On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 5:36 AM, Sean DALY<sdaly...@gmail.com> wrote: > [snip] but this is a tricky one...
That's why we pay you the big bucks :) > the "magic" if I may say so is to find an "angle" that is > newsworthy... that will bubble to the top choices a journalist or > blogger will choose to write about. Unfortunately, "we need help" or > "we are succeeding an ambitious technical challenge", etc. are not > newsworthy in and of themselves. So we need to find a link, a "hook" > to generate newsworthiness. My instinct is to springboard from Sugar > on a Stick which has already captured the imagination of many writers > and bloggers. > > Marketing, advertising, even recruitment springs first from emotional > response, then reasoned analysis. If you listen to Red Hat's CEO in > the BBC link I sent two days ago you will hear him try to motivate > potential recruits in terms of social responsibility and making the > world a better place. I think all of us are deeply motivated by the > desire to educate children. I didn't share with you the discussion with mtd, but I am convinced that part of the angle should include the connection between the culture of FOSS and what is missing in the culture of traditional education: a meritocracy which espoused sharing and critiquing. > Perhaps, Slashdot-style, we can announce a technical challenge with a > deadline (cf. JFK man on the moon). For example: "Sugar on a Stick is > a liveUSB system and is based on liveCD solutions which impose certain > limitations on writable media; one of the consequences is a higher > failure rate for USB sticks than optical media. We want Sugar on a > Stick to be absolutely reliable for children and their teachers; who > can help us design and implement an improved liveUSB architecture by > May 2010, to prepare Sugar on a Stick for wide deployment by the > beginning of the school year?" This moon shot could have legs. > This is only an idea, but the brainstorming aspect of it - we want to > do something which has never been done before - could raise awareness > among sharp geeks who could bring their experience to the project. It > would position ourselves as being at the leading edge of innovation, > bringing high tech on a $5 stick to kids. We could imagine a "contest" > with the only prize being the implementation of the best idea; but a > wiki page where we invite geeks to propose their best take on the > subject could build traffic amongst prequalified developers. > > This is a double-edged sword, because there are some pundits who love > to diss Sugar and OLPC by implying that Python is a silly choice, or > OLPC "failed" by doing X and not doing Y or Z. But we could maybe > minimize mindless trashing by asking the community for the best ideas. > > This might work best as a blog post not a press release... although if > we raise the bar of the challenge high enough, some tech writers might > want to write about it if it is a press release too. I think a press release, if we can find the right angle, will reach more people. > > We absolutely have to improve the Getting Involved page as part of our > recruitment too, I had had some suggestions a couple of months back > but no time for me to find those today :-( > > I will think about this some more, feedback appreciated thanks > > Sean > > > > On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 4:01 AM, Walter Bender<walter.ben...@gmail.com> wrote: >> I will spare you the discussion details, but an idea that emerged from >> IRC would be PR around our technical challenges in order to recruit >> more interest. We could get Tomeu, et al. to draft some descriptive >> text and you could work your magic??? >> >> -walter >> > -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org _______________________________________________ Marketing mailing list Marketing@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/marketing
