[Marketing] Reflections on advertising

[Bryan Berry]

On Wed, 2009-03-25 at 08:07 -0500, David Farning wrote:
> Support one of the most interesting areas in the Sugar ecosystem for
> four reasons:
> 1. Support doesn't scale.
> 2. Support is a great on ramp for community participants.
> 3. Support is one of the most like sources of revenue for ecosystem partners.
> 4. Effective support is chance to receive feedback on the weakness and
> strengths of Sugar.
> 
> david

David is absolutely right that support doesn't scale. He is also right
that it is a great opportunity for for-profit businesses to get
involved, particularly local for-profit organizations.

Also, big education ministries be they in Nepal or Bangladesh, American
districts of education, can afford to pay for support at some level. It
would be unfair to ask volunteers to do support for free when many if
not most education bureaucracies can pay for it.

Also for profit support organizations can be better at pushing features
upstream that their customers actually want than volunteers. Too often,
volunteers have their own agendas and push features that they personally
like rather than those their customers want. I am frequently guilty of
this.

-- 
Bryan W. Berry
Technology Director
OLE Nepal, http://www.olenepal.org