[vox] Outreach discussion (Was re: LUGOD meeting attendance and new-user signups)

[Bill Kendrick]

On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 01:18:28PM -0800, Norm Matloff wrote:
> 
> I don't know whether LUGOD, being committed to noncommercial software,
> wants to become too "entrepreneurial" in terms of bringing in
> "customers." :-)

Well, we were considering buying ad space on Unitrans, but decided
(1) it was WAY out of our budget, and (2) a huge influx of new members
might cause us to burst at the seams -- our current temporary venue,
a room in a building at one of Explorit's facilities, seats only 2 dozen
or so.

I'd love to see us advertise more, some day.  Once upon a time, we
were talking about highway curb cleaning, to get a sign up on 113.
That never happened. :^/


> That said, though, I believe there is a great untapped market among UCD
> CS majors.  The vast majority of them have no idea how expertise in
> Linux can greatly enhance their job prospects after graduation.  Though
> our official machines are Linux boxes, there are a couple of key faculty
> who extol the "virtues" of Windows to the students, so most students
> do their homework under Windows.  

In the past, the main way outreach we've done to the CS dept. (aside from
posting flyers, which I wish I had time to do on campus -- I'd appreciate
any assistance, people!) is putting on Installfests, often with the CS club.

Professors often ended up encouraging their students (esp. at the beginnings
of quarters) to come to those events.


There are, of course, all sorts of great ways we could interact with the
CS dept. and elsewhere, if only we had some person/people dedicated to the
outreach.  (In the distant past, we actually appointed an officer for that!)

That reminds me, we haven't had a demo in a long while.  One reason is that the
demo kitchen at the Davis Food Co-Op (the venue we ended up using quite a bit)
became a large cheese display.  HOWEVER, they have a little island
over by the meat dept. that might be suitable, if they'd be willing to
have us there!

And there's also always Farmer's Market.  That takes waking up early. ;)

-bill!