[Marketing] [SoaS] SoaS 3 (Mirabelle) release 5/25 & publicity/recruitment plans

[Sean DALY]

Martin - I'm not worried about developers trying Sugar, they can
figure it out. I'm worried about teachers doing so. The devil is in
the details of course. I agree that the splintered e-book reader
Activities situation doesn't help us, and iffy Record too. But these
are symptoms of our limited resources. We need to recruit and
developers are tough to target. We've spent time overcoming negative
perceptions inherited from OLPC, but there are signs that tide has
turned.

I understand why you're suspicious of marketing. The perceptions
business seems weird to most down-to-earth developers, who like any
group consider themselves typical and don't like marketing messages
meant for other targets. Reaching teachers about what we offer is a
challenge.

Sean



On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 3:40 AM, Martin Dengler
<martin at martindengler.com> wrote:
> On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 08:56:27PM +0200, Sean DALY wrote:
>> Our problem is the incoherence between the two previous versions of
>> SoaS and this one
>
> "Versions" between which there is "incoherence"?  You're talking
> software to developers, and your marketing is showing.
>
>> and the incoherence with our marketing strategy
>
> Ah - you mean "you're not listening to me".  It's so much easier to
> work with when you just say it.
>
>> which is to promote a rich ecosystem of Activities for which Sugar is
>> the support.
>
> A "rich ecosystem of Activities"!?  How can you have anything
> figuratively like an "ecosystem" of just activities?!  What precisely
> is the target audience for that marketing message besides developers
> who want to save an endangered Activity before the Fedora poachers
> sell it for its valuable coding style?
>
>> We need to reach developers where they are which is why I've
>> suggested we advertise for volunteer developers
>
> Oh so it's developers who can't install Adblock or don't ignore
> adverts they see on the web?
>
>> And we need to reach educators.
>
> Ah...the target audience is non-developer educators...
>
>> The installation and unfamiliarity barriers of Sugar remain too
>> formidable. That's why it's so important to have a SoaS Creation
>> Kit.
>
> ...who don't know how to install linux but could use a way to install
> linux without knowing how to do so?  I see why we need some serious
> marketing.
>
>> But, we're bumping up against Fedora limitations there.
>
> Did you just say it's a Fedora limitation that educators don't know
> how to install linux?  Or that the Fedora limitation is that educators
> don't know how to drive Sugar?
>
> The limitation is that we have too many people that don't know how to
> install OSes or develop a new UI trying to fool other people that
> don't know how either into thinking it's easy and quick and like
> paying Steve Jobs all their money to use the AppStore, but that this
> time they can download an instant, better school.  Re-read the first
> paragraph of the SoaS Strawberry press release if you think I'm being
> harsh.
>
> Let the distributors and their coterie figure out how to make it easy
> to install linux and stop criticising their progress with
> generalities.
>
> Take their advice on the technical installation issues rather than
> encouraging a gaggle of half-baked installation processes or
> "solutions".
>
> Use the eager but non-OS/UI-savvy people to badger the developers of
> the "rich ecosystem of Activities" to:
>
> - decide which of five or so current activities with "Read" in their
> title will actually be the supported default for reading text or pdf
> or ebook files; and
>
> - make a working, collaborating Write; and
>
> - make a usable, supported Record.
>
> I know you and others have done a lot for SL and that's great.  But SL
> has bigger marketing "coherence opportunities" than somebody wanting
> to make a new version of SoaS without marketing's approval.
>
>> Sean
>
> Martin
>
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