[Cialug] software freedom day

[Stuart Thiessen]

Here's some promotion ideas ...

Contact the newspapers, TV stations and the radio stations to announce  
the event? Perhaps they might see a news story that they might run.  
You could even propose a series about pros and cons of various  
operating systems and offer to be the Linux advocate and then include  
the Software Freedom Day in your comments. Worst to worst, you can  
simply use their community calendars.

Take flyers to all the organizations that you have contact with ...  
children's schools, departments at work, libraries, computer/ 
electronic stores, civic groups, religious groups, soccer clubs,  
basketball clubs, YMCA, etc. Leave no stone unturned.

Set up a table with a small sampling of CDs somewhere at the libraries  
or other location that gives people a "taste" of what is coming on  
Software Freedom Day. Advertise what they can get on that day that  
they cannot get now at this small table. This might be a way for list  
members who can't come that day but could help with this kind of  
promotion maybe. It doesn't have to be long. It could just be for a  
few hours. It could even be "Maybe you've heard of Linux but never saw  
it for yourself. Here it is." with a PC there that is running  
OpenOffice and running Gimp and running Linux. Maybe a few CDs and  
flyers about the upcoming event. That can grab people's curiosity.

Just some thoughts,

Stuart

On Jul 21, 2008, at 11:12 , David Champion wrote:

> You're 100% right... and we have done those things in the past - but  
> it's been a long time. Some of the ones we did at the Computer  
> Learning Center in the early days had good attendance, presentations  
> on installing and using linux for everyday tasks, and one-on-one  
> installs and demos. The one we did at the Ankeny Community Center a  
> few years ago was pretty good too.
>
> IMHO the biggest thing we need to do is promotion to get butts in  
> the seats, otherwise doing a presentation isn't very worthwhile.
>
> -dc
>
> Josh More wrote:
>> I think it's time for a paradigm change.  Software Freedom Day is  
>> about
>> more than just installing Linux.  I think it would be nice to have  
>> a day
>> where we give out other free software (OpenOffice, Gimp and Inkscape
>> come to mind) and show people how to use them regardless of their OS.
>>
>> This could be done as one-on-one tutoring (like the installfests),
>> presentation, small group discussion, etc.  Ideally, we would involve
>> the other user groups in the area and turn it into a mega information
>> sharing day.
>>
>> Of course, I am also swamped with existing projects, so I can't run  
>> it
>> this year.  Maybe someone out there feels inspired?  ;)
>>
>>
>>
>> -Josh More, RHCE, CISSP, NCLP, GIAC   
>> morej at alliancetechnologies.net  515-245-7701
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>>> David Champion <dchampion at visionary.com> 07/21/08 10:55 AM >>>
>> Matthew Nuzum wrote:
>>
>>> On Sun, Jul 20, 2008 at 8:18 PM, Barry Von Ahsen  
>>> <barry at vonahsen.com>
>>>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>> so now that the picnic is history, time to think about software
>>>>
>> freedom day.
>>
>>>> we're already registered for September 20, 2008, which is not
>>>>
>> Iowa-Iowa
>>
>>>> State this year, woo!
>>>>
>>>> anybody have thoughts for location?  Urbandale and West Des Moines
>>>>
>> libraries
>>
>>>> are always an option, but somewhere new might be nice
>>>>
>>> So out of curiosity, what is the goal? Meaning at the end of the
>>>
>> day,
>>
>>> if we've achieved X we'll consider it a tremendous success (but
>>>
>> we'll
>>
>>> settle for Y and still be glad we did it).
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Historically... we've done Linux Installfests and / or SFD for a  
>> long time (10 years?). Some of the early ones we had around 25  
>> people bring
>>
>> PC's in. Lately it's been a lot less - like we were lucky if we got  
>> 5 people there with PC's to get installed. I think it's mostly  
>> because of
>>
>> installing Linux is so much easier now than it was 10 years ago,  
>> and we
>>
>> really haven't done much or any promotion.
>>
>> I'd say it would be great if we could get participation back up into
>> the 20's again, but that might be too optimistic.
>>
>> -dc
>>
>>
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