Hmmm...while I agree with the idea that a competition is exclusive, I
also believe that a competition is encouraging of participation. It's
just a question of where we see our target audience. In a world where
millions of people are well-versed with open office, suggesting a
competition is exclusive...but if this were the case, a competition
wouldn't be necessary to promote participation in the first place. In a
world where too few people are even aware of open office, a competition
is encouraging.
A child becomes aware of this competition, and becomes simultaneously
aware that few or none of his peers are familiar with the software. It's
a level playing field. Instead of being surrounded by children who are
OO experts, he feels that this is something new, something interesting,
something that anyone with a grasp of MS Office can learn and master in
no time, and something even newcomers can learn with a little work.
Isn't this an inclusive paradigm?
I'm adding the DDN network to this email, with the preceding
conversation quoted below, since I'm sure many others there will be
interested in contributing to this dialogue.
D.
-------------------
Dave A. Chakrabarti
Projects Coordinator
CTCNet Chicago
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(708) 919 1026
-------------------
Ken Rafanan wrote:
I think this is an excellent kernel of an idea to expand and advertise
the use of open source tools. The idea of a "competition," however,
gives me pause. Competitions sometimes have a tendency to restrict
participation to the few who think that they have a chance of "winning."
Perhaps we (and this community is more than capable) can come up with
models of participation are more cooperative where the advantages of a
competition are preserved while the disadvantages avoided.
The first thought that came to me is a virtual mural project (where
everyone's participation is rewarded and even necessary to the success
of the project). Maybe even a hybrid model where the most popular tiles
(quasi-winners) are more prominent but are easily seen within the
context of everyone's work.
cheers,
Ken Rafanan
Phil Shapiro wrote:
hi everyone -
the thought occurred to me that there's an excellent opportunity
for some
entity (such as CTCNet) to hold a competition soliciting the best
drawings
created with openoffice draw. a cash prize of several hundred dollars
could
fire up the creative neurons of a lot of high school and college
students out
there. (and the competition would be open to adults, and younger
students, too.)
if CTCNet ran such a competition, it would likely get a link
from the
openoffice web site and from some news web sites. the visibility of
that would
be good for CTCNet.
put me down for $50 towards the prize money for such an award.
if this award were an annual award, CTCNet could give out cash
prizes
for lots of different age categories. thousands of free software
advocates
would gladly make $10 and $20 paypal donations towards such awards.
meanwhile, all the entries to such a competition could be
assembled on
a free blog -- and would showcase the capabilities of this very useful
software.
- phil
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