[lp-ca-on] Activism Location Re: Software Freedom Dialogue Strategy (was Re: SFD Street Activism)

[Logan Streondj]

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As in real-estate, it's all about location, location, location.

Now the real-estate we are vying for is people's minds in relation to
computers.

We are asking for a major life change, such as switching from Apple or
Microsoft products to Libre RYF GNU/Linux ones.

Based on my studies of such things, it is easiest to get people to
make major life changes, when they are already making other major life
changes.  Such as if they are transitioning from one period of life to
another, or are moving to a new place.

The classic example of people transitioning from one period of life to
another is retirement, and university. Retirees have a lot of money,
though generally limited technical skills, and not as much energy to
invest into reading smallish letters on a screen.
University students, freshmen in particular, have limited funds, and
are eager to learn. So are our ideal candidate.

If properly formulated can get a slew of even non-IT students using
Linux, due to the cost savings, and productivity gains.  For instance
LaTeX can properly format all submitted papers in a professional
manner, properly formatting all bibliographies, greatly reducing a
common student hassle.  Also the format can be changed from one style
to another to fit a different professors needs with just a few words
difference -- instead of having to pour over formatting documents for
hours.

As I was walking along the shores of Owen Sound watching the fishermen
fishing for their derby prizes, I noticed their lures, their reels and
their large nets.

Important is to both provide the lure (productivity gains, free
software, good ethics), as well as the follow through, reeling them
into our community, and catching them in a safety net of support, so
the can get through the initial tough times of learning command line,
vim/emacs, ssh etc.

So a flyer like "What can Free Software do for You?",
should include all the elements. People like relationships, knowledge,
energy/money and foundation/stability.

I found a map of the Universities of Ontario:
https://bufa.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Ontario-Universities-Online.j
pg

Of the places mentioned,  Waterloo and Toronto have multiple.
I figure if we have a rolling campaign should be able to cover them
all, over the course of a few years.

Obviously it would make sense to approach the ones strongest in IT
first, while it may be "preaching to the choir", can get some regular
members, and thus have ongoing local support groups available for
other future students.

Like I know for engineers they have elaborate frosh traditions,
however I've not heard of any such things for IT people,
perhaps there could be crash courses in GNU/Linux,
with camaraderie gained through the mutual hardship
of learning command line, console editors,
LaTeX and shell scripting.


On 08/25/16 10:59, Blaise Alleyne wrote:
> On 25/08/16 10:22 AM, Stephen Paul Weber wrote:
>>> Whether to congregate in one location to do this together, like
>>> the biggest city or most central city with members
>> 
>> I'm not opposed to making a trip to Toronto to do something like
>> this. There certainly is more foot traffic there on average.  Do
>> you have a sense of what places in Toronto would be good to
>> target for this sort of thing?
>> 
> 
> Yes, from other activism.
> 
> Like, an intersection like Queen/Spadina has a ton of pedestrian
> traffic -- and perhaps even more of a young and hipster ish crowd
> that might be somewhat receptive to this kind of thing? And people
> might be out for an afternoon or something.
> 
> I've been around the downtown at many different intersections...
> 
> While I think downtown Toronto would be a great place, I also don't
> think it would be totally necessary. If there's a location with
> enough steady foot traffic anywhere, it could be worth it -- like
> in the main stretch in Owen Sound on a weekend? Or a downtown /
> main street stretch or something, like King Street in Waterloo
> maybe? (Not sure what pedestrian traffic is like.)
> 
> I think Toronto would make sense for a day that we're all trying to
> get together to do this and debrief. But I think it could also be
> fruitful for smaller groups to run this is smaller cities too.
> 
> The limiting reagent here is more likely to be the number of
> volunteers than the number of passers-by, because we have nothing
> visible (e.g. posters, video, display) here, so we're only going to
> reach the people we talk to. As long as there's enough of a steady
> stream of people that all our volunteers can be having frequent
> conversations, I think it's worth it. I think a lot of smaller 
> places could have a stretch with a steady enough stream of
> pedestrians to keep a couple LibrePlanet volunteers busy.
> 
> 
> 

- -- 
Logan Streondj,
A dream of Gaia's future.
blog: http://joyfullifestyle.ca
twitter: https://twitter.com/streondj

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