On 09/06/08 11:15, John Botscharow wrote: > People like yourself who have little or no experience > with Windows have very different perceptions of how virtually reality > works. You've probably never had to spend hundreds of dollars having > your hard drive cleaned of trojans and viruses or had to completely > replace the hard drive or even your computer because of them. Well, I've been in this industry since the early 1980's and it would be wrong to think that I've not had Windows experience - to be fair, I suspect I've seen more of the beast than you might have - I came into computers when there was no such thing as an IBM, my first computer was a Commodore Vic 20 and by the time I purchased it I had already spent a year programming Apple ][ computers in 6502 assembly. I've owned Macintoshes, Windows NT4 PCs and a Sun Sparc Station, and used, supported and fixed many others. I continue to provide support to my end users who have gone through all of your pain as well.
So it would be wrong to suggest that I have little or no experience with Windows - far from it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not insulted in any way by your comment, just that when I make a point about something, it's with a long background in this industry with the experience of being a both a radio broadcaster and producer, an IT help-desk operator and team leader, a software developer, an IT trainer and a web-developer. I started playing with databases in the dBase II era and wrote sales management systems back in the days of the Summer Edition of Clipper (for those with a sense of nostalgia :) (That was a tad longer than I intended, but being concise has never been a strong point - I'm working on it.) The other point I'd like to make is that I have to disagree with your perception of progress. I've seen many meetings that descend into rabble without any decisions being made, no common ground being reached and little or no progress having been made - our 2 and a half hour marathon session achieved lots more than I dared hope for. It was a concious decision on my part to leave the Team Structure to the end (following in the order that the Agenda dictated, I might add) and my proposal during the meeting would have been not to elect anyone if an election were called because I do not think there is enough information available to determine what backgrounds people are coming from. The single thing I would like to achieve is that the marketing team does not stagnate as it appears to have done in the past. >From my perception (that word again :) the team has gone through several resurrections and I would love to understand what caused each of those to happen - so we have a chance of avoiding those pitfalls. I have about six years experience in the FOSS world and I must say that the most wonderful working environments I've stumbled upon are those where there is a group consensus about what needs to be done. Individuals are honoured for their hard work and contributions, but progress is made through discussion and agreement. That way everyone is pulling in the same direction. Leadership is all good and well, but as soon as the leader falls by the wayside, everything has a good chance of stopping, however with a group approach, discussions might well take a little longer, but everyone owns the progress and belongs to the implementation. So, again, I applaud your ongoing contributions, its through those that we will eventually come to a common understanding. Remember, Ubuntu has one Benevolent Dictator For Life - BDFL - and really only as I see it to make arbitration decisions - mind you, I've no evidence to backup that statement, but it's one of perception. Finally, you could think of leadership in another way, that is, the Ubuntu-Marketing is providing marketing leadership by using best practice and central resources which it makes available to the Ubuntu Community. Go forth and market :) -- Onno Benschop Connected via Optus B3 at S31°54'06" - E115°50'39" (Yokine, WA) -- ()/)/)() ..ASCII for Onno.. |>>? ..EBCDIC for Onno.. --- -. -. --- ..Morse for Onno.. ITmaze - ABN: 56 178 057 063 - ph: 04 1219 8888 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- ubuntu-marketing mailing list ubuntu-marketing@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-marketing
