<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 7:26 AM, Greg Dekoenigsberg <<a href="mailto:gdk@redhat.com">gdk@redhat.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Hello all.  Reposting my blog entry from the other day.  If you care about marketing, please read it, and then respond to my Request For Meeting, below.  :) === In their excellent book The Starfish and the Spider, Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom make the compelling case that, in large decentralized organizations, the values *are* the organization. Which means that, if you are looking to build a large decentralized organization, you must take great care to articulate these values clearly. You must know what you're about, and know it so well that you can communicate it with utter clarity to anyone you ever meet. This elevator pitch is therefore the first, and most important, task of the Sugar Labs Marketing Team. We've got a lot of ideas for this message. We had a design thinking session Friday morning, in which it became clear that two messages resonate most strongly about Sugar: the Collaboration message (which I interpret to mean "having kids use computers to collaborate easily by default is a great thing"), and the Community message (which I interpret to mean "anyone can help make Sugar happen, which is a great thing").</blockquote><div> hi greg, Collaboration plus Community, as explained here, strikes me as necessary but not sufficient, too harmonious and lacking the spirit of creative destruction It reminds me a bit of web2.0 marketing which has had a little success but has also been critiqued along the lines that connected community leaves a lot of important questions unanswered and possibly obscures the questions Some things being left out here are: Constructionism - it's hard to be clear about it but is that a good reason to leave it out, I thought people here might be critical of marketing that oversimplified and lost meaning in the process Linux - MS has peaked and the long decline has started, a strong case can be made that the youth need linux for their future Ultra mobile computers plus Sugar - this liberates computers from restrictive computer labs and creates the possibility of a leap in learning through immersion - computer labs are one of the big things holding back development Were these issues discussed as part of the session mentioned above? </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">I know that the work of "figuring out messaging" may seem dull. But it's important work, because it is the basis of all other work: positioning to partners, teachers, developers, volunteers of all kinds. For instance: there are now laws in the EU that mandate students to prevent portfolios to demonstrate progress. Not test scores -- portfolios. Similar legislation will soon be proposed to the US Congress. As it happens, Sugar's Journal functionality would be an ideal base for building digital portfolios -- better than any other base, anywhere, ever. We may have one chance to talk to a congressman in order to get Sugar funded... and it could be anybody in the Sugar community making that pitch. We need to make sure that pitch is right. If you want to help us, you can start by joining the conversation. We can certainly use the help, especially if you are a teacher or a school administrator. In an effort like this, every person counts. === So now it's time to figure out when the Marketing Team meets. Who's on the marketing team?  Absolutely anybody who cares about the Sugar story and how best to tell it. When shall we meet?  I would like to propose: EVERY TUESDAY ON IRC AT 1600 UTC. For your local time: <a href="http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=11&day=25&year=2008&hour=16&min=0&sec=0&p1=0" target="_blank">http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=11&day=25&year=2008&hour=16&min=0&sec=0&p1=0</a> Since most of our contributors are in North America, South America and Europe, I'm shooting for meeting times that will mostly work for those folks.  It is perilously difficult to find a time that works for everybody.  That's the nature of global meetings.</blockquote><div> Adelaide, Australia Wed 2:30 am, not good for me since working Thursday mornings I could make it to IRC I think for monday 1600 or friday 1600 - haven't used IRC before but its on my list  </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">If I get enough +1s, I will select this meeting time as a weekly meeting time, and we will hold our first meeting on Tuesday, December 2nd.  Feel free to submit alternate proposals for times. --g _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) <a href="mailto:IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org">IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org</a> <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep</a> </blockquote></div>