[lug] [Re: Fairfax Microsoft Night: Linux success -- 24 copies given] Linux feel good story!

Mark Horning rip6 at home.com
Fri Feb 18 12:52:10 MST 2000


I received this from one of the mailing lists
I'm subscribed to and thought I would pass it
along. It kinda fits in well with the Linux
'awareness' that is occurring and maybe it
will spark some more ideas to promote Linux
in our area.

On Thu, 17 Feb 2000, Jameson Burt wrote:
> The Microsoft Tech Night at Fairfax County's Fairhill Elementary School,
> Friday, February 11, was a success for Linux.
> Thank God for kids! -- there were twice as many kids as adults.
> Kids, 7-11 years old, took all 24 copies of our Redhat 6.1 Linux
> and we could have given away 10 more.
> 
> Here's the play-by-play.
> Joan of Microsoft gave her presentation from just 
> after 6:30pm until 7:45.
> She was a sometime teacher, who now serves on the frontline 
> with a Microsoft powerpoint presentation.
> The presentation was glitzy, noisy, nice for doing that 
> which a secretary might do.
> The presentation attracted kids, akin to watching 
> a Saturday morning cartoon.
> Joan told about a university from which 5 of 12 students returned 
> to prep school, because they didn't have computer skills 
> like copying files between computers.
> 
> Joan made some things Joan did or said,
> a. Microsoft products get kids to accomplish and get good grades 
>    on school research projects.
> b. Microsoft can easily change what you enter, as she altered 
>    tabular data, which automatically altered a ["tinker-toy": 
>    I believe those are the words of Tukey, a statistical guru] pie chart.
> c. Joan put a video of 3 Fairhill Elementary kids on screen.
>    She took the video 5 minutes before her presentation began.
> d. Joan got the kids to often speak in unison; eg, something like
>    "chu-chu-chig-chig-chama-chama", for some Hawaiian bird. 
> e. Microsoft Office is not for kids in public schools, 
>    but for adults in offices.
> 
> Then she asked for questions.
> I raised my hand.
> Here is an approximation of what I said in 50 seconds.
> 
> "Thank you for showing us how easily we can do many things on a computer.
> I wish I could wake up, push a button, have the day done for me, 
> then roll over and sleep.
> But many of us would like our children to enter colleges like MIT.
> What does MIT want?
> Perhaps they want people like who they declared the world's best 
> computer programmer, 
> Miguel de Icaza [http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,32332,00.HTML].
> de Icaza is from Mexico.
> Mexico has been putting special computing software into all 130,000 
> of their schools -- 1,000,000 computers. 
> You can have this free software freely installed on your computers 
> at InstallFests.
> You can learn more from the Eastern Seaboard's groups at,
>    www.tux.org
> I just happen to have 25 copies of this software: Linux 
> with brief instructions.
> Since Valentines is near, I include a red Valentine candy in red bags.
> And I put on a red hat so you can find Linux [I put on a $1 red hat 
> from a party store, which worked as well as a K-Mart blue light]."
> 
> 
> Immediately, kids came asking for the shiny red bags.
> Those bags had 
> a. red Valentines candy, 
> b. Cheapbytes RedHat Linux 6.1 CD,
> c. graphical and text flyer from the UC Davis LUG, 
>    [http://www.lugod.org/documents/pamphlets]
>    thanks to the lead by Joseph E. Arruda [mr.zenn]" <z at valinux.com> .
>    I converted UC Davis LUG *.pdf document to postscript, 
>    saw that my laser printer produced a scratchy output,
>    so I took the two-sided postscript document to Kinkos on diskette 
>    -- Kinkos made a wonderful copy on specialty paper.
> d. brief instructions to install Linux or find an InstallFest.
> e. A boot diskette.
>    I thank Matt Bidwell <mfbprod at juno.com> and Moe Aitel, moel at his.com>
>    for suggesting that I add to the free CD a boot diskette.
>    Moe Aitel, moel at his.com>, 
>    not only recommended a boot diskette, but made 25 boot diskettes.
>    He added printed labels, briefly saying what the diskette does 
>    and adding "Northern Virginia Linux Users Group".
>    That was a lot of work on Moe's part and I owe him one.
> 
> 
> 
> After my question to Joan, I don't recall Microsoft Joan taking 
> any further questions.
> I heard someone tell the kids to please sit down, 
> but they still drifted over.
> Because I could only carry a dozen of the reflective red bags 
> under my coat, I returned to my car for the second dozen 
> [dropping my coat into the locked doors so I could return].
> I heard Joan give out 3 free something, but most of the kids, 
> with overlooking parents, came for our red Valentines Linux bags.
> The distribution of people in the room took the shape 
> of an art pallette, with a missing gap around Microsoft Joan 
> and the rest around the back and our red Linux bags.
> We almost completely co-opted Microsoft's advertising and goals.
> We won the night by giving away more than our competition gave 
> [is that sustainable?].
> Perhaps we only saw what the Potlatch knew, in which case Linux 
> is the potlatch winner every time.
> 
> 
> After handing out all 24 copies of the red Linux bags, 
> a nuclear engineer thanked me for bringing up Linux.
> Finding inflexibility in Microsoft on his job, he was eager to switch.
> 
> I was surprised that Fairhill Elementary has its 
> own computer teacher, Beth.
> Neither Fairhill Beth nor Microsoft Joan was openly upset with me, 
> Linux Jim.
> I was surprised that Fairhill Beth had never heard of Linux!
> 
> Only after seeing the enthusiasm of kids for red bags 
> and maybe even Linux, do I now aggree with the suggestion 
> by NOVALUG member Phillip Harp <peharp at ix.netcom.com>,
>    ***********************************************************
>    "I believe that the thing to do is to see if we can sponsor 
>    a similar event through a PTA somewhere. Economics of using
>    the OS, versatility/diversity of the OS, and how it can improve
>    the students are important goals to address."
>    ***********************************************************
> 
> Linux might get a little more market, especially ten years from now, 
> by advertising to kids.
> I notice Debian Linux develops a kids distribution/GUI.
> a. Microsoft does this now.
> b. MacIntosh did this.
> c. Tobacco companies did this.
> d. McDonalds does this -- the decade long McLibel trial brought 
>    out internal McDonald's documents saying basically, 
>    'attract children, give things to children, 
>    they maintain our business: DO NOT FORGET THIS.'
> 
> 
> Every old man should do something juvenile like this: 
> it gives a good kick in the head.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Jim Burt, NJ9L 		Fairfax, Virginia, USA
> jameson at mnsinc.com	http://www.mnsinc.com/jameson
> jameson at pressroom.com	http://yuet.com  (coming soon)
> nj9l at qsl.net            (202) 690-0380 (work)
> 
> You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.
> -- G.K. Chesterton





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