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Toy Penguins and Male Egos Drove Linux Acceptance

Posted by michael on from the hello-to-the-FDNY-Hell's-Kitchen-company dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Germany's local and city councils have been pioneering the migration from Windows to Linux. Now, one of the IT staff behind one move has revealed how they persuaded workers to accept the changes. Stuffed toy penguins and Linux t-shirts helped to create an open-source love-in at the council offices, and they got a senior chairwoman to demonstrate the new system to the troops. Male ego stopped anyone claiming that Linux was difficult to use, once they'd seen that the 'weaker sex' could master it :)"

6 of 548 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So Just how screwed up are these companies?!?! by Serapth · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    LOL, I love how disagreeing == flame baiting on slashdot... ;)

  2. Re:It's brilliant by devphaeton · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    To rework a famous old saying, no-one ever went broke overestimating the impact of appealing to the male ego.

    That's brilliant marketing to use a female rep to demo a product to a bunch of men.

    A lot of companies would do well to follow that example, I think.

    and on that same token, every woman has a feminist buried deep inside her. Appeal to her inner feminist by telling her "women are superior men in every way" and she'll eat right out of your hand.

    This is no shit.

    --


    do() || do_not(); // try();
  3. As long as it isn't marketed as OS for chicks by PaneerParantha · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Be careful. It is a all nice and well that the so-called weaker sex can handle it. But if it gets that chick "stigma", Linux goes the way of Dodo.

  4. Re:Theres a name for this.... by Killswitch1968 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I can tell why you went the Anonymous Coward route...

    But yes, user friendliness is also a problem. Even the most ardent Mandrake lovers acknowledges that XP is easier to use.

    --

    Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
  5. Re:Theres a name for this.... by be-fan · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    And dependency hell that exceeds .dll hell...
    ---------
    This is an old, and utterly irrelevent argument in this day and age where pretty much everybody is using something like APT or Yum.

    And a very inconsistent and often difficult application install process...
    ----------
    The Windows installer is utterly inconsistent and difficult compared to something like KPackage or Synaptic.

    And applications for general consumer and business use rather than just for developers...
    -----------
    This is actually a valid argument. Try sticking to these instead of making stupid, irrelevent, outdated ones!

    --
    A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  6. Re:I hate male ego by denks · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    When I go into a computer store all the clerks swarm to help the poor, defenseless, dumb girl buy expensive things for her computer

    When I walk into a store, Im surrounded by clerks who want to sell me the most expensive product too, and Im male. Believe it or not, thats what they do.
    On a bus do you get annoyed when people stand up for you because youre a female, but then get annoyed if they dont stand up because they should know that you may be in that time of the month and they should somehow know this?

    I hope that chip on your shoulder is salt and vinegar...those are yummy!

    --

    I am Monkey, the Great Sage, equal of heaven!