[Linux-aus] Grant proposal: Software Freedom Day CDs for Australia

[Sridhar Dhanapalan]

On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 at 22:50, Paul Wayper <paulway at mabula.net> wrote:
> Did they have a price for putting them in a printed cardboard envelope?
>
> Mike Carden showed me a disk he'd picked up from the Perth Linux Users
> Group that they did for SFD 2007.  It had a great cardboard sleeve with
> helpful instructions, plenty of information, and it was neatly recyclable
> too.

The price difference is substantial. 1000 discs in a cardboard sleeve, CMYK 
printed with a gloss finish, costs $1130 ($1243 including GST). The same but 
with a clear plastic sleeve is $650 ($715 including GST).

We went with the latter for the Education Expo, opting to have a URL printed 
on each disc[0] for people to find help. We also had various leaflets[1]. 
That works out to be far more cost-effective than cardboard sleeves (but 
albeit not as pretty).

> If you mean 5,000 for the entirety of Australia, then, frankly, I think
> you're aiming way too low.

I don't think I am. Each year, we probably give away 1000 discs at CeBIT and 
another 1000 at the Education Expo. Keep in mind that those are shows 
heavily-trafficked with people expecting to get free stuff.

By comparison, far fewer discs are given on SFD. People aren't as receptive, 
and it takes more effort to get them to take the discs.

Over the course of an 8-hour day, you'd need to be giving away >10 discs per 
minute to reach 5000. That raises some questions:

* is that really the rate that you can give discs out?
* if so, are you actually talking to people?
* are people genuinely interested or are they just taking them and
  chucking them out later?

> I do think it's important to make sure we give quality rather than quality
> - i.e. give to people that are going to use it rather than just handing
> them out randomly on street corners.  We've found that running the SFD
> stand at a computer fair, where there's plenty of people going by and
> they're pretty much all interested in computer stuff, works really well. 
> It's hard to measure, though, of course.  We intend to run an Install Fest
> the next week to see if we can convert some of that interest into real
> change.  But even then we can give away 5,000 CDs without breaking a sweat.

Interesting. We had SFD at a computer fair last year. There was a fair amount 
of interest, but we didn't give away anywhere near 5000 discs. I don't even 
think we gave 500.

Regardless, I do believe that we should err on the side of caution here. I 
propose that we start SFD this year with a relatively low number (so 5000 for 
the whole country), and use that as a benchmark of how many to order next 
year.


[0] 
http://www.slug.org.au/~yama/fliers/disc%20labels/OpenEducationDisc/OpenEducationDisc%20CD%20label.png
[1] http://www.slug.org.au/~yama/fliers/

-- 
"The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look 
respectable." - John Kenneth Galbraith
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