[Marketing] press release opportunity...

[Sean DALY]

I agree with you David, an excellent analysis.

Walter - beyond my personal belief in the worth of software freedom
:-) being part of the FOSS ecosystem is a key differentiator for us
and i agree that should be part of the message.

Sean



On 7/30/09, David Farning <dfarning at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 4:36 AM, Sean DALY<sdaly.be at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > OK but I will need to think a little bit about this (and for the
>  > moment no internet access in the house, truck unloaded yesterday & we
>  > are in boxes, internet will take a couple of weeks at least)
>  >
>  > I have promised Tomeu to assist in recruitment but this is a tricky
>  > one... the "magic" if I may say so is to find an "angle" that is
>  > newsworthy... that will bubble to the top choices a journalist or
>  > blogger will choose to write about. Unfortunately, "we need help" or
>  > "we are succeeding an ambitious technical challenge", etc. are not
>  > newsworthy in and of themselves. So we need to find a link, a "hook"
>  > to generate newsworthiness. My instinct is to springboard from Sugar
>  > on a Stick which has already captured the imagination of many writers
>  > and bloggers.
>  >
>  > Marketing, advertising, even recruitment springs first from emotional
>  > response, then reasoned analysis. If you listen to Red Hat's CEO in
>  > the BBC link I sent two days ago you will hear him try to motivate
>  > potential recruits in terms of social responsibility and making the
>  > world a better place. I think all of us are deeply motivated by the
>  > desire to educate children.
>
>
> I have come to the same conclusion.
>
>  I have been uneasy about our shopping list of needs approach to
>  engaging new contributors.  Every open source article about attracting
>  and engaging contributors talk about providing a easily accessible
>  list of activities for contributors to get started.  Yet, when ever I
>  read those lists (and our lists) I end up saying 'Why should I help
>  with this.'
>
>  Further research on non-profit and my own personal experience has lead
>  me to the conclusion that people help social benefit organizations,
>  such as Sugar Labs, because we 'meet needs' not because we 'have
>  needs.'  As an example, I don't donate to Wisconsin Public Radio
>  because they run those annoying 'please help us' campaigns every
>  couple of months.  Instead, I believe that Wisconsin Public Radio is
>  providing a valuable service, thereby meeting a valuable community
>  need.
>
>  I think this was why the SoaS release made such a splash in the tech
>  community.  It was widely perceived as 'meeting the need' that Sugar
>  be available without purchasing an XO during their limited periods of
>  G1G1 availability.  The 'value' of freeing Sugar appeals to certain
>  people.
>
>  OLPC in general is such a compelling project because it aims to 'meet
>  the needs' of students in developing nation by leverage technology.
>  The 'value' of education and the 'usefulness' of technology resonate
>  _very_ strongly with many people.
>
>  Overall, the message can take the form of:
>  1.  Here is the need we aim to meet -
>  2. Here is our track record on making progress towards meeting that need -
>  3. Here is how you can help us meet that need -
>
>
>  david
>
>
>  > Perhaps, Slashdot-style, we can announce a technical challenge with a
>  > deadline (cf. JFK man on the moon). For example: "Sugar on a Stick is
>  > a liveUSB system and is based on liveCD solutions which impose certain
>  > limitations on writable media; one of the consequences is a higher
>  > failure rate for USB sticks than optical media. We want Sugar on a
>  > Stick to be absolutely reliable for children and their teachers; who
>  > can help us design and implement an improved liveUSB architecture by
>  > May 2010, to prepare Sugar on a Stick for wide deployment by the
>  > beginning of the school year?"
>  >
>  > This is only an idea, but the brainstorming aspect of it - we want to
>  > do something which has never been done before - could raise awareness
>  > among sharp geeks who could bring their experience to the project. It
>  > would position ourselves as being at the leading edge of innovation,
>  > bringing high tech on a $5 stick to kids. We could imagine a "contest"
>  > with the only prize being the implementation of the best idea; but a
>  > wiki page where we invite geeks to propose their best take on the
>  > subject could build traffic amongst prequalified developers.
>  >
>  > This is a double-edged sword, because there are some pundits who love
>  > to diss Sugar and OLPC by implying that Python is a silly choice, or
>  > OLPC "failed" by doing X and not doing Y or Z. But we could maybe
>  > minimize mindless trashing by asking the community for the best ideas.
>  >
>  > This might work best as a blog post not a press release... although if
>  > we raise the bar of the challenge high enough, some tech writers might
>  > want to write about it if it is a press release too.
>  >
>  > We absolutely have to improve the Getting Involved page as part of our
>  > recruitment too, I had had some suggestions a couple of months back
>  > but no time for me to find those today :-(
>  >
>  > I will think about this some more, feedback appreciated thanks
>  >
>  > Sean
>  >
>  >
>  >
>  > On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 4:01 AM, Walter Bender<walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
>  >> I will spare you the discussion details, but an idea that emerged from
>  >> IRC would be PR around our technical challenges in order to recruit
>  >> more interest. We could get Tomeu, et al. to draft some descriptive
>  >> text and you could work your magic???
>  >>
>  >> -walter
>  >>
>
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