(sorry, that was an awful pun for a post title)

This morning I got added to [Planet Ubuntu](https://planet.ubuntu.com/), so hello!!

Since starting as UCM this week, I have been getting my feet wet in many different parts of the Ubuntu community. One particular area that I am concentrating on now are the LoCo teams. For those of you un-familiar with the lingo, a LoCo team is a collection of Ubuntu enthusiasts within the same geographical area. LoCo teams have sprung up all over the world, and you can see the [comprehensive list of teams here](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoCoTeamList). These teams are doing some awesome work with translations, advocacy, marketing and more.

LoCo teams are similar to *Street Teams* in the music world. Street Teams are typically set up by a band or label as an on-the-ground, grassroots advocacy team. Many of these teams would canvas record shops with fliers, promote the band at venues, get promo discs to DJs, promote the band on local radio and more. Essentially, the team uses its ingenuity and enthusiasm to use its limited resources to make a big splash. You can see some awesome examples of advocacy if you look at local music scenes. The techniques tend to span from the normal to the insane – I remember [we](https://www.seraphidian.com/) once did a gig and took along a few fake beard wigs. We took a photo of *every single* person in that venue wearing the beard when they came in and put the photos up on the big screen when we played. Not only did it add some humour to the evening, but news of the stunt spread far and wide and we got more fans because of it.

LoCo teams are just like Street Teams and share many of the similarities, but like street teams, they are less organised outside the scope of the immediate region. The Ubuntu project seems to have a stack of awesome LoCo teams, but they don’t really interact together, share ideas and experiences and consult together on how to best run a team. This is totally understandable, and exactly the same happens with many other types of user group. But, in the same way we discovered that working together makes great software, I am positive that working together can make great teams. 🙂

So, I am working to help these teams work together and collaborate a little more. I outlined some of my thoughts in a [mail to loco-contacts](https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/loco-contacts/2006-September/000429.html) and also kicked it off [asking people for introductions](https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/loco-contacts/2006-September/000430.html). From chatting to many of these different groups over the last few days, we have some really great personalities in the many different teams, and some great is going on. I am really looking forward to working with these teams. 🙂