Hello Everyone! This is a copy of something I put on the forum tonight...I would just love to know what you think.
I have a marketing idea I would like to share with you. I started thinking it out while at work. I work as a Christian Chaplain at a large university in the UK. To describe British undergraduates as non religious is a bit of an understatement. When I started no one really knew what the chaplaincy was, no one really cared either. The upshot of that was, my working day was very quiet. I realised that on campus there were 'x' amount of students who wanted us and 'y' amount of students who needed us, the key was finding those students. I realised we had to raise our profile. Not wanting to shove religion down people's throats I decided to come up with something different. Firstly I started a joke society campaigning for the re-opening of a non-existent tunnel, then I used that society to do random acts of kindness and general nice things on campus. Now I am trying to break a world record with as many students as possible. I shameless stole this idea from someone else, and it seems to have worked. All these things just spread the word 'chaplaincy' around campus. Three years later the chaplaincy does have a much higher profile and I find that an large proportion of students I meet, already know I am the chaplain before I introduce myself, and yes on most days the chaplaincy is full of people. My question is: Why can't we spread Ubuntu that way? Like religion on campus, Ubuntu has virtually no recognition among the general public. It is very well known and well regarded by experts. I believe there are 'x' amount of people who would be willing to try Ubuntu and 'y' amount who would actually benefit from it but don't know it exists. Knowledge of Ubuntu must spread beyond technical users. What I am proposing is a new way of marketing Ubuntu. Essentially we have to spread the word 'Ubuntu' to the general public. I believe the best way to do this is by mobilising the community, not with thing like mass installs and technical support but in attention seeking activity. Like record attempts e.g. most amount of smurfs in one place, and acts of niceness e.g. get everyone to donate blood wearing Ubuntu T-shirt. The goal of this will simply be to place the word 'Ubuntu' into the mainstream media away from technology reports, thus directing ordinary people who have no knowledge of computers to the website. Many will pass straight on, but I believe some will take a chance and try Ubuntu out. Each and every one of them will be that most precious of things: A non specialist user who thinks that Windows is just the way computers work. Thus we move Ubuntu to the mainstream. I don't know if this will work in every county but I think it will work in the UK. I don't claim originality for this idea, it has been used before to spread good news, I don't know if anyone has ever suggested it before (I have scoured the forums and mailing lists and couldn't find it) This is how I would spread Ubuntu. What do you think? Yours Yellow
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