Converting professors
... is never an easy task. That requires overhelming evidence that
a switch is worth the cost! The cost is primaly measured in the mental
effort it takes from
the professor to learn the program, the time the professor has no
access to his/her computer. (Access to install the program on the
professors computer, is best done when he/she is on a Conference., IF
you have advanced to the point where he/she agrees to try). 1000$ saved
in
software costs might well be a minor issue in the argumentation.
Furthermore, professors will not give up MS-words easily, due to
"compability" reasons anyway.
People commonly think that *. doc meanst that you need and use MS-word in
you daily life,
and that you should stick to that.
People using winword are victims for a phenomenon called a hold up
problem.
Continuing to use MSword gives them less disutility than their estimated
menthal
swithcing cost. Therefore, it is not enough to convience the professors
that LyX
is better than MS word. You have to convince them that is so superio that
it is
worth the professor to pay the menthal cost of a complete brain-surgery
in
the attitude to writing.
***************************************************************
Here is my list of the pros in LyX I feel important in the argumenation.
1. Nice output.
2. Lyx allows you to keep the document neat with cross references and
bibiliographic citations.
The float placement is also smart!
LYX HELPS YOU TO KEEP YOUR WRITITNG DISCIPLINIZED! You are likely to
produce
on average a more nice output! ( Although the starting problems might
be frustrating)
3. Smaller file size.
4. Compatiblity to the LaTeX world.
5. Writing with LyX is more fun.
6. Soon all programs that counts are compatible with the xml file
standard,
so compatibility with *doc will become less important???
Please add to the list if you have other professor convincing
argurments.
I would like to hear what are the arguments you have used in order to get
people
to give up MS-word in favour of LyX!!!
---------------------------------------------------
One trick you could try AT YOUR OWN RISK is the following.
U begin to send all of your correspondance beyond plain e-mail text
in LaTeX code. LaTeX code is by all means an acceptable standard for
academic writings.
1. Either they refuse to read your text and kindly informs you that it
could be re-sent in *doc format.
2. They ask for a "human way to read and modify your file".
Then you can show how nicely the text (as a *lyx file) shows on your
screen without
any problems whatsoever.
The risk lies in the fact that... you should know your professor
and predict the pros and cons w.r.t. the future social interactions of
your experiment
***************************************************************
Below I list some of my personal (obvioulsy biased) opinion in the
converting issue.
I find 2 reasons why I find it hard to convert my colleagues at the
moment.
1. They are either hooked to MS-windows or MacOS.
2. To me it is not worth the effort to mess with their machines,
the computing center also has too much other things to bother about
than LyX.
As far as I know LyX does not "tick on a Mac" (with MacOS). (Please
inform me if I am wrong.)
At the moment when there are preloadable binaries for both MAC and
Windows, things will 'almost surely'
(in a probablistic sense) change. Hereby, I mean that the OS and a LaTeX
-distribution should be
enough in order to get LyX tick! All right, all right, I know that it is
possible to get LyX running on
a windows with MikTeX, but still you have to convince the professors that
they should pay for an
X11 program (and all the mess around it ) in order to get it running. Why
should the chose
LyX instead of chosing e.g. Scientific Word (or Worklplace)?
WHEN
1. beginning to use LyX on a Windoze box, is just installing MikTeX and
LyX , or
2. beginning to use LyX on a Mac is just installing some free TeX for
Mac (OzTex??) and Lyx
... I will make a personal push to convert my Windows and Mac using
colleagues respectively to LyX.
However, if your professor is dynamic and open-minded and would accpet
staroffice as a substitute for
MS-word, then there is some hope, IF the professor would like to switch
OS and your computing center
gives you the appropriate backup for such a switch (to an unix(based)OS).
In that case I suggest you could try a push.
It is my feeling that people who switch from windows to e.g. Linux in the
beginning use
staroffice frequently and LyX less freqvently. However, these frequencies
tend to swap as
time pass by.
**********************************************
As by now, the effort to make LyX (rather) GUI independent
and make the files compatible with xml, is in my opinon
important when advocating in favour for LyX!
AFAIK our hackers are doing their best to solve these problems!
Regards,
Staffan
