[IAEP] Getting the message out - take2

[Sean DALY]

If I may offer two cents, I have worked in journalism and corporate
communications.

As I am not sure what the target audience is for this text (FOSDEM
attendees? journalists? bloggers?), my suggestions may not be useful,
but:

I would dispense with the negativity at the beginning. Don't bother
complaining about zero press coverage, that doesn't encourage anyone
to write about Sugar, could even be construed as bitterness towards
journalists. "OLPC ditched" is too negative; this last separation
followed previous steps and should be spun as independence=opportunity
rather than ditched=we're on the roadside. Some perspective: the
general mood around the world is far more negative due to the
financial situation than the Sugar situation; many NGOs are scaling
back (or discussing it), etc. What *you* have is good news: despite
the bad economy, despite the recent difficulties at OLPC which saw the
birth of Sugar, Sugar Labs is focused more than ever on its mission --
and that mission should be right in the all-important lead. I would
venture that "Sugar Labs will support Sugar" doesn't qualify as
newsworthy. May I suggest using the lead to remind anyone and everyone
that the goal is education, and Sugar the vector; e.g.: "Sugar Labs,
developer of the Sugar computer learning environment for children,
announces new milestones following its recent separation from the One
Laptop Per Child organization:"


Acronyms: Many journalists who cover free software will know what
OLPC, OSL, SFC are. But, some may not. As bytes are inexpensive,
spelling these out will simplify any journo's work and aid search
engine indexing.


Development cycle: I believe it's vital to refer to the rapidity of
development - it's a key differentiator compared to proprietary
development. As it is also vital to insist on the number of Sugar
machines out in dozens of countries, I would reword the second to last
point (correcting any errors of fact):

- The development cycle is proceeding steadily and 0.84 will be
released as planned in March. This follows the successful deployment
of 0.82 in October, preinstalled on XO machines currently shipping to
Peru, Rwanda, Uruguay, Nepal, Mongolia, Haiti, and 17 other countries,
with over half a million already deployed.

As this is also a key milestone, and refutation to doubters, I would
counsel moving it up in the list, right to the first position -- it
answers the first question of anyone slightly informed. e.g. "What's
up with Sugar after OLPC's last announcement?". It also informs the
totally uninformed that Sugar is in front of half a million
disadvantaged youngsters.


Is this useful?

Sean



On Sun, Jan 18, 2009 at 4:09 PM, Bernie Innocenti <bernie at codewiz.org> wrote:
> David Van Assche wrote:
>> Actually, this is really important, I've been asked several times
>> whether development on sugar has been stopped due to the olpc thing...
>> so its definitly a good idea to spread this message....
>
> You seem to be good at blogging.  How about reorganizing this into
> something more appealing and then publish it in various places?
>
> --
>   // Bernie Innocenti - http://www.codewiz.org/
>  \X/  Sugar Labs       - http://www.sugarlabs.org/
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