Thoughts about government funding - US and EU

[Caroline Meeks]

On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 8:12 PM, Mel Chua <mel at melchua.com> wrote:

> I hope we can work together and get some expert help is articulating our
>> vision of Sugar as infrastructure cause so far my experience, even talking
>> to other grad students in the Technology program, is pretty confused looks
>> or board blank stares.
>>
>
> If you "get it," and they don't (yet) - then we have the transformation
> we're looking for, right? Unexcited people are state A, excited people are
> state B, what do we do to get them from state A to state B? What makes it
> easy or hard for someone to make the transition?



The wonderful thing about Sugar is there is always something that will get
people excited.  Scratch, Turtle Art, Tam Tam, the Journal, having access to
work and collaboration with fellow students at home...my point is not that
they aren't excited but that the cyberinfrastrucutre piece is not what
generally lights up their eyes.  I think that's ok, but it means to me we
shouldn't over emphasis it in our general marketing strategy.

>
>
> What I usually do is to get them to start talking about something they love
> doing, or love learning, or about a learning experience they had as a kid,
> or one they observed in their own children (if they have children) that
> totally fired them up - and then go from there to show how Sugar can make
> that kind of experience happen for others. (It's really fun to see your old
> college professors light up when you show them *just* the right Activity.)
>
> This is very unscientific, though. To make it slightly less so... do you
> have half a dozen or a dozen classmates from HGSE, or know of
> teachers/parents nearby, that don't currently "get it" but would be willing
> to sit down for half an hour and talk with us about Sugar? To see if we can
> find out what turns people on about it, as a first rough pass with a very
> small sample size? We can (tape?) record notes and see what triggers people
> to be excited, and how we can get them to learn the things we want to get
> across about the platform (like internalizing the stuff on
> http://sugarlabs.org/go/Main_Page, since it seems like the whole "open
> source" concept is still a little weird to a lot of people.)


Yes, if we plan focus groups and/or a focus survey I can help find people to
take it. And we should do that, or hopefully get our interns to do it.

>
>
>  What I want to do is figure out how to get upstream. How do we get the ear
>> of the people who will be changing the way grants are given out and how the
>> stimulus package will be spent.
>>
>
> Great. I guess what I'll probably be thinking of more, and working more on,
> is what we're going to say once we do have their ear - I know nothing about
> how to get in front of whom, but I've been told that I can get people
> excited once I'm in front of them. I'm trying to figure out how this works,
> so I can teach other folks here how to get people excited, and learn from
> folks who do it better than me.


Now that I've found a nice list of people who care and are listened to about
Cyberinfrastructure (the NSF Funded focus group article) I agree, we should
think about what to say to them. I think they are enough people and far
enough away physically that we will have to go with a written/electronic
message.

>
>
> Hm. Looks like I've just found my niche on the marketing team. :)
>
> -Mel
>



-- 
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
Caroline at SolutionGrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax
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