[Marketing] People who spread the news was Re: organizing an event

[David Farning]

2009/6/23 Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com>:
> I'm afraid I don't agree that we should copy/paste the Fedora program
> name & goals.
>
> I'm very interested in working with Fedora marketing (Mel was kind
> enough to put me in touch with Jack Aboutboul - thanks Mel), but their
> positioning, goals and situation are quite different from ours.
>
> "Facilitators" has lots of syllables so I'm not sure I like it (yet),
> but I like it much more than Ambassadors which inspires me to wear a
> cummerbund rather than roll up my sleeves :D
>
> Here are the Fedora Ambassadors goals:
>
>    *  Represent Fedora Project to the wider public
>    * Help spread the word about Fedora, Linux, and Open Source
>    * Be a point of contact for local community members and channel
> the feedback to Fedora Project
>    * Help recruit project contributors
>    * Think of creative ways for promoting Fedora in your region
>
>
> Here's my vision for what the Sugar Facilitators goals should be,
> inspired by the above:
>
>    * Represent Sugar Labs as the best K-6 learning platform available
> to teachers, parents, and funders
>    * Spread the word about computer-assisted learning and ebooks;
> share information about computer-assisted learning and ebooks, what
> educators are doing, what works and what doesn't
>    * Visit schools and demonstrate Sugar to Learners and teachers,
> channelling feedback to Sugar Labs
>    * Found Sugar Local Labs in their communities
>    * Assist with documentation and translations
>    * Help recruit Sugar Labs contributors and Local Labs participants
>    * Liaise with OLPC grassroots associations
>
> comments:
> * "the wider public" is too wide a target.
> * Education is, to me, a higher priority goal than evangelizing FOSS.
> Of course, I talk about FOSS when discussing Sugar; openness is a key
> to Sugar's success and it is a crucial differentiator from proprietary
> offerings. But I feel the context is more books versus laptops than
> proprietary systems versus FOSS.
> * Again, I really think we need to be in schools talking to teachers
> and letting kids touch Sugar and tell us what they like/don't like.
> * We need Local Labs to scale.
> * I have a mantra: Sugar's success is good for OLPC, OLPC's success is
> good for Sugar. Our credibility is derived from our enormous OLPC
> installed base, a position confirmed with the XO-1.5 refresh. Our
> challenge is to extend Sugar beyond OLPC, but it serves everyone if we
> work together including locally.
>

Sean,
I think we are basically on the same page. From my pov the goal is to
create a group which mutually helps each other promote and communicate
about Sugar in face-to-face situations.

Fred updated http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Marketing_Team/Ambassadors
but it could still use a bit of tweaking:)

As a starting point, I would tend to lean towards developers and
educators with a background in open source projects.

My main concern has to do with the participation and support funnels.
In general, teachers are not particularly experienced participating in
open source projects. As such, they have a tendency to view themselves
as sugar consumers rather than sugar co-producers.

The economics of open source development is slightly different than
traditional projects.  One difference is that while the cost of code
may be zero, the maintenance cost of that code is greater than zero.
Once a project accepts a code contribution, the project is responsible
for maintaining that code forever.  Whenever anything changes, which
touches that code, the code must be updated.

A similar dynamic exists with additional users.  New users have a
greater than zero cost to the project in term of support.  Ideally,
new users will contribute back enough that on average that will be a
net gain to the project.  In reality, user participation and
contribution depends on a number of factors including; barriers to
participation, time required to become a contributor....

As we continue the current grow stage, we should focus on identifying
and engaging users who are likely to become significant contributors
in relatively short time periods.  As our core participation rate
increases, we will be more able to support more users.

But first, we need to target the high value participants to support
the participants who will have a lower, or slower, contribution rates.


david

> thanks
>
> Sean
>
>
> 2009/6/22 John Tierney <jtis4stx at hotmail.com>:
>>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:12:56 -0400
>> From: caroline at solutiongrove.com
>> To: dfarning at sugarlabs.org
>> CC: Marketing at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> Subject: Re: [Marketing] organizing an event
>>
>> Goals look good:
>> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors#Fedora_Ambassadors_Goals
>>
>> Can we call it Sugar Facilitators?
>> +1
>>
>> Re: [Marketing] Being An Ambassador‏
>> From: John Tierney (jtis4stx at hotmail.com)
>> Sent: Mon 6/08/09 10:58 PM
>> To: Mel Chua (mel at melchua.com)
>> Cc: marketing at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> "Sugar Facilitators" Program-Creating the Path to
>> Learning has never been so Sweet!
>>
>> "Sugar Facilitation Station"-One stop shop for Sugar Branding
>> templates-Business
>> cards, stickers, balloons, banners, etc. with hook into cafepress and/or
>> other t-shirt/
>> printable Sugar swag.
>>
>>  JT
>>> Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 18:38:48 -040
>>> From: mel at melchua.com
>>> To: caroline at solutiongrove.com
>>> CC: marketing at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>> Subject: Re: [Marketing] Being An Ambassador
>>>
>>> > Can anyone think of something we can call Sugar "Ambassadors" that is
>>> > friendly, youthful and egalitarian and will put teachers into a mindset
>>> > where they believe that by trying, experimenting and especially playing,
>>> > they can learn to use Sugar and use it to help their kids learn.
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 4:21 PM, David Farning <dfarning at sugarlabs.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 5:46 PM, Sean DALY<sdaly.be at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I'm confused, is the idea that "Ambassadors" try to recruit
>>> developers, and Sugar Labs contributors who talk to teachers be called
>>> something else?
>>>
>>> I vastly prefer "Facilitators", but that's because I don't share the
>>> view that it's a higher priority for us to reach out to FOSS
>>> developers than to reach out to teachers, and I daresay teachers need
>>> much more explaining of what Sugar is designed to do than developers
>>> will.
>>>
>>> I think we agree that Sugar needs teacher buy-in for its success. We
>>> need teachers challenging our concepts, offering their experience and
>>> intuition, and identifying barriers (technical and otherwise) to Sugar
>>> adoption.
>>>
>>> Of course we should be present at FOSS conventions. Of course we
>>> should communicate to developers our passion and ideals about
>>> bettering educational opportunity for millions of children.
>>>
>>> But, we're already good at that. What we're not good at yet is
>>> confronting our ideas with classroom realities. There is a vast amount
>>> of teacher savoir-faire out in the world about making learning happen
>>> with Sugar, but we can't access any of it since there is no feedback
>>> loop. I believe we should be better empowering teachers within Sugar
>>> itself, but I have no data yet to support that position without
>>> feedback.
>>>
>>> Actually, what I'd like is for Sugar Facilitators not just to go to
>>> conventions (although we certainly should). What I'd like is to start
>>> a tradition of visiting schools. You know, like the sales forces of
>>> publishers, service providers, systems integrators, computer
>>> manufacturers, and proprietary software firms do. We have an
>>> unbeatable sales pitch compared to the others: we have nothing to sell
>>> except ideas; we do this to improve education; we are looking for
>>> information, and here is Sugar on a Stick for you to try out.
>>>
>>> In my view, fact-finding trips to schools could just be the best way
>>> to quickly find technically adept teachers willing to share with us.
>>> And, if we are organized about our visit reporting, we could become
>>> much better at seeing what is going on in schools in a consolidated
>>> way; shifts from computer labs to 1:1 computing for example, or
>>> attitudes about the Internet, or things that work really well or not
>>> at all.
>>
>> Please take a step back and look at the _goals_ of the Fedora
>> Ambassadors program as it applies to the overall goals of the Fedora
>> project.  Then think of how a similar project might be adapted to to
>> the overall goals of Sugar Labs.
>>
>> david
>>
>>> thanks
>>>
>>> Sean
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 10:29 PM, Caroline
>>> Meeks<caroline at solutiongrove.com> wrote:
>>>> hmm, how about a link to the facilitation wiki that Gunner showed us.:
>>>> http://facilitation.aspirationtech.org/index.php/Agenda:Index
>>>>
>>>> Also, is it to late to not use the word Ambassadors. Its a power, fear
>>>> and
>>>> hierarchical filled metaphor that I think will feed into teachers
>>>> existing
>>>> feelings of alienation in regards to technology.
>>>>
>>>> I know we didn't come up with anything better.
>>>>
>>>> So my suggestion is "Sugar Facilitators"  teachers and schools use the
>>>> word
>>>> facilitation frequently, I think it will be more comfortable for them..
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 3:03 PM, David Farning <dfarning at sugarlabs.org>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> We now have a draft wiki page on how to organize an event at
>>>>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Marketing_Team/Organizing_an_Event .
>>>>>
>>>>> I'll try to gather up the materials we have used in previous events so
>>>>> we can find them again next time.  Please fell free to add and correct
>>>>> as necessary.
>>>>>
>>>>> david
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Marketing mailing list
>>>>> Marketing at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/marketing
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Caroline Meeks
>>>> Solution Grove
>>>> Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
>>>>
>>>> 617-500-3488 - Office
>>>> 505-213-3268 - Fax
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Marketing mailing list
>>>> Marketing at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/marketing
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Caroline Meeks
>> Solution Grove
>> Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
>>
>> 617-500-3488 - Office
>> 505-213-3268 - Fax
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Marketing mailing list
>> Marketing at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/marketing
>>
>>
>