On Tue, 2006-02-07 at 23:02 +0000, Ian Lynch wrote: > > I think I put a slightly different slant on this. I entirely agree > that > > the open-source communities which work best are the do-ocracies, > those > > which value people according to what they contribute. By contribute, > I > > don't just mean posting to a mailing list, which can be just an > > ego-trip. I mean people who actually contribute code (if a > developer), > > translations (N-L), artwork (art project), collateral (on a > marketing > > list), etc. > > What about people who actually get mass take up? Eg someone who goes > into a company and persuades them to adopt the product? I guess this > is > more like sales but since marketing is the nearest we have to selling > I'd say that would be a useful contribution and it might not get > noticed. Ideally this would get posted to the list but it might not > for > a variety of reasons. Same is true of people who raise awareness in > their place of work. Unfortunately, I think there is a lot of work > that > goes on that might not be either noticed or understood but if it helps > get more users of OOo its of value to the project.
Let me give an example - the work that Bob Kerr did on getting OOo into the public libraries here in Scotland. By itself, a useful piece of distribution. However, what made it much more valuable to the MP was the fact he took the trouble to write up a HOW-TO. This described what he had done, but more importantly he showed how to apply marketing cliches like "know your customer" in practice. His HOW-TO also got a good airing on the geek press. So, give your granny an OOo CD, you're a star; tell everyone on the MP how you got her to accept it and pass it to her friends, you're a superstar :-) John --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
