Peter -- I'm trying to improve the presentation. Ok? Thanks.
> The conversation has gone on to the question of diversity in STEM fields, > but if I can return to the original presentation for a moment... > > Perhaps we could look at it from a different perspective, namely, that of > marketing and branding. Is this an effective advertisement? Does it > accomplish the intended purpose? (Full disclosure: I'm not a > professional, though I have worked for an advertising placement company. I > am, however, very much a fan of good advertising and follow industry news.) > > Let's say we don't know what the purpose is. What can we extract from the > presentation itself? The majority of the presentation is selling "other > reasons" to attend FOSS4G 2015 besides the content of the conference > itself. A significant portion advertises travel to Seoul, and includes > traditional travel themes -- culture, entertainment, food, sights. Another > has the feeling of a business development promotion. Another portion > emphasizes interaction with other attendees, and especially fun interaction. > > What can we infer about the intended audience? With the exception of the > three elements discussed in this thread, the presentation appears neutral. > The Dali image, Girls' Generation, and multiple images of alcoholic > beverages are elements that would appear intended to appeal to a specific > demographic, unmarried men below middle-age. > > > no, plainly wrong. > ? Proof? > (Girls Generation is a group assembled by SM Entertainment, whose > founder says the group is intended to appeal to men aged 30-40. > > > this is not something to generalize to art and beer (combination > tentative). > There was no generalization. This statement is a fact. A web search will turn up the quote. > > However, they now have a significant female fan base in Japan.) > > > so statement above proven wrong. > No. Statement of intended audience is simply a fact. That was the goal of assembling the group. The reason they have a fan base of young girls in Japan is problematic and to some, disturbing: This may be the limit of what these girls aspire to, because it is an occupation allowed to women. > > Next, how effective is it? The presentation does not appear intended to > stand on its own. I'm assuming that these slides were used with a verbal > presentation? For instance, as others have noted, the meaning of the Dali > image sequence is obscure -- it does not work without explanation. To make > it work without a verbal pitch, ask, for each section, does the lead-in > slide adequately establish what is being promoted in that section? And for > each slide, ask, does this need a better caption? > > Given that this is promoting attendance based on things that are not part > of the conference itself, it would be good to make that explicit right in > the first slide. If it's intended to also promote the conference program, > that might work better as a separate presentation, rather than trying to > glue it onto this one. > > If the three elements in question would be off-putting to some potential > attendees, it would be easy to replace at least the Dali image and the beer > images. Note in a professional advertising campaign, the question would > not be, can we get away with this? but rather, is it possible that this > will turn away potential customers in our intended demographic, or could > this in any way diminish our brand or cause a negative reaction? So *if* > the question of offense comes up at all, then that would trigger fixing > that part of the advertisement. > > I gather the point of the Dali sequence is to say that something can > appear as one thing from afar, and otherwise close up. Perhaps use a photo > mosaic image instead? (These are images constructed of many small > images.) The beer images are jarring not so much because they feature > alcohol, but because there are so many of them -- they are out of > proportion to any other type of image. I'd recommend dropping slides 37-41 > and keeping only 42 (which is a better image than 41). Similarly, for the > food images (the second longest sequence), instead of multiple slides, tile > them into one slide. > > > see my recent post about Beckmesser. > > > The Girls Generation picture is more problematic, because they are a > legitimate and popular group. Two things were jarring to me. First, that > was the *only* "culture" image. There are other aspects to Seoul culture > besides K-pop. A montage of several images showing a range of cultural > aspects would de-emphasize the "sex" aspect. Second, with the exception of > the Dali image, the appearance of a "sexy" image was unexpected. Note that > part of the problem is that not many people outside of Asia will recognize > Girls Generation -- they will just see young women in provocative dress and > poses. (For contrast, ~everyone on the planet would recognize Psy.) > > Finally, please don't be offended, but, it would also be good to get > advice from a graphic designer, and also have someone proofread the text. > > > diversity - can we accept that non-English-natives have typos on their > slides? > > Let me suggest to establish an OSGeo Committee of Censorship (CoC) to > formalize all the criticism. > There's no "censorship" whatsoever in evaluating this from an advertising point of view and suggesting ways to improve the presentation. Most folks I know want to know if they have grammatical errors in their slides. I believe I offered the suggestions in a polite manner. Why not let Sanghee decide if any are useful? -- Pat
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