[OLPC-Philippines] Public Information

[Jerome Gotangco]

Hi! Apologies for the extremely late reply, I've dedicated some time a
few hours before Christmas to check the archives and see what I've
missed.

2008/12/15 Antti Lahtinen <uncleantti at gmail.com>:
> Cheers,
>
> I am Uncle Antti, from Parañaque City.
>
> I have just joined the mailing list and tried to find out more about what
> happens with OLPC here in the Philippines.
>
> Honestly, I am not sure what I am looking for, but I know that the entire
> concept is great and I believe the kids in this country deserve a big break.
> Let me write a line or two about the initial observations.
>
> I am looking at the available "material" with fresh eyes and from "end user
> usability point of view". I believe it would be beneficial for the cause to
> try to somehow organize the necessary Public Info into more "user friendly"
> way. Seems that participants have been very comfortable with the tools and
> material what is done and used until now. That is all ok as those tools
> should be used that are available and serve the purpose.
>
> However, fact remains that most of the "normal" people are not very
> comfortable with with kinds of IRCs and Wikis and what have yous. Especially
> "a bit older folks" are not that keen on jumping into the depths of Social
> Media and Web 2.0, new extra software in their computers, etc... Thus,
> anybody who tries to find out the extend of the operation here, essential
> contacts or any other local info in few minutes, will turn away as all of it
> seem to be difficult to find and scattered over different locations and
> formats.

Yes. The primary reason for this is because majority of the people who
have access to laptops locally are developers and are comfortable with
the above mentioned tools, not to mention OLPC and Sugar upstream
development use them. Also we don't have the local infrastructure to
manage them nor the people and even the manpower hours to do so, so we
piggy back on upstream infrastructure/tools.

> I understand that there will be web domain and likely some sort of web site.
> This could be used to promote the "OLPC Cause" for LOCAL Media, Politicians
> and potential Donors. Thus, it could be efficiently used to sell the idea
> for people with interest, money and power. I have a feeling that many
> individuals in these three groups belong to what I classified as "a bit
> older folks" or "normal" people, e.g. not very well versed with computers.

Yup. I have registered that olpc.ph domain for this. When stuff gets
organized more, with proper discussion, this can be used. At the
moment, the domain is under my name (I've registered it for 2 years
with my own funds but that's ok) and will transfer it to a legal
entity when its ready to manage on its own.

> "Promotion" could mean readily usable material for different media, write
> ups about current happenings as well as "war stories", logos and pictures.
> This also could mean "ready packages" for potential Donors like the global
> pages. This HAS to include a way to pledge donation or purchase then and
> there (for example a link to global)! This ALSO could mean suggestions to
> local Politicians as how to participate the gain good publicity within their
> constituents (yes, how to benefit from the good cause as that is the only
> way to get them interested...).
>
> There might be other things, but this is what crossed my mind during the
> good one hour trying to get some idea what is happening here. I know
> everybody are doing this on voluntary basis and I have to commend the good
> start. I am not a computer specialist, but I do have quite some exposure
> with various business aspects, including PR and Marketing. Also I do not
> have excessive amount of time available, but it could be possible to use
> some of it for helping to figure out where to get more doers and other help
> as well as what could probably be possible ways to go promoting the "OLPC
> Cause".
>
> For now, this is the way to catch me. This was not a great brief
> introduction, but please bear with me.

It is actually (but not canonical) a three pronged approach, the
developer/technical team, the education/curriculum team and of course
the marketing folks. I think we're pretty good on the
developer/technical aspect and have done some impact on upstream
development with regards to regression testing and QA, but we've yet
to fill up an education-centric group that can bridge technology and
curriculum. Once the first two volunteer teams get versed in both
ways, a community marketing plan can be done which can lead to a
grassroots level deployment.

Let us know what you think of this. I'm a firm believer of
grassroots/open communities being agile once organized and OLPC should
be no exception to this.

Happy holidays!
-- 
Jerome G.

Blog: http://gotangco.blogspot.com