Re: GNOME FOSDEM Stand

[Bryen M Yunashko <a11yrocks bryen com>]

On Tue, 2012-02-07 at 11:07 +0000, Allan Day wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 11:01 AM, Tobias Mueller <muelli cryptobitch de> wrote:
> > Heya :)
> >
> > On 07.02.2012 11:48, Olav Vitters wrote:
> >> The information leaflets are in black and white [...]
> >> ^^ send me a (link to a) PDF and I'll print
> > Yeah, well. I guess we'd need a leaflet first ;-) I prepared something
> > here: <https://live.gnome.org/GnomeArt/ArtRequests/flyer-for-conferences>
> >
> > Feel free to add or thoughts, or better yet: Work on it ;-)
> >
> > Cheers,
> >  Tobi
> 
> We should figure out what the leaflets are for and who the audience
> will be. For FOSDEM we don't really need 'What is GNOME' leaflets, for
> example (or am I wrong). However, leaflets for Friends of GNOME or
> even GNOME Love might be more appropriate.
> 
> Since we're discussing new tablecloths, stickers, banners and
> leaflets, we should also make sure that they have a consistent look.
> 
> Allan

I'm actually working on banners distribution right now for the US
portion of the openSUSE team, so this is kind of timely to add my two
cents.

The plan we're going with is to print up two banners.  1 is a 4x8 foot
banner and the other is a 2x6 foot banner.  The former one is meant to
drape the background of the booth as most booths are 8 feet wide.  And
the latter is meant to wrap around the front of the table.

Roll up vinyl banners are quite weildly to ship around, especially a 4x8
banner.  You'd need a box that can actually take a four-foot long rolled
up banner.

Our solution is to just ship them to our ambassadors once and let them
hang on to it for their next events.  It seems so much cheaper than
shipping the rollups back and forth.  

We found this website to print up our banners.  Seems to be the cheapest
I've come across thus far.  http://www.bannersonthecheap.com/

As for a booth box kit, we don't do that.  We've had decent success with
everyone bringing their own laptops to use for demonstration.  In
addition, I bring a 15-inch digital picture frame to use as a slideshow
display in the booth.

We do ship our PromoDVDs on request, and if we have any marketing
materials, such as brochures or stickers or other, we ship them too,
subject to availability.

We've visited the idea of a booth box kit several times over the years
and just never found it feasible.  I can only imagine how much that box
from GNOME costs to ship around.  I believe for that same amount, you
could ship so much more cooler materials that people can actually take
home with them to spread the GNOME word.

And honestly, I've never been impressed with the GNOME box kit when
using it at CSUN conference.   Pieces were always missing and we always
had to do some reinstallation/reconfiguration to the laptop to get it to
work right.  Plus, the last time, I bought some decent speakers to go
with the Orca demonstration as the ones in the box from the previous
year could barely squeak.  :-)

It's impressive to have a box, but in the long run, I just didn't see
any real value from it.

If you want to spend the money on a really spiffed up kit, I would
instead advocate a) ship banners (probably just once and don't ask for
it back) and b) a large screen plasma tv so that your demonstrations
reach beyond just the person standing in front of the laptop/monitor.
Let the community bring their own laptops that are configured the way
they're used to.  

That's my two cents.  :-)

Bryen M Yunashko