Re: LinuxWorld Expo 2005 .Org Village London

[Dave Neary <dneary free fr>]

Hi,

I guess this passed under my radar...

Thomas Wood a écrit :
> If anyone is interested in helping out and is available on either 
> October the 5th or 6th (or both) then please reply as soon as possible 
> so we can let the organiser know we will be able to host a stand.

I have an idea which might be useful... will poke around and get back to 
you. In the meantime, I'm sure that there are other gnome-uk people 
interested.

> Thomas Wood wrote:
> > - What is the purpose of a gnome.org stand at a linux expo?

Branding. Awareness. Getting new contributors (new users will follow if 
we get new alpha users who contribute to the community and evangelise).

> > - What are we trying to achieve, what should we focus on telling people?

Isn't that the same question, asked differently? :)

The focus should be dual, in function of the audience. For developers, 
it's our great platform, language bindings, the ease with which you can 
quickly write usable, functional applications. For everyone else, it's 
usability. GNOME is easy to use, easy to learn, shallow learning curve, 
power without being difficult, etc.

> > - How can we get people involved and interested in GNOME?

See Murray's recent blog on the gnome.de Linuxtag stand. They got a big 
poster from GUADEC for a stand backdrop (there are two, if you're having 
a stand we could perhaps get one shipped to you). They had 2 computers 
facing outwards, people standing in the aisle saying hello to people, 
LiveCDs to give away from Ubuntu (you could even have 2.12 LiveCDs in 
October) and some cheesy merchandise from GUADEC (the cloth shopping 
bags went down well, apparently). They avoided the trap of being too 
introspective, having a few GNOME geeks reading their mail and using the 
internet on laptops around a table. In short, they did a great stand 
(congrats Murray!).

Hopefully at RMLL in Dijon next month, GNOME-fr will have a similar 
great presence. We will have printed leaflets to hand out in French, the 
other big GNOME backdrop, some t-shirts for volunteers, and a bunch of 
other stuff (hopefully LiveCDs as well, although not GNOME branded ones).

Murray's been pushing for a conference kit (a couple of computers set up 
for demos and flat screens, a bunch of merchandising material, a stand 
backdrop, things like that) which could be shipped around from 
conference to conference. It's still an idea, but Murray's in the 
process of pricing it, and the foundation is in the process of deciding 
whether we'll pay for it. That should be great for this type of thing.

Cheers,
Dave.

--
David Neary
bolsh gimp org