On Thu, Jan 09, 2003 at 07:37:17PM -0500, John wrote:
> On Thu, 09 Jan 2003 18:46:30 -0500, robin wrote:
>
> -> > John Q. Public does not know beans about Linux. That is a
> problem.
> -> > What is your solution?
> ->
> -> I will go on making Linux presentations to non-Linux groups,
> same as
> -> always. The next big one I have scheduled is at an IT
> management
> -> conference in Mexico City the second week in February. I now
> do between
> -> 10 and 15 "Linux demo" speeches per year.
>
> Impressive! Speaking of John Q. Public, I get the impression,
> in these discussions, that we often talk about "promoting Linux"
> in a somewhat generalized sense. Seems to me that one should
> think in terms of two totally distinct major groups:
> geeks/techies and desktop users. Not that there's no
> interaction, because there is, but the "promotion" needs to be
> totally different.
>
> That's why, when Paul mentioned promoting SLUG in an earlier
> post, I suggested (hopefully without offending) that I wasn't
> much interested in promoting SLUG....at least in the context of
> our discussion at that time.
No offense taken. The bigger issue is Linux, and if you can promote
Linux without promoting SLUG, that's fine. Understand, I'd prefer to
swell the ranks of SLUG via promotion as well. But user groups come and
go, and Linux will still be around when we're gone. Linux is why SLUG
exists, so my allegiance is first to Linux, then to SLUG. (My wife has
some things to say about my allegiances, so don't say anything to her.
;-)
>
> To clarify: if we are interested in promoting the "helpers"
> page, some of our target audience will be people who are giving
> Linux a try because they heard it was a good replacement for
> Windows. Many of these people will NEVER come to a SLUG
> meeting, nor should they. As Linux becomes viable on the
> desktop for ordinary people, I think we need to be aware that
> there are people (aka geeks) who are drawn to Linux for its
> technical excellence, AND there are people who simply are fed up
> with MS and are exploring an alternative. Totally different.
> (Somebody with marketing smarts--not me!--might also argue that
> there are distinct subgroups within these two groups.)
>
> I only bring this up because my thoughts keep getting drawn back
> to the original post by Michael and I think he was including the
> non-geek element in his comments. I assume when you give a
> presentation to a non-Linux group, you are getting them to look
> at a better hammer, and you don't much care if they ever join a
> LUG to learn how to pour steel into hammer molds?
>
Fortunately or unfortunately, in the present day, Linux mostly attracts
geeks. And our LUG is probably representative of that trend-- a lot of
geeks. However, I think SLUG could be a good vehicle for attracting and
educating newbies as well. We do what we can at this point, with the
people we have: some lists, a website, some FAQs, meetings. More could
be done, particularly in the newbie area. But as has been mentioned,
that probably requires someone willing to take the time to give classes
or take other actions that would promote Linux and educate people on the
subject. I'd like to see such efforts revolve around SLUG, but in the
end, it doesn't much matter how it gets done, as long as it does.
Paul
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