RE: university outreach project

[Ian McIntosh <ian_mcintosh linuxadvocate org>]

John said:
> So I think in summary the marketing problem that GNOME is faced with is:
> 
> (1) How to convince developers to produce what the users need/want
> (2) How to tell the users that GNOME has what they need/want

I strongly agree with (1).  Luckily, in my experience, developers DO
care about usability and in general DO care about making products that
"normal people" want to use.

For (2), if you mean "convey the information that GNOME has what they
need/want" then, again, I strongly agree.

However, I don't know if the order goes "(1)(2)(1)(2)..." or
"(2)(1)(2)(1)..."  The difference is whether what we currently have is
"good enough" for some people.

I think we have some extremely great software.  Firefox, Evolution,
GAIM, Nautilus, Inkscape, GIMP.  I would be proud to show off any of
these.

But the best way I can think of to find out is to let people use it.
Are there other good ways?

> Where is the empirical information on what users want?

What I wonder is whether *some* users want exactly what we currently
offer, but don't know it exists.  What if we picked up these users
first?

I think that the low-hanging fruit here is solving the awareness
problem.

So far, we've relied mostly on word-of-mouth advertising.  Why not do
what Red Bull did, and put people on-campus giving away the product and
creating a buzz?

-Ian