[Bradford] Idea's for brief introductory talks for new / non technical users

[Wayne Hanley]

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After several recent conversations with friends and colleges that run
Linux but are not interested in the technicalities several things
became evident that I thought might be worth sharing with the rest of
you.

I know several people that are interested in attending our local LUG
meetings but are worried that they are not of a significant level of
technical ability to be able to join in discussions.  I think
this is a miss representation of what the LUG is supposed to be.
In the descriptions I've come across the phrase "self help" is used
which I think is dead on.  I don't think people should be worried
about coming along because of fear that is they do as a question they
will be ridiculed for asking / needing help.  That seems to be
the first hurdle that I've come across in trying to get more people
involved with us.

Second is what actually goes on at the meetings, and how they could
get involved.  I was talking recently about version control in
and how I use it for not only coding but also keeping revisions of
other files, now he as never come across version control in a
professional context let alone using it to keep revisions of personal
information.  He suggested that it might be a good way to get
more people interested if those of use that use things like that that
other people might be interested in could do some small talks or
demonstrations at the meetings to help people get started.  I
quite liked the idea of it I'm sure as a group we already all have a
fair few usability solutions that other people in the group and
external to the group would find interesting / useful.

A couple of idea's of what kind of thing the people I have been
speaking to are interested in finding out more about with their Linux
systems

*Version control
*Backing up
*Office replacement software
*Syncing mobile devices
*Cross platform compatibility (sharing thumb drives and such I think
is what he as asking about)
*Data organisation (Photos, Music, Search indexing of documents etc)

As anyone else had conversations like this?  How can we get in
other people and make them feel included in the community and not have
them feel like they don't have valid opinions and idea's to offer?

Cheers
Wayne

- --------------------------------
Geeks are people too.




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