[Marketing] The End of Sugar (thought exercise)

[Walter Bender]

On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 10:31 AM, Samuel Greenfeld <samuel at greenfeld.org>
wrote:

> I don't see promoting strengths as mutually exclusive with researching
> weaknesses.
>

I don't see the correlation between your questions and researching
weaknesses.


> But Sugar's crusade reminds me a lot of Les Miserables.  Being too
> insistent on ideals may cause others to abandon their support.
>

That is a fair comparison. But as I tried to make clear, this is my
perspective on the project. There are many people on the ground that just
want to use the tools. They have different motivations/goals.


> Perhaps we should ask marketing to do a SWOT (Strengths Weaknesses
> Opportunities Threats) analysis.  However we might not have enough funds
> for more than an online survey of current/past users and indirect friends
> of the project.
>

I recall we went through such an exercise a few years back...  we should do
it again.

> On Jun 23, 2016 8:21 AM, "Walter Bender" <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 22, 2016 at 9:45 PM, Samuel Greenfeld <samuel at greenfeld.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Historically there have been several organizations financially
>>> supporting Sugar development.
>>>
>>> But at least some of those have left, others have reduced their
>>> contributions, and it is unclear to me if any new groups have made
>>> significant tangible investments in the project.
>>>
>>> The XO laptop and icon, both commonly associated with Sugar, are OLPC
>>> trademarks.  There is nothing stopping anyone from licensing these and
>>> putting applications in the Android/Apple/Chromebook stores claiming to be
>>> "Based on Sugar" with a new "Journal" interface.
>>>
>>> In short: Sugar is having trouble expanding beyond its current
>>> territory, or at least publicly appears to be.
>>>
>>> So this week I thought of a couple of questions:
>>>
>>>    - What would cause you and/or your school(s) to stop using Sugar?
>>>    - What would another project have to offer in order for it to be
>>>    used instead?
>>>    - When would it be a good idea to move everyone to a new project?
>>>    - Under what circumstances should Sugar Labs be shutdown?
>>>
>>> If we can answer these questions, maybe we can reform Sugar to better
>>> meet these competitive challenges.
>>>
>>>
>> I guess I have a different vision of Sugar than you. I am interested in
>> our creating a best-of-breed pedagogical framework what hopefully will see
>> wide dissemination in schools, but also will show the way forward for the
>> ed tech community as a whole, which I think tends to focus on market share
>> more than learning outcomes. What I would like from marketing is some
>> mechanism for highlighting the powerful ideas in Sugar that seem to be
>> lacking in most other systems so that even if a school decides to go with a
>> different product/project, they put pressure on that project to provide
>> tools, not apps, collaboration, transparency, self reflection and group
>> critique, and responsibility on the shoulders of students and teachers to
>> shape their own world. So personally, I find your questions irrelevant to
>> my goals.
>>
>> -walter
>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> Marketing at lists.sugarlabs.org
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>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Walter Bender
>> Sugar Labs
>> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>> <http://www.sugarlabs.org>
>>
>


-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org
<http://www.sugarlabs.org>
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