(This is the first in a series of blogs posts about Ohio Linux Fest)

I gave a talk this weekend at Ohio Linux Fest titled “An Introduction to GNOME 3.0”. The purpose of my talk was, which I hope to do a few more times this year, is to start introducing the community to the changes coming in GNOME 3.0. Change is hard, especially when we’re talking about a change to the user interface, and I believe the sooner we start engaging and educating the community, the more helpful it will be.

The presentation focuses on three things:

1. What is GNOME
2. History of GNOME (up to and including a brief overview of GNOME 2.28)
3. GNOME 3.0

One thing I hope attendees take away is that GNOME 3.0 is more than just GNOME Shell. I believe the call to action in the GNOME 3.0 community that Vincent and the release team started back in April and that continued at GUADEC really motivated a number of teams to see what they could do to contribute to GNOME 3.0. In the presentation I talk about Accessibility, Documentation, Marketing, the GNOME Developer Platform, the GNOME Activity Journal and Zeitgeist, Tomboy Online and GNOME Shell (including a demo).

I spent a lot of time reading Presentation Zen these last few months and used the concepts the book advocates. In addition to the presentation, I also provided a handout (available as a PDF on my website as well) for attendees to take away that goes into a little more detail and cites and attributes all of my sources.

I’ve uploaded my slides, images, and the handout on the GNOME Marketing wiki, all available in one archive. This material is available under a Creative Commons Share-alike 3.0 license. I’m sure I’ve got a few things wrong here and there, and I look forward to any feedback anyone has.

I’ll be giving this talk in November in St. Paul, MN at the Penguins Unbound LUG, and I’m hoping to reach out to a few more LUGs in the Midwest, as well as submit it as a talk at SCALE next February. If you’d like me to come give a talk somewhere, let me know via email or my blog.