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Toy Penguins and Male Egos Drove Linux Acceptance
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 :)"
This is hardly new... all it has ever taken to get a guy to do something is say something like "oh, if it's too heavy for you I can ask someone else"
'cept for those of us who learned the game and call the bluff with "sure, go right ahead"
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
This sounds suspiciously like how the world of commercial software works :o
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.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Tux toys & t-shirts sound trivial, but they loosen people up about something that a lot of non-tech types think is "hard". Setting up the "sexist" argument ("Even the women can use this OS") is even appropriate if that's what it takes to make decision-makers come around.
<OFFTOPIC>
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
And people wonder where sexism in technology comes from.
Using it to your advantage is not the same thing as working to eliminate it.
I should probably submit this anonymously*, but what the heck.
I don't know if it is in our genes, or if it's a product of our environment, but male ego resulting from male dominance even affects me a ton.
I was running on a treadmill earlier this week, and there was a girl who was running on one next to me at the same time, at roughly the same speed. There was _no_ way I was going to let myself stop before she did--because she was a girl. And I recognized this as I was running.
Seems kind of silly, I know, but that's what was in my head.
*I've heard that posting anonymously at slashdot isn't really, so what's the difference?
...and damned good marketing too.
Somehow it leaves me feeling a little uneasy, though. I bet I'd be influenced by the same or similar tactics, even though I've read this article. It leaves my ego a bit worse for the wear to know that I (hell, we!) am so easily swayed by savvy marketing techniques.
Example: even if janet jackson winds up paying fines for her Super Bowl stunt, I'll bet she gets exactly what she intended in terms of sales and publicity. The people she pissed off were never her customers anyway.
Oddly enough, I recently saw this in Doctorow's "East Coast Tribe", but this was something I learned when I first worked in an IT department.
It doesn't matter if your systems are uber-fast. It doesn't matter if they have a low error rate. It doesn't matter if they are made to be user friendly.
If the users of those systems perceive they are slow, inefficient, hard to use, great, best machines ever - whatever they percieve, that is the reality.
So a good IT staff does two things:
1. Work on their C. I. A. pieces.
2. Work to help the users percieve their systems as being C. I. A. good.
Let's face it - this is why Microsoft is on 90-odd% of all desktop systems out there: people percieve their systems as working, as easy to use, and that everything else is inferior whether that is true or not.
Once you convince them that a Linux or Mac desktop works just as well - if not faster and more securely - on their desk as a Windows box, and that they can use the same kinds of applications, you're set.
I've had IT guys whom I respect greatly tell me they'd love to switch to "OS X", but don't want to because they fear the "learning curve". It's not a "noobie" issue at all - perception clouds everything.
And Brauner made the right calls. To those who had problems, he showed them how it was easy. To those who thought he was being mean, he displayed himself as a "fun guy" with shirts and toys. To those who thought the system was "hard" he showed a secretary doing her job with ease - the person that all my programming teachers taught me to program interface for, since "if a secretary can run it, anybody can".
Excellent work on his part for recognizing that the human element is as important as the technical one at times.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I can just see the marketing people on the other side *cough* those convicted monopolists, remember them ? the guys who claim the GPL should be stamped out ? *cough* making hay with this.. ?
"Ooh, we don't manipulate you", they'll coo. "We just give you a product that you know and is easy to use". And heck, if that doesn't work, they'll just add a whopping discount on top of it to seal the bargain.
Maybe I'm just egotistic myself, but if I heard that I had been manipulated into something I wasn't sure about, and if I heard about it later on (with a "ha ha ha. owned!" comment, to boot), I'd be quite wary of the next thing that particular guy tried to foist on me.
Which brings me to the question.. does OSS really need marketshare like this ? It's just me, probably, but I'd prefer people make an informed choice rather than go "hey, why don't we use this because we don't want to be outdone/look foolish". If you can convince people to install it that easily, they'll just as easily be swayed by the next marketing gimmick, and which side (OSS or the other guys) have more marketing muscle ?
when I'm out running along a well used path in my town, there is no fucking way I can live with a woman running infront of me. At times this put me close to a heart-attack. But I have all the more fun because this kind of stuff. Same thing, when I try to overtake someone who is barely slower than me. heh.
Man, this is oart of the fun of life! As long as you realize, that your life does not depend on being cooler/stronger/faster/whatever I consider it good-natured fun. After all, where would be in technology without some good ol' testosterone-driven competition?
plus, women have some fun --uhm, let's call them characteristics to laugh about
Despite all the claims of 'monopoly' scarcely anyone steps back and REALLY analyzes why open source hasn't taken hold. And the answer inevitably leads to little or no marketing. A good product that no one knows about won't be used.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
How about this approach... "Use the damned software!". Really, I dont know why people seem to think they should have complete freedom on a computer at work. The company owns the machine, and the company chooses the software... so long as the company involved the proper employees in evaluating which is the best software(s) to use... thats it, end of story. Employees really shouldnt have a choice one way or another.
Ever heard the phrase "you attract more flies with honey than vinegar?" Honestly, I'd rather work for someone who is respectful of my concerns and seeks to answer them (even in a devious way), than someone who just scoffs at them and says "Shut up and get back to work." Even the military, the only employer who can throw you in jail or have you shot for not doing what you're told, tends to be relatively light handed in how it encourages its members to use new systems.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Anyone watch that "The Apprentice" show.
Yeah. I've never seen anything more tragic and discouraging on television. The most amazing thing about that show is that it almost perfectly mirrors the modern workplace.
For that matter, so does Survivor: a group of people get together and decide who to ostracize. A fine example for society.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Don't blame the marketer for putting himself in the marketee's mindframe.
The sexist attitude exists in the males they're trying to convince. Not necessarily the marketer. The technique was actually trying to change this perception by preying on the mistaken attitude.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Frankly, I don't want most hardware makers to be writing lots of Linux drivers. I want them to build their stuff to use documented protocols (USB/Firewire/IDE/etc.) correctly so that their hardware Just Works everywhere. That way, I can pick up a piece of new hardware and have it run without any obnoxious CD loading, file downloading or kernel module installation whatsoever.
That's the sort of ease-of-use we should be encouraging.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
The American record for the mile is 3:47.69; the women's record is 4:16.71. That is worse then the men's worldwide record of 1895.
There's plenty of thing men can do that women do more poorly, and plenty of things that women can do that men do more poorly.