[FM Discuss] exhibitions, festivals, promo materials, etc.

[adam at flossmanuals.net]

hey,

I think there are a few things at play here. First, I dont think a trade
sow environment is the perfect place to present FM. I think its very cool
that you have done this and excellent that FM Finland is launched, so that
was an achievement in itself and congrats. However, don't stress too much
if its hard to get the idea across in this kind of environment as FM is
its better perhaps just to make yourself known, and explain the projects
to a few people personally - perhaps the people at the Ubuntu stand etc is
a good start.

Having said that - books do catch peoples attention, and next time it
would be good to take a few books and show them. However, I think they
would get the idea better if you have some books in Finnish, then perhaps
you can show both the English and Finnish versions so they get the idea...

Also, PR materials also helps, but so far FM has not been so good with
this. So, you are not alone in wanting these, but we need to find some $
and work out a strategy...

However, having a monitor and just showing FM on a computer and demo'ing
it is a good start.

It is the idea of FM that each language community resources itself...this
is very important as there are no full time staff in FM and not so much $.
So if you want marketing materials, books, and t-shirts then you must find
the funds to buy/produce them. So look to local funding resources or
donations for this...

adam


> Hi,
>
> What kind of experiences do you have about exhibitions, festivals, promo
> materials, etc?
>
> Cause I am sitting here at Assembly (in the shade of Ubuntu). And I just
> noticed we don't have anything. To promote our project with. We didn't
> even
> manage to order printed books in time. It is quite hard to get people
> interested in this. The competition in this place is in many cases from
> computer companies or gaming stores who have wall-sized computer game
> monitors etc. DIY materials I did alone on wednesday basically don't cut
> it
> in this environment.
>
> For an example:
>
> - Ubuntu/Linux seems to attract attention mostly by giving away free
> Ubuntu,
> Kubuntu and Ubuntu server installation disks and by offering Linux
> helpdesk
> support...
> - EFF has a lot of different books, t-shirts, a nice little statue of a
> military boot stamping on a human face (from 1984), and other materials
> promoting their views...
> - Actually I don't see any other organizations that would be even remotely
> similar to FLOSS Manuals besides Ubuntu and EFF?
>
> The next time we should have at least the books and maybe other
> promotional
> materials to attract attention with. Also we should think about some kind
> of
> a more participatory approach - such as arranging a constant workshop
> about
> FLOSS Manuals. Like playing around with Kino documentation, a video
> kamera,
> and Kino. You know.
>
> I noticed that even t-shirts cause a lot of attention here - there are so
> many computers around it actually works to print your url on your t-shirt.
>
> Best Regards
> Tomi Toivio
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