Andy Watson <watson...@gmail.com> wrote: > Security? Not many 'average users' care about security. On paper they do > but in the 'wild' they don't. They want it to be easy and quick. > Security tends to add additional time to the user experience. I'm not > saying this is bad.
When I pitch security it's not about "security" it's about "viruses" since people don't think of the viruses and worms that make their computer unusable as security problems. In my experience the virus problem in Windows is one of the worst for unsophisticated users, and short of bringing the computer down to the local computer shop for a cleaning (reinstall, whatever) they don't know how to deal with the problem, I have an uncle who just bought a new computer because his 2 year old laptop "got slow and full of junk" > Free? People are used to paying hundreds of dollars (or pirating) their > operating system so when a free one is introduced, it is automatically > much worse. Not only that, but people buy computers and Windows comes with it, so it already has no value to them, as far as they're concerned it came free with the computer. Unsophisticated users will not pay for the upgrade to the newer version of Windows, they will run old versions until they buy a new computer. "Free" also has a connotation in some country as being "not good" or "sub-standard" (certainly this is true in the US), We want to promote Ubuntu because it's good, not because it's a cheap alternative. > Support. Oh support. None of my family or friends use forums, know what > IRC is or have any inkling to contribute. We can't expect people to go > to IRC to figure out their problems. They can now get official tech > support which is awesome for everyone involved. This needs to be pushed > more. Where do they go for help with their Windows problems? The LoCo teams for Ubuntu are quite valuable since it's local volunteers who know about Ubuntu, even if the computer shop at the corner doesn't know how to fix things. I think a push of both paid support (by Canonical and partners) and awareness about LoCo teams is helpful. > No school in Ontario (that I know of) use GNU/Linux in any part of the > education system. If we're looking for a greater market share within the > next 5-10 years, we're going to have to focus on the schools. Children > will most likely use Windows or MacOS in their homes and with using > Windows in school, they know nothing else. If they were to learn more > about GNU/Linux in school (even how easy or comparable to Windows it > is), they might be more inclined to purchase a Ubuntu machine when they > go off to college/university or enter the work force. No education = no > knowledge. I am part of partimus.org, a non-profit which has deployed Ubuntu systems to 6 charter schools in the San Francisco Bay Area here in the US. Honestly the hardest part about any of this is politics, these charter schools are public schools, but I get the impression that they tend to have less of adherence to strict rules of traditional public schools with regard to much of how they operate, including their IT infrastructure. The organization has had to offer free computers and free support to get in the door and offer our free software, and this only worked with schools that had no budget for a computer lab at all. Politics related to how money is used on Education, endorsements from Microsoft and Apple that allow schools to have free licenses for a given amount of time with a future purchase commitment and the general politics of government-run schools in the US has made this project a challenge. We keep working at it though! > Computer sales/service stores. If you walk into a tech repair shop > around here and ask "Do you deal with Ubuntu here?", they would reply > with something along the lines of "Ahh no, but there's a doctor's office > next door if you need it checked out". I worked at a 'computer > consultants' business for a while in high school years ago and no other > employee had even heard of GNU/Linux. How is this possible? Seriously? Unfortunately there are some computer shops which do know of Ubuntu, and the stories I've heard have been more along the lines of "But I make my living cleaning up viruses on Windows, I am not as familiar with Linux so I'd have to learn it, why would I want to promote that?" I am hopeful that this story will change and folks will be able to start promoting in local shops, but thus far I haven't seen this be to successful. > I have just recently checked out the marketing material available for > Ubuntu and I was greatly disappointed. Most of it is years old. We need > to develop more marketing material that everyone could use. I think what should be said here is that we need to continually push for contributions to Spread Ubuntu (http://spreadubuntu.neomenlo.org/) by all teams, constantly. I'm often guilty of neglecting to share my content there and it's something I can do a much better job of. > We need 'people of authority' (paid employees, etc) from the Ubuntu > community to go to the school boards and other institutions to introduce > Ubuntu as they tend not to take a couple guys off the street too > seriously. Are there any 'official' reports on how much a school could > save each year by going open source? A quick note here: Ubuntu is primarily a meritocracy, "people of authority" are simply those who stand up and Get Things Done, and most of us are unpaid volunteers :) Charles Profitt of the New York LoCo is one of these volunteers who works in education has really spearheaded the education focus within the community and has worked with Belinda Lopez on the Ubuntu Educators project (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Educators - I've Cced the mailing list on this reply) and attends Educational conferences to promote open source. Here's the wiki page for one of the conferences he attended, along with slides: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NewYorkTeam/Events/20100325 which has slides to a presentation he did, on slide 24 he discusses costs as he sees them for using open source rather than proprietary. He also has other presentations that I can't put my finger on at the moment. We should work with him to get these slides shared more widely, it took me a few minutes to dig them up. Belinda also recently blogged about her attendance at an educational conference: http://ubuntugirl.livejournal.com/21574.html > Is there a fund that people can donate for the purpose of marketing? I > would certain donate. Currently the best way to do this is by acting locally. Contact your local team and see what they need help with, printing fliers for conferences, buying more CDs. The trouble with a centralized marketing fund is that the money would need to be managed. Currently Canonical is a completely separate entity from the Ubuntu Community when it comes to marketing, so it would fall upon the community to handle money, taxes, etc. This quickly gets complicated and expensive, especially for an international community. > The product could be the best thing since sliced > bread but if no one knows about it, what good is it? The fund could be > used for getting billboards in huge cities around the world, ads in > magazines, a blimp, whatever. > > A central ad campaign would probably be good as well. I know there were > attempts at a copy of the Apple commercials (or at least that's what I > remember) but I never heard anything more about it. Major marketing campaigns have been discussed but the budget for them is non-existent. > The store should also probably offer more products and maybe attempt to > sell them to large retail chains to resell. The computer bags, shirts, > mice, mouse pads... I would buy them from a Walmart or whatever store > around here. That might be a little difficult though considering Walmart > dropped Ubuntu (they did didn't they?). This is not something the Ubuntu marketing team can influence. Canonical runs the store and holds the trademarks, so it would have to be discussed directly with them. Hope this helps. -- Elizabeth Krumbach // Lyz // pleia2 http://www.princessleia.com -- ubuntu-marketing mailing list ubuntu-marketing@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-marketing
