Andreas Tille <[email protected]> wrote: Hi,
> Debian booth after we have solved their problems. I consider people > who actively try to talk to us and ask us for help solving their > problems as community. These people found what they were looking > for. Not everybody will come forward and make the first step, because they're shy, don't know their stuff and are afraid of asking something stupid or bothering you, because they know you're an expert and they're not, etc, etc. > on this event. The original posting was whether I should have my > laptop open or not when I'm sitting at a booth or whether I should You shouldn't be sitting on a booth, unless you're doing a demo (and your audience is sitting next to you); it's uncomfortable for your visitors. > all the time smile at people passing by. I tend to ask people > coming close to the booth whether I can help and if the answer > is "Oh no, I'm just looking" I see no problem if I show the looking > person that I'm working. There are fairs where this is not proper > behaviour and that's why I do not work as booth stuff there. And then they go away because, obviously, you have better things to do than talking to them. The answer to "I'm just looking" is "Do you know our Project?" and then you can have a quick chat about Debian, free software, and things get interesting. Or they're really not interested and both of you leave it at that. > Would you mind reading my mail again. I admit it was long but perhaps > you missunderstood some basic parts. I've read it all, twice, before replying the first time, because I wanted to be sure that the two lines I was quoting were summing it up as good as I felt they did. You also wrote, about selling tshirts, that you are a computer expert. While this is true without a doubt, on an exhibition we are not computer experts. We are members of the Debian Project, and that's very different. We happen to be computer experts, too, but that's not the primary reason why we're here. You are also reluctant to giving away CDs if you don't feel the person is interested enough. While it's obviously OK not to give away CDs and other stuff to people that just collect it and go from booth to booth for that purpose, it can be a bit rude to test the motivation past that point. Bottom line is, I think I wouldn't be comfortable either as a visitor on your booth or as a fellow DD on the booth. But then I'm for the "professional booth" thing and I've been trying hard to do just that. (In case there's any doubt, no finger pointing intended) JB. -- Julien BLACHE - Debian & GNU/Linux Developer - <[email protected]> Public key available on <http://www.jblache.org> - KeyID: F5D6 5169 GPG Fingerprint : 935A 79F1 C8B3 3521 FD62 7CC7 CD61 4FD7 F5D6 5169 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
