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

[Edward Cherlin]

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:30 PM, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 11:58 AM, Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Effective marketing is targeted. Last year's typical G1G1 donor was
>> probably a generous IT type with a positive viewpoint concerning Free
>> software, curious about Sugar and perhaps even willing to be an
>> ambassador of the OLPC project. This market doesn't need a marketing
>> message; they are ready to donate and merely eager for practical
>> information (cost, available by Christmas or not,

If we can provide a daily update of numbers shipped (preferably with a
clear upward trend line on the daily volume, and weekly explanations)
individuals who know where they are in line will be able to figure out
 when their kids' XOs are likely to arrive. We won't have the support
nightmare of last year. Instead we will have Cabbage Patch/Wii/etc
buzz about the Holiday Gift of the Year That You Can't Buy Off the
Shelf, and Quanta and the parts suppliers will be able to estimate
when we will be able to make the second million units. Politicians
will have to take note.

>> available outside
>> the USA, if so with localized keyboards or not, at same price or not,
>> ...). All that market needs is a press release today answering those
>> questions, and a press conference on November 17th, both of which
>> would probably get very complete media coverage.

And a daily tracker on the Web site.

>>A three-minute film
>> demonstrating the laptop,

Since this isn't a laptop project, and it isn't just an education
project let's call it Buy a Child a Future.

>> showing OLPC people working on it,

Play that down. This isn't our toy, it's everybody's future.

showing schoolchildren teaching their parents how to use it.

showing the Nigerian Laptop Hospital.

showing programs that weren't even thinkable BXO.

showing what passes for a school library in a developing country, and
books already available on the XO.

>> mentioning and showing places around the world it is in use,
>> enumerating challenges, and finally asking for a donation in time for
>> the holidays, could be posted to YouTube during the press conference
>> (and an MPEG-2 broadcast version offered to the media for download).
>> Even a homey home video would be fine, perhaps even preferable.

Several can be made, addressing different countries and different
issues. We already have excellent material from past presentations,
such as Alan Kay explaining how to teach gravity with a Smalltalk
simulation and the XO's video camera. We could highlight Ivan Krstić's
Astounded in Arahuay, or bits of the Ethiopia report. Both countries
report major social changes for the better among participants in the
first few months. Children losing their fear of strangers. Teachers
losing their fear of questions.

>> Imagine G1G1 donors posting video responses....

Get Google to sponsor a contest. Separate categories for buyers and
schoolchildren with XOs.

>>The challenge this
>> time is fulfillment, but that seems well in hand with the Amazon
>> partnership. The most effective merchandising could be what Apple has
>> done for decades: a few decals/stickers slipped in the box before

Sugar inside (XO, Ubuntu, and other versions)
Sugar on board
XO on board
My other laptop is an XO
Vitamin XO for mental nutrition deficiency
I gave a life this [your chosen holiday here]
(Your idea here)

Also a numbered certificate suitable for framing, acknowledging the
gift. As with limited edition products, but this will be the Unlimited
Edition. Unlimited numbers, and unlimited potential.

>> shipment -- easily designed and printed with negligeable
>> picking/packing and shipment cost.
>
> +1
>
> This just came to me while sitting in traffic - a stylized bumper
> sticker: "My other XO is in Mongolia" (or Rwanda, Haiti, etc.

+1

T-shirts, too. We can send one out on receiving the order, saying,
"Daddy/Mommy/?? ordered me an XO, but all I have so far is this lousy
t-shirt." ^_^

Let's have art and photo contests for the schoolchildren, and put the
winning entries on shirts, with a cut for the winner's school or
district budget.

> Randomize the stickers or give them a few to choose from:-)) We have a
> lot of creativity on these lists. Let it rip!
>
>> Massive buzz could be generated by
>> another technique Apple has used for years: the education discount.
>> Offer the pair at $375 for educators and university students, and $425
>> for others. Imagine thousands of educators holding an XO in their
>> hands, the community feedback potential.

G1G1 *is* a steep education discount, selling at just over cost. How
about this instead?

Poster shows two XOs and a generic $400 laptop.

Two for the price of one.

Give One to someone else's child, Get One for your child.

Only from One Laptop Per Child.

http://www.amazon.com/g1g1.

Or some such. BTW, Give One Get One is a terrible name for the
program. Nobody I talk to can remember it. They say Buy One Get One or
some other such mangling, and then can't find it online.


> The shipment numbers are impressive, and must be highlighted as much
> as possible. Everyone I've spoken to at first thinks of this as a
> faltered project, but then they hear the numbers and their eyes light
> up. Numbers assure that the project is alive and kicking.
>
> Sameer

We should offer last year's naysayer media (WSJ comes first to mind)
some op-ed pieces explaining how far we have come since then and where
we are going next. With appropriate notes for business publications
about new business opportunities, for the IT press about new
technologies and markets, and so on, in the language of the
readership.

Also exclusives on various subsidiary topics.

We should also give Groklaw and Slashdot something of their own, that
the MSM doesn't care about, like what we had to do to harden our
servers for their traffic last year, and what we are planning this
time.

OLPC, Sugar Labs hardening servers in advance of official G1G1
announcement Nov. 17.

> --
> 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/
>
>
>> I am not sure I can offer any useful assistance, but I do have
>> expertise in transcoding video formats, it seems there was a DVD
>> produced last year which may just need to be transcoded to web
>> formats?
>>
>> Sean.

Thanks.

>> On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 1:09 AM, Sameer Verma <sverma at sfsu.edu> wrote:
>>> 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

I'm starting to think a million is possible. Make it two mllion.

>>>> 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!

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