[IAEP] [Olpc-open] G1G1 (was Re: [Community-news] OLPC News (2008-09-29))

[Sameer Verma]

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 11:58 AM, Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com> wrote:
> Effective marketing is targeted. Last year's typical G1G1 donor was
> probably a generous IT type with a positive viewpoint concerning Free
> software, curious about Sugar and perhaps even willing to be an
> ambassador of the OLPC project. This market doesn't need a marketing
> message; they are ready to donate and merely eager for practical
> information (cost, available by Christmas or not, available outside
> the USA, if so with localized keyboards or not, at same price or not,
> ...). All that market needs is a press release today answering those
> questions, and a press conference on November 17th, both of which
> would probably get very complete media coverage. A three-minute film
> demonstrating the laptop, showing OLPC people working on it,
> mentioning and showing places around the world it is in use,
> enumerating challenges, and finally asking for a donation in time for
> the holidays, could be posted to YouTube during the press conference
> (and an MPEG-2 broadcast version offered to the media for download).
> Even a homey home video would be fine, perhaps even preferable.
> Imagine G1G1 donors posting video responses.... The challenge this
> time is fulfillment, but that seems well in hand with the Amazon
> partnership. The most effective merchandising could be what Apple has
> done for decades: a few decals/stickers slipped in the box before
> shipment -- easily designed and printed with negligeable
> picking/packing and shipment cost.

+1

This just came to me while sitting in traffic - a stylized bumper
sticker: "My other XO is in Mongolia" (or Rwanda, Haiti, etc.
Randomize the stickers or give them a few to choose from:-)) We have a
lot of creativity on these lists. Let it rip!

> Massive buzz could be generated by
> another technique Apple has used for years: the education discount.
> Offer the pair at $375 for educators and university students, and $425
> for others. Imagine thousands of educators holding an XO in their
> hands, the community feedback potential.

This brings the overhead of verifying whose an educator etc. Apple
already has this in place. How do we handle it?

> Seen from the outside, the far more important target market that may
> need work is governments and education ministers. That group doesn't
> need merchandising, they need reassurance that they will be
> accompanied, that risks can be foreseen and contained, that there is
> indeed a correlation between learning via an interface optimized for
> children and later aptitude with office productivity software. IT
> vendors invest fortunes in such "decision-maker" marketing, and
> perhaps the best approach there is to find a small (or not), talented
> ad agency willing to work pro bono for the exposure, experience, and
> good citizen credentials.
>
> I would venture that the less said about the XO-2 at this time, the
> better. I believe the priority should be to combat the perception that
> OLPC has fallen short and discussing the future version might merely
> confuse everyone, in particular leading to speculation that something
> is not right with the XO-1. What G1G1 can do is remind everyone that
> hundreds of thousands of OLPC XO-1s have shipped and are shipping, and
> are serving children from Birmingham to Kigali.
>

+1

The shipment numbers are impressive, and must be highlighted as much
as possible. Everyone I've spoken to at first thinks of this as a
faltered project, but then they hear the numbers and their eyes light
up. Numbers assure that the project is alive and kicking.

Sameer

-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/


> I am not sure I can offer any useful assistance, but I do have
> expertise in transcoding video formats, it seems there was a DVD
> produced last year which may just need to be transcoded to web
> formats?
>
> Sean.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 1:09 AM, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
>> On Sat, Oct 4, 2008 at 3:42 PM, Edward Cherlin <echerlin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Update: Some of the computer press has picked up the story.
>>>
>>> But we could be all over the Mainstream Media, including having
>>> Nicholas, Walter, Alan and others on all the talk shows. If they are
>>> willing. Are any of you? This is the one time of year when ordering
>>> something you can't get is a positive. We should aim for something
>>> ridiculous, like a million units. (Although we shouldn't say that to
>>> the media in so many words.) And then we should provide daily tracking
>>> of order numbers and of production lead times, to encourage yet more
>>> people to order as early as possible.
>>>
>>> We should be playing up the connection with the 40th anniversary of
>>> the Dynabook idea, and of Doug Engelbart's Mother of All Demos. I have
>>> been in contact with him and his people, and I know that they are keen
>>> on that. We should be doing T-shirts, mugs, stickers, replica mice,
>>> and all the rest of the merchandising, and getting several books
>>> published. Why anybody at OLPC would want to waste the best marketing
>>> time in the year is utterly beyond me.
>>>
>>> If you don't think my opinion counts, ask Amazon.
>>>
>>
>> I agree with Ed Cherlin in that if G1G1v2 begins in 5 weeks, now is
>> the time to get the campaign going. Five weeks isn't a lot of time.
>> What I'd look for in the efforts this year is something a bit more
>> orchestrated. Materials (posters, cards, stickers, shirts, etc) all
>> coming across with a consistency in branding, image, look-n-feel, etc.
>> If we do merchandise from somebody like Cafepress, we don't have to
>> get into the business of printing, cutting etc.
>>
>> I cannot setup shop at Cafepress because the logos involved aren't my
>> copyright, but if someone from OLPC initiates, I'd be glad to help.
>>
>> Sameer
>> --
>> Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
>> Associate Professor of Information Systems
>> San Francisco State University
>> San Francisco CA 94132 USA
>> http://verma.sfsu.edu/
>> http://opensource.sfsu.edu/
>>
>>
>>> On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 4:50 PM, Edward Cherlin <echerlin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> This is the first time I have heard that G1G1 will start up again on
>>>> Nov 17. As far as I can tell, nobody in the outside world has picked
>>>> up on this yet.
>>>>
>>>> Is this a leak? Is it true? Has there been any outside announcement?
>>>> Since it doesn't show up in Internet news searches, I am certain that
>>>> there was no press release. Should I Slashdot this?
>>>>
>>>> This is a Hell of a way to run a global non-profit. We have one of the
>>>> world's biggest brands, and we do nothing with it. We could be The
>>>> Must-Have Gift for this Holiday season without any advertising
>>>> expense, if we would just let the media have the story. Even with the
>>>> manufacturing delays that we can predict. That's one of the draws for
>>>> the Must-Have Gift of the year. Cabbage Patch died the moment you
>>>> could get one off the shelf.
>>>>
>>>> There is a great deal more I could say about this and other management
>>>> issues, but this is not the place for it. If you want to hear any of
>>>> it, you know where to find me.
>>>>
>>>> But!! I have a better idea. Who wants to fork the PR program, and help
>>>> write an Open Source press release? We'll have to reverse engineer
>>>> most of the content, but I have confidence in our community's
>>>> abilities.
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 2:45 PM, Jim Gettys <jg at laptop.org> wrote:
>>>>> Community News
>>>>> A weekly update of One Laptop per Child September 29, 2008
>>>>
>>>>> Our appearance outside the Marriott attracted a lot of people to out
>>>>> tables; some of them were as far as from Finland; many of them knew
>>>>> about "those laptops for children" and were asking about the ways to
>>>>> acquire the laptops (we even got questions: are you selling the
>>>>> machines?). So, in addition to conducting our scheduled testing, we also
>>>>> served as "unofficial" OLPC marketing representatives, steering people
>>>>
>>>>> to the Nov 17 opening of the G1G1 event through amazon.com. The time we
>>>>
>>>>> were outside wasn't even the peak lunch time for people to fill that
>>>>> square; just imagine the level of attention, if we were there at the
>>>>> lunch time!
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Don't panic.--HHGTTG, Douglas Adams
>>>> fivethirtyeight.com, 3bluedudes.com Obama still moving ahead in EC!
>>>> http://www.obamapedia.org/ Join us!
>>>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai For the children
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Don't panic.--HHGTTG, Douglas Adams
>>> fivethirtyeight.com, 3bluedudes.com Obama still moving ahead in EC!
>>> http://www.obamapedia.org/ Join us!
>>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai For the children
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