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

[Tomeu Vizoso]

On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 00:27, David Farning<dfarning at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
> 2009/6/23 Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com>:
>
> 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....

This is one of my main concerns with todays' SugarLabs. We depend on
the open source way of doing things to move our software forward, but
the only people who are actually involved in this process are a
handful of people. So we have most of the organization moving in one
direction without taking into account what is needed to keep producing
software.

I would like to see more posts like David's that improve SL's
understanding of the open source dynamics, but even more I would like
to see interest from all the community in these topics.

What we typically see in companies like Novell and organizations like
OLPC is that the open source software side of things is relegated to
the engineering department. Even if open source is a publicly stated
foundation of the organization's operations, most of it has no idea
nor real interest in understanding how open source works, making very
difficult engineer's job. From the legal department, to daily
management, to marketing and PR, human resources, if the disconnect is
big they will be hurting or failing to support the open source side of
things.

Is SugarLabs going to do better?

Regards,

Tomeu

> 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
>>>
>>>
>>
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