Convener: Evan Prodromou (@evan@cosocial.ca)

Participants who chose to record their names here:

• Jaz-Michael King (@jaz@mastodon.iftas.org)
• Andy Piper (@andypiper@macaw.social)
• Ken Walker (@kgw@cosocial.ca)
• Johannes Ernst (@j12t@social.coop)
• Freddie Johnson (@FreddieJ@newsmast.social)
• Erin Kissane (@kissane@mas.to)
• Samir Al-Battran (@samir@m.fedica.com)
• Lisa Dusseault (@lisarue@mastodon.geekery.org)
• Jeremiah Lee (@Jeremiah@alpaca.gold)
• Matthias Pfefferle (@pfefferle@mastodon.social)
• Jennifer Miller (@JMMaok@mastodon.online)
• Scott M. Stolz (@scott@authorship.studio)
• Andre Kudra (@kudrix@mastodon.social)
• @naturzukunft@mastodon.social
• Palak Sheth (@palak_sheth@mastodon.social)
• Jesse Baer (@misc@mastodon.social)
• Laurens hof (@misc@mastodon.social)
• Georgia Mountford-Blake (@georgiagemo@mastodon.social)
• Simon Blackstein (@sblackst@threads.net)
• Chris Messina (chrismessina@mastodon.xyz)
• Jesse Karmani (@jesseplusplus@mastodon.social)
• Aaron Shaw (@aaronshaw@social.coop)

Premise

• Trying to attract and convince people to join.
• Why use the fediverse at all? (why buy? why buy now?)
• Why use your software/community/system? (why buy from you?)
• Why is there a need? No one else doing it just yet.
  • Mastodon is not going after marketing the fediverse beyond its offering.
  • W3C is not an advocacy organization for the standards.
  • IFTAS is focused on its supporting tools
• Is there an opportunity for collective action?

Discussion

Sean Tilley: Still a challenge in having to explain what it is every time we want to have a discussion. Lisa: Just like having to explain the Web back in 1995!

Who are we trying to reach? businesses, developers, instance operators, users social media consultants, creators and influencers, social justice advocates, news media, journalists

Conducting workshops: n00q and Jeremiah have done some to inform and “train the trainers”. Similarity to Macintosh User Groups back in the day. Jonathan Glick: Tactical: We need an infographic, perhaps animated, that shows how federation between servers works, how users join, the flow of posts and comments, and defederation.

There are some of such, but Mastodon-specific.

Fediverse Report and We Distribute are also looking at this from a content / news / knowledge building angle

Jaz: Instead of focusing on explaining federation, focus on the value propositions. Ownership: they already know they can update their website anytime they want. Social networks require them to ask someone else to do that and pay to reach their existing audience. n00q: I think it’s worth explaining how it works, consequence of their data being the product. Jeremiah: This is one of the many reasons why I prefer “social web” over fediverse. It’s just the Web people already know, only now you can social media interactions more easily. Chris: I am strongly opposed to “fediverse” as the term of art (personally); the social web is what the web should have been all along and now can be. I also prefer the plurality and inclusivity of “social web”; fediverse is tightly coupled w/ Mastodon, which is one neighborhood within the broader social web.

IFTAS article for government agencies: https://about.iftas.org/2024/03/06/open-social-for-the-common-good/

Jaz: Regular people only care: Is news there? (many people get news via social media) is content there? are my friends there?

Shannon Clark: Brand safety and identty verification is an important issue that doesn’t get discussed much about the Fediverse (rel:me verification is geeky and not necessiarly easy to see when looking for someone/a brand today) - enterprises owning their own instances (allowing for dns to help verify) is potentialy something the fediverse offers brands (in the case of Threads etc association with their established Instagram account etc)

Challenge of centralized organization for journalists: being able to speak to advocate for the fediverse without speaking exclusively for it. Can inform, but not official voice of it.

Focusing on an organization:

• providing content, guides, case studies to lower effort to education
• strategic outbound outreach
• place to receive inbound requests from the curious
• directory of consultants to do long-term engagements

What’s the operating model of such an organization? Companies pay to participate? Probably volunteer support? This is time consuming work. How do people justify sharing?

Evan: There are many commercial entities would benefit from the fediverse growing (domain registrars, hosting, etc). Perhaps participating at the advocacy level would be of interest to them. Also many civil society organisations who want to see the ‘community commons’ social web

Individuals are already spreading support to their host, the Mastodon project itself, others. More difficult to attract this, but stronger connection might appeal to people.

Jeremiah: Would love to have a vault of prepared slides and such for advocates to pick and choose material for presenting to different types of groups. Some employers have these things for marketing, sales, PR, advocates for consistent messaging.