[Olpc-open] G1G1 (was Re: [Community-news] OLPC News (2008-09-29))

[Sameer Verma]

On Sat, Oct 4, 2008 at 3:42 PM, Edward Cherlin <echerlin at gmail.com> wrote:
> Update: Some of the computer press has picked up the story.
>
> But we could be all over the Mainstream Media, including having
> Nicholas, Walter, Alan and others on all the talk shows. If they are
> willing. Are any of you? This is the one time of year when ordering
> something you can't get is a positive. We should aim for something
> ridiculous, like a million units. (Although we shouldn't say that to
> the media in so many words.) And then we should provide daily tracking
> of order numbers and of production lead times, to encourage yet more
> people to order as early as possible.
>
> We should be playing up the connection with the 40th anniversary of
> the Dynabook idea, and of Doug Engelbart's Mother of All Demos. I have
> been in contact with him and his people, and I know that they are keen
> on that. We should be doing T-shirts, mugs, stickers, replica mice,
> and all the rest of the merchandising, and getting several books
> published. Why anybody at OLPC would want to waste the best marketing
> time in the year is utterly beyond me.
>
> If you don't think my opinion counts, ask Amazon.
>

I agree with Ed Cherlin in that if G1G1v2 begins in 5 weeks, now is
the time to get the campaign going. Five weeks isn't a lot of time.
What I'd look for in the efforts this year is something a bit more
orchestrated. Materials (posters, cards, stickers, shirts, etc) all
coming across with a consistency in branding, image, look-n-feel, etc.
If we do merchandise from somebody like Cafepress, we don't have to
get into the business of printing, cutting etc.

I cannot setup shop at Cafepress because the logos involved aren't my
copyright, but if someone from OLPC initiates, I'd be glad to help.

Sameer
-- 
Dr. Sameer Verma, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
San Francisco State University
San Francisco CA 94132 USA
http://verma.sfsu.edu/
http://opensource.sfsu.edu/


> On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 4:50 PM, Edward Cherlin <echerlin at gmail.com> wrote:
>> This is the first time I have heard that G1G1 will start up again on
>> Nov 17. As far as I can tell, nobody in the outside world has picked
>> up on this yet.
>>
>> Is this a leak? Is it true? Has there been any outside announcement?
>> Since it doesn't show up in Internet news searches, I am certain that
>> there was no press release. Should I Slashdot this?
>>
>> This is a Hell of a way to run a global non-profit. We have one of the
>> world's biggest brands, and we do nothing with it. We could be The
>> Must-Have Gift for this Holiday season without any advertising
>> expense, if we would just let the media have the story. Even with the
>> manufacturing delays that we can predict. That's one of the draws for
>> the Must-Have Gift of the year. Cabbage Patch died the moment you
>> could get one off the shelf.
>>
>> There is a great deal more I could say about this and other management
>> issues, but this is not the place for it. If you want to hear any of
>> it, you know where to find me.
>>
>> But!! I have a better idea. Who wants to fork the PR program, and help
>> write an Open Source press release? We'll have to reverse engineer
>> most of the content, but I have confidence in our community's
>> abilities.
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 2:45 PM, Jim Gettys <jg at laptop.org> wrote:
>>> Community News
>>> A weekly update of One Laptop per Child September 29, 2008
>>
>>> Our appearance outside the Marriott attracted a lot of people to out
>>> tables; some of them were as far as from Finland; many of them knew
>>> about "those laptops for children" and were asking about the ways to
>>> acquire the laptops (we even got questions: are you selling the
>>> machines?). So, in addition to conducting our scheduled testing, we also
>>> served as "unofficial" OLPC marketing representatives, steering people
>>
>>> to the Nov 17 opening of the G1G1 event through amazon.com. The time we
>>
>>> were outside wasn't even the peak lunch time for people to fill that
>>> square; just imagine the level of attention, if we were there at the
>>> lunch time!
>>
>> --
>> Don't panic.--HHGTTG, Douglas Adams
>> fivethirtyeight.com, 3bluedudes.com Obama still moving ahead in EC!
>> http://www.obamapedia.org/ Join us!
>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai For the children
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Don't panic.--HHGTTG, Douglas Adams
> fivethirtyeight.com, 3bluedudes.com Obama still moving ahead in EC!
> http://www.obamapedia.org/ Join us!
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai For the children
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