[Wolves] Weekend pics!

[dick_turpin]

chris procter wrote:

[Deliberately cut and arranged for self gratification effect]
> as everyones favourite highwayman says "a place where once a year
> we can all get together and have a laugh, meet new
> people and catch up with those you've not seen for a
> while" *and* a place that has talks that are of
> interest to a wide cross section of the community both
> newbie and expert. I thought Jeremy Allison, Barbie
> and Mathew Garrett's talks for example all struck the
> balance pretty well.
>
> I take the point that to up the numbers again next
> year without the podcast as the publicity engine will
> require a certain amount of thought and emphasising
> that its not just for hardcore geeks is a good thing 
> but scaring off the hardcore geeks is a bad thing :)
>   
IMO and as a professional Marketeer LrL has always been pretty poor on 
the advertising front, yes its advertised on the show (as was) and 
possibly about 10 blogs (Mine included) but its kinda like the old days 
of farming, a bloke walking across a field chucking seed left right and 
centre praying to god that some will take root.

If I'd have been in charge;

1. Get every community manager SuSE, Fedora, Ubuntu yadda yadda yadda to 
promote it on their community forums, planets, mailing lists, irc yadda 
yadda.

2. Get every podcast to promote it, starting six months before, ring, 
email and hound them every month

3. Get Popey (Coz he's the mailing list man) to spam all the mailing 
lists six months every month prior to the event.

4. Kick the shit out of Wolverhampton Council! you're bringing National 
and International visitors to Wolverhampton scare them into contributing 
some of that con money they are making out of recycling (That's your 
money you know just coz you didn't take the cans to the plant... Oops 
sorry pet hate).
Tell em "The national papers are doing a piece on the event, wed love to 
be able to say the council provided billboards or a grant or some fizzy 
pop. It might look bad if we told them there was an International event 
but the council refused to help".

5. Get in touch with the papers national and local, emphasise the 
community, freedom blah blah blah.

6. Get in touch with TV (I think Big Ron did that last year or the year 
before?)

6. Get in touch with the Radio again both local and national, you don't 
have to pay as a non profit making event (probably) you can encourage 
them by offering advertising or sponsorship (Which you guys already know 
about). I know that's a dirty word but so is life we cant all sit at 
home getting others to pay for our enjoyment.

7. Got a website? then blog, advertise or promote it on your front/home 
page. Now's your chance to contribute/give something back

8. Member of more than one Lug? tell other members don't just assume 
they know, assume makes an Ass--out-of--U--and--Me.

Now comes the *Outside the box* ideas

A. On an MS or Mac list, user group? promote it there or get a friend to 
promote it there. These are the people we want *New Users* while its fun 
meeting all your mates who use Ubuntu they are already converted. We 
spend far too much time talking to each other about Linux and treat MS 
users like lepers which is WRONG WRONG WRONG! How the hell anyone 
expects people and businesses to make the change when they are shunned, 
insulted or just bad mouthed for using Vista, XP ect is the attitude of 
idiots and morons we need to create a spark of interest in them so 
promote the *hardware/technology* "Splineboy will be demonstrating 
software that lets you see your mates girlfriend in the nuddy" (I know 
that's sexist and slightly perv'y but I think you get my drift) How many 
times have you wondered down the high street and seen a record fair 
advertised and walked in off the street just for the hell of it? I doubt 
Mr Average knows what Linux is let alone LugRadio Live.

B. Tell work or you're tutors "Hey there's this event coming up in July 
its a good day out its sort of like a computer fair with talks, if you 
want, demonstrations and stalls" I bet most of you say "Oh its a Linux 
event" which means nothing to Joe Public *Don't kid yourself everyone 
has heard of Linux, they haven't*.

C. Do like I do and bring family members along, remember 'word of mouth' 
is the best advertising medium in the world, when your dads down the pub 
Saturday night "Yeah went with my lad to this computer/Linux thingy had 
pretty good day really" "Linux? what's that?".

I could go on but then I'm not getting paid :-)