ubuntu-advertising team mailing list archive

[Barry Drake <b.drake@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2010-12-28 at 06:31 +0000, alan c wrote:
> I believe the institutions in and around Education are a major bastion 
> in MS defences.
> Advertising can change opinions!

Thanks for going to such lengths to describe your saga.  It is quite an
eye-opener.  Somehow, having worked alongside local government from time
to time I am not surprised.  Years ago, I had a battle that became
almost physical with a local politician (who happens also to be a very
close friend).  Eventually he agreed to come with me to assess a
particular situation first hand instead of taking onboard the views of a
local government employee.  Nothing to do with IT, but it taught me a
lot about so called 'experts' in a bureaucracy who cover their backs all
the time, and who have a vested interest in keeping the real power
holders under an illusion of incompetence.

Having been in business most of my working life, I know that you could
not get away with this system in the real world.  Sadly local and
national government is NOT the real world!

In our case, advertising is a very real answer provided it is correctly
targeted.  Something of what you said about your visit to the council IT
dept. brings real excitement.  As folk move gradually away from legacy
software there will reach a point at which the bubble bursts and the
Linux just below the surface gets out!  Freedom !!!!

This is happening in a lot of places.  I know a number of people who are
using OpenOffice, Thunderbird and Firefox through choice.  How easy
would their switch to Ubuntu be?

The politician I mentioned earlier uses nothing but the above three
applications.  When I went on about the joys of Ubuntu, his big question
was about compatibility.  This was a question I had to answer honestly.
Not everything is compatible.  "I've just bought a new Printer/Scanner.
Will it work?"  (As it happens, I don't think it will be a problem).  I
must go and take my netbook and encourage him to 'install' his printer
on it and print a sample from it.  Maybe I'll be able to persuade him to
let me put Ubuntu on his old box one day. 

After I've got him to try his printer, I'll report the experience on the
Wiki.  A hardware compatibility list needs fully updating.  The current
one is very limited, and we all need to contribute to that!

Regards,		Barry.
-- 
What do you see when you use your Computer? Same old thing?
...There IS a Better Way!  Ubuntu!