[FM Discuss] Beyond manuals

[Janet Swisher]

This open-tools-for-small-business project seems like one that might
be appropriate for David McMurrey's students to help with. A chapter
in such a book seems like about the right size and scope for a student
project.

Thoughts?

--Janet

On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 10:31 PM, John & Melonie Curwood
<marketing at lovinglearning.co.nz> wrote:
> Hi Adam,
>
> I'll be happy to take the lead, I haven't finalised a name for it yet and
> will get back to you as soon as I do.
> Won't be able to do much for about a month as we are moving town in a few
> weeks, and will be fairly swamped doing all the moving stuff and then
> getting work set up in a new city.
>
> Cheers,
>
> John
>
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [FM Discuss] Beyond manuals
> From: adam hyde <adam at flossmanuals.net>
> Date: Wed, April 08, 2009 1:53 pm
> To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
>
> ok,
>
> you want to take the lead in this John? that means doing some writing,
> convincing others to contribute...
>
> if so, give me a nod and tell me the name of the manual and I will set
> it up
>
> adam
>
>
> On Thu, 2009-04-09 at 06:59 +1200, John & Melonie Curwood wrote:
>> Hi Adam,
>>
>> I think this is a great idea, an intro to what does what, how it is
>> useful and testimonials could be aligned with relavant chapters (e.g. I
>> use open office Calc because..., I use open office writer..., open
>> office impress..., you could even include I use evolution because... and
>> I use gnucash because... if it were to include the full range of
>> office/business admin tools)
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> John
>>
>>
>> adam hyde wrote:
>> > it wouldnt take us much to set up a manual to tackle this situation. we
>> > could outline what softwares do what with maybe a chapter a piece. we
>> > dont need to go into how to use the software, but maybe we could include
>> > some testimonials from business people saying 'I use open office
>> > because ...'
>> >
>> > what do u think john?
>> >
>> > adma
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 07:07 +1200, John & Melonie Curwood wrote:
>> >
>> >> Andy Oram wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> I've been silent for a couple days, but now I have an evening to
>> >>> answer FM-related mail and start working on the command-line manual again.
>> >>>
>> >>> John's idea below sounds like a really nice project, although a big
>> >>> one. To give businesses enough information about all the tools for them to
>> >>> feel confident they can trust their businesses to free software, you'd have
>> >>> to say a lot about each tool.
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >> With regards to businesses needing enough information to feel confident
>> >> I would say yes and no about needing to say alot for all the tools. For
>> >> the software that handles the accounts/inventory/invoicing I would
>> >> definitely say that something very thorough would be required, when
>> >> dealling with Money and accurately and securely keeping track of it
>> >> business owners want assurance that a product will do the job.
>> >> But for the rest, in my experience most business owners think very
>> >> little about what they use and most have a very small understanding of
>> >> what they are using. For example the majority of bosses and managers
>> >> that I have had would have used MS excel only for making tables, which
>> >> a
>> >> spreadsheet is not very good at.compared to the table functions in most
>> >> word processors. That is what the see the spreadsheet is good for.
>> >> When talking about an office suite, I think something that would say
>> >> "Hey OpenSource Software can do everything MS Office can do and it's
>> >> easy to learn how" would be what is needed. I think the biggest barrier
>> >> to implementing a new system is the fact that people don't like change,
>> >> they don't want to have to learn a new system. When I first bought a
>> >> Mac I was so excited about it, I thought the way it worked was really
>> >> cool, and the fact that it never crashed was fantastic, so I went
>> >> around
>> >> all my friends and family preaching the virtues of iMacs and OSX, but
>> >> whenever they tried using my computer, it always came back to 'it
>> >> doesn't work the same as windows', 'I can't use the same shortcuts as
>> >> in
>> >> windows', etc. And in the end not one of them converted, they all
>> >> appreciated the fact that things ran smother on the Mac but were
>> >> prepared to keep putting up with random crashes and program freezes
>> >> rather than have to learn a new system. And I think this is one of the
>> >> major hurdles for getting business to adopt open sourced software, they
>> >> would rather put up with the same bugs in their current software than
>> >> have to learn something new.
>> >> Woops sorry about all the exposition, but I think when trying to
>> >> promote
>> >> the use of Free Software in a business situation, the emphasis should
>> >> be
>> >> on how smooth the transition can be and how easy it is to learn the new
>> >> software.
>> >>
>> >> Cheers,
>> >>
>> >> John
>> >>
>> >>> This reminds me that a few years ago I tried to pull together a book
>> >>> about the value of open source software and open formats (two different but
>> >>> related issues) for government. At first I thought I would propose it at
>> >>> O'Reilly, but we decided we couldn't sell enough copies to make money, so I
>> >>> tried to organize it as a collaborative project covering multiple continents
>> >>> (sound familiar?). That didn't work.
>> >>>
>> >>> It was an advocacy book, not a how-to book, but the goal was similar:
>> >>> to persuade frightened office managers to make the migration.
>> >>>
>> >>> Andy
>> >>>
>> >>> ----- Original Message -----
>> >>> From: "John & Melonie Curwood" <marketing at lovinglearning.co.nz>
>> >>> To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
>> >>> Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 9:36:18 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
>> >>> Subject: Re: [FM Discuss] Beyond manuals
>> >>>
>> >>> With regards to an OpenOffice manual, maybe create a doing stuff with
>> >>> free software manual about running a small business or something which
>> >>> would include Openoffice, something like mozilla thunderbird/sunbird
>> >>> or
>> >>> evolution for email/organising and something like gnucash or better
>> >>> (I'm
>> >>> not familiar with OpenSource Accounting packages) for doing the
>> >>> accounts.
>> >>>
>> >>> I know it is not as exciting as say the digital foundations book, but
>> >>> it
>> >>> could have quite a wide audience.
>> >>>
>> >>> As some one said earler it would take more that a sprint to put and
>> >>> Openoffice manual together, more like a marathon, or in this case
>> >>> maybe
>> >>> a triathlon. :)
>> >>>
>> >>> Cheers,
>> >>>
>> >>> John
>> >>> ______________________________________