[Herts] Open source advocacy

[Oliver Cole]

On Friday I have the rare opportunity to engage in a bit of advocacy for
open source in general, primarily directed at my head of ICT (for a 1200
student secondary school). For those of you who don't know,
aforementioned head of ICT is a happy Microsoft user who considerable
expertise lies more in the area of management.

This will take the form of a demo of Plone, a Content Management System
(http://plone.org), touted on the benefit that even non
technially-accomplished staff will easily be able to add content, news,
links and resources, providing a portal to be used as the homepage for
browsers in the school.

I have chosen Plone because I can demo it on her desktop machine, or an
interactive whiteboard without needing to invasively install stuff, as
it can be installed on the spare server (running Windows) that is
currently doing nothing. I have also chosen Plone because it sells
itself, take a look - the Plone website is running on Plone. Finally, I
have chosen Plone because I can demonstrate, on the spot, how it is
running on sites like http://www.sra.gov.uk

I am hoping for a "I WANT that now" reaction, especially as it can be
run off aforementioned spare server without attempting to persuade her
installing Linux would be more beneficial, and it can be easily migrated
later.

Do any of you lot have any thoughts on _anything_ I have said?
Do you have any tips on open source advocacy in general?
Do you have any tips on presenting/demoing software in general?
Does anyone have any experience with Plone that they feel I could
benefit from?
Should I try to get anyone else to come along, like the previously
petitioned head?

Thanks in advance,

Oliver