RE: university outreach project

["John Williams" <JWilliams business otago ac nz>]

> 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?

OK.  Imagine you are a windows or mac user and you saw someone handing
out CDs.  What would make you interested in approaching the person and
finding out what it is all about?

1. Most people are interested in getting something for free.
2. People will take it if they think it will be useful or fun.


Imagine the dialogue:
======================================
"What is this?"
It's a CD with GNOME on it, and lots of cool software.

"What is GNOME?"
It's a computer desktop that runs on Linux, like how windows runs on,
er, windows.

"Oh.  What's cool about the software?"
Well, for a start it's all free.  Free in the sense that you don't pay
for it, but also you can do anything you want with it, like copy it and
give it to your friends.  The other cool thing is that lots of the
software on this CD does things that other non-free software does.
There is a program called OpenOffice.org [they should really change
their name to leave out the .org] that can read and write Microsoft
Office files.  There's also a Web browser, email client, IM client,
image editor (like Photoshop), Music player and lots more.

"Can I play Halo2 on it?"
Er, no [1].  But you can play Doom3!  And lots of other games, like
Unreal Tournament, ... [2].

"Do I have to install it on my computer, or does it run off the CD?"
You can do both.

"If I want to install it, do I have to de-install Windows/OSX?"
Er, you can have both; but how computer literate are you?

"Not very"
..... [Then what?]

======================================

[1].  Is this true?
[2].  What others, that a windows user would want?  The Sims?

Has anyone had any experience in this sort of scenario?

I think the single biggest low-hanging fruit would be, as you say,
target students and academics.  Now we need to collaborate.  Can we pool
our experiences?  Has this been done?  If so, how did it go?  What are
the "best practices"?  Can we use your promotional materials?  Where are
the templates?  ...

This activity would be a gold-mine from a market research point of view,
especially if you could audio or video record your experiences with
"customers".  I may even be able to apply for a grant to analyse that
kind of data.

I'm starting to get really excited by this.  I will try to calm down
now...

Ka kite ano

John