David, I'm going to assume you meant to cc the list, I apologize if that's not the case.
I agree with both of your points. As I've said earlier my associations with "sugar" and "children" are not positive. In fact, I believe it will be easier to build an association between "Sugar Labs" and "children". And, teacher buuy-in - and that includes teachers on a digital learning curve - is essential. Sean On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 9:25 PM, David Ally <[email protected]> wrote: > Well.... all point noted, but remember the so called global poor kids don't > even have access to chocolate, they're poor and hardly have access to things > like that, those things (chocolate and co) are for up-town babies. > > But, since the point here is to separate sugar from the XO platform, and > make it more platform agnostic, why not just emphasize that and leave every > other issues alone. > Now, i have not really tried sugar on stick up till now, but i have tried > sugar Livecd on Ubuntu linux, and it loaded fine and i think it is cool with > the various new learning and teaching paradigms it tries to encourage, > they're quite encouraging. However, the emphasis is always on the learners, > and in most cases we implied the pupils, but we've forgotten that if > developing countries are among the target, then there's a miscalculation as > to who the real laerner is, i think it is the so called teachers, and that > is why we are proposing and pushing a capacity building effort in Africa > that focuses on both the implied learners, and teacher learners. Don't > forget, most of these teachers are not digital generation kids. > > We're glad for what all the open source community are doing and should > invite active players at the launch of our projects soon. All efforts to get > digital lifestyle into education is well appreciated. > > David > ________________________________ > From: Sean DALY <[email protected]> > To: [email protected]; Sugar Labs Marketing > <[email protected]>; josh williams <[email protected]>; Jonas > Smedegaard <[email protected]> > Sent: Saturday, March 7, 2009 8:48:39 PM > Subject: Re: [IAEP] Topics & deliverables from Marketing IRC meeting > 03-03-2009: Sugar 8.4 launch date set! > > Josh - reaching hundreds of thousands of teachers and parents is > different from talking with half a dozen distributions (and OEMs too), > and of course we need to do both - and we are. That said, I am > convinced the more Sugar succeeds,the more distributions will be > encouraged to include and promote it. They are aware of a key > differentiator, that Sugar is free software and lives best on > GNU/Linux. > > Jonas - what I want is to reach teachers and parents with the message > that Sugar is a good choice for children. A key way to do that is to > spread the news that Sugar works on other classroom-friendly hardware > platforms. Teacher buy-in is essential for Sugar's success on non-OLPC > platforms. Although some educators have likely heard of OLPC, it's > likely very few have heard of Sugar Labs. Of those who have, like it > or not, we are facing perception problems today: that OLPC/Sugar is > floundering, that Sugar only works on the XO-1, that the restructuring > has sounded the death knell for Sugar and active development is > winding down, etc. Marketing is about perceptions and it's not stinky > to combat false perceptions with a key fact, that Sugar runs on > netbooks. perhaps it's a better idea to call out that Sugar runs well > on older desktop PCs, which are more likely to be in the back of > classrooms; it's a choice. I just think talking up netbooks better > advances Sugar's image of modernity and innovation. > > We are hampered by a numbering system that implies work-in-progress > status. However, we can use that to our advantage by stressing that > Sugar on a Stick will be our big product 1.0 launch, and therefore not > overselling it at this time. I'm sorry, but I don't see how obscure > marketing will help us reach the goal of communicating that Sugar runs > on lots of other machines now. > > Sean > > > On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Jonas Smedegaard <[email protected]> wrote: >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >> Hash: SHA1 >> >> [sent again - to the marketing team too this time] >> >> On Sat, Mar 07, 2009 at 01:36:37AM +0100, Sean DALY wrote: >>>Bert made a very astute observation: we need to be Googlable. Luke is >>>quite right, Sugar by itself is ungooglable and Sugar "needs" Labs >>>close by in this context. >> >> Searching just for the single word "sugar" in Google have Sugar Labs >> rank 6th in my experience, and OLPC Sugar page ranks 4th. >> >> >>>Jonas makes the excellent suggestion to baptise the version with a >>>name. It's a good way to reduce the importance of the version number >>>in communicating. I fear that unfortunately, honoring chocolate barons >>>may not be the best path... the biggest names were part and parcel of >>>the colonial era :-( and some names including Van Houten are >>>registered trademarks which will be zealously protected so off-limits >>>:-( >> >> Do you say that Chocolate companies have registering their trademarks not >> only in the context of Chocolate but also in the context of computing? >> >> Even if so, we can then use first name (like Debian does): Coenraad. >> >> I see no problem in picking names of "evil" people - quite the contrary: >> Colonialism is an integral part of the history of World society - and >> here is an excuse to tell one of the stories about it. >> >> Coenraad did not "invent" chocolate, but industrialized it. Brought it >> to the masses. Just like Sugar draws from inventions of others but have >> real power in what is done on its own. With industrialism also is evil >> powers - just as OLPC is challenged by "the dark side" of the computing. >> And I am not only thinking financially here, but also the dilemma of >> pursuing novel ideas of human interface design contra pleasing the >> expectations of the masses by reusing classic concepts. With the >> industrialization of chocolate, Coenraad also have a small part in the >> destruction of the rain forests, in that naturally growing cocoa trees >> might produce the richest flavoured beans but not the largest produce - >> so they were systematically cut down and replaced with more effective >> breeds of cocoa trees - to the extend that today most of the original >> sorts of cocoa is distinct. >> >> By picking Coenraad we do not make him a saint. We acknowledge his >> importance in the world of Sugar. Both the parallel world of that thing >> to put in your mouth, and our world of bringing back balance in >> knowledge among kids globally - a balance skewed by people like >> Coenraad. >> >> >>>I propose a different approach... a roadmap approach, meant to >>>reinforce SoaS. Netbooks are the fastest growing category in the >>>industry; they are the cheapest; there is already a wide number of >>>them; after the XO, the Classmate etc. are the likeliest candidates for >>>school deployments. Journalists are on the lookout for netbook-related >>>stories; they know netbooks are Microsoft's weakest point. So maybe we >>>should baptise 0.84 "Sugar Netbook Version". >> >> You want to ride on the tide of netbooks? Then emphasize in press texts >> that Sugar was *born* in netbooks, several years before that word was >> coined in the media. I don't think there is a single changelog entry >> specifically targeted netbooks in the new release, so emphasizing it as >> such stinks. And I fear journalists will smell that. >> >> Aren't we the educational guys? Shouldn't we then be more powerful and >> base even our marketing on facts? >> >> One fact is that Sugar is unique in the computing industry in its >> targeting kids globally - and especially poor ones (some of which is >> suffering from the consequences of people and mindset like that of >> Coenraad)! >> >> >> - Jonas >> >> - -- >> * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist og Internet-arkitekt >> * Tlf.: +45 40843136 Website: http://dr.jones.dk/ >> >> [x] quote me freely [ ] ask before reusing [ ] keep private >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >> Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) >> >> iEYEARECAAYFAkmyRN4ACgkQn7DbMsAkQLgB2QCfcim9ExeornXr2TM5WhCOwWNS >> cUEAnjw20vC6KV0t+BqiqrJ8mu8An+7M >> =eVy6 >> -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- >> _______________________________________________ >> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) >> [email protected] >> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep >> > _______________________________________________ > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) > [email protected] > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep > > _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) 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