think the question of my personal QA is what you're
> digging at here.
>
> At LUG Radio Live 2008, Ben Thorp gave a talk titled Supporting World
> Domination, where he talked about a system of live support, provided by
> the community.  Chat channels and remote desktops were discussed.  Jon
> Spriggs was involved in the discussion as well.  We hashed together a
> very high-level idea for a technical solution to supporting users,
> providing a Live Help function or similar which would allow users to
> "talk" (more accurately, type) to someone knowledgeable to get
> assistance.  I think we came up with a way of making sure that we didn't
> end up with just any old Tom, Dick or Harry on the other end and we
> talked about forwarding VNC over XMPP or similar.  If we could work out
> the potential difficulties, that could be a phenomenal resource.
>
> Or how about bringing Launchpad Answers to the desktop?  An applet that
> pops up an indicator periodically inviting me to answer a question.  I
> dunno if we could hook it into popcon or something to filter the
> questions to those related to my more frequently-used applications?
> Does launchpadlib hook into Answers?
>
> Of course, it doesn't have to be a technical solution - LUGs are a great
> way to get face-to-face help.  Sadly, my LUG isn't particularly active
> though.
>
> Has that sparked anything in anyone?
>
> JT
> - -- 
> - ---------------------------------------+--------------------------------
> James Tait, BSc                        |    xmpp:jayteeuk at wyrddreams.org
> Programmer and Free Software advocate  |       VoIP: +44 (0)870 490 2407
> - ---------------------------------------+--------------------------------
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