On Mon, 2006-08-21 at 09:40 -0700, Audrey Scully wrote: > Hello, > So, you might consider the educational community one of your (most?) > important market segments. The fact that I never heard about Open > Office in those four years indicates that your lead generation > activities may not be reaching your audience. You may want to > re-examine your approach and really focus on getting your message out > there!
Education is an important market and it is the one I specialise in. I'm based in the UK so getting to the USA is for me time consuming and expensive although I have visited a couple of times. Just over a year ago I attended NEA in Los Angeles with Adam Moore. We found people were receptive to OOo and many of the teachers had never heard of it. We also found the vast majority of people were receptive to paying a dollar for an OOo disc to try it out so its possible to recover the media costs. The cost of the booth is more of a problem and so is the travel and accommodation. Following up leads and interest is also a problem since there is no budget for this type of activity. Unless individuals pay out of their own pocket, its not going to happen very much. > My advice is free; As is mine and that of others. You can join the marketing education list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Not a lot of traffic but friendly and helpful people. > however, I also think you could get a lot of benefit from my > company's products. Specifically, E-Myth Essentials > (www.e-myth.com/eme) and Embark E-Learning: Marketing Course > (www.e-myth.com/elearning). We have scholarship and discount programs > so you can get these courses for practically nothing. Businesses associated with OOo are essential to long-term sustainability. However, you will probably find a certain amount of suspicion about your motives in some quarters. Don't be discouraged as the goal of promoting open source applications is more important than the internal politics. > Please let me know if this feedback was helpful to you, and if there > is any way I can help. I believe in Open Office and I really want to > see it take off! Until the marketing project has a budget, its not likely to be in a position to purchase training for its members no matter how inexpensive it is. Its not just the cost of the materials but whether members choose to spend their time on the specific learning. They are volunteers so they can choose to do whatever they want to do. Well they can be prevented from doing things but they can't be made to do things. OSS marketing tends to transfer through word of mouth networks and the fact that barriers to obtaining the software are low. Vectors for making it easier for OOo to spread have the potential to accelerate the process. eg if the EU mandates the use of Open Documents or a recognised educational qualification requires students to participate in the community. It seems unlikely that things like media advertising, for example, will figure very highly since its always likely to be prohibitively expensive. Getting OOo into the news has the same effect without the cost. In the education market, getting high schools to accept OOo as an educational resource rather than as just another office technology tool does work but it needs specialist knowledge and contacts in those particular networks. Its longer term because it fundamentally educates both students and teachers about the advantages of Open Source. Education is long term and life changing. Training tends to be short term and transient. We really should get to more education conferences like NEA in the USA and BETT in the UK and give out thousands of OOo discs to teachers, its relatively inexpensive and easy to do but still too expensive for a project with no budget. For long term sustained growth getting into the schools and influencing the leaders and IT gate-keepers with an angle that makes the product professionally irresistible is the magic bullet. Relying only on lower price when MS heavily discount in schools and could end up making their products free of cost is a less robust long term strategy. We need more volunteers with specific knowledge and skills in vertical markets who also understand the selling points of Open Source beyond price in those markets. A strategy to recruit such people and support them in developing sustainable businesses in those markets would be a direction for strategic management but its not very likely to happen in the current climate. Ian -- www.theINGOTS.org www.schoolforge.org.uk www.opendocumentfellowship.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
