[OT] TV, Internet, and Democracy

[Christopher Browne]

On 5/29/07, Scott Elcomb <psema4-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On 5/29/07, JoeHill <joehill-R6A+fiHC8nRWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> > Agreed, though we might disagree over the value of senior bureaucrats, beyond
> > being a good source of protein ;)
>
> Being a good source of protein is important.  Biological entities -
> such as mammals - require a regual intake and processing of
> proteins... non?

I have to take exception; my father used to be a senior bureaucrat (in
Ottawa, of course), and if you regard yourself as *so* different from
them that they seem like a different species, I have to wonder who's
the oddity.

Come on - they're people too.  The association with political process
and with particular parties may introduce some level of distaste, but
they do NOT have two heads.

Reality is that they are people of importance, notably to the desire
to see OSS software more widely deployed.  Some may sit in Bill Gate's
pocket, although that's unlikely, as they are people who, due to their
political importance, find *many* people trying to curry favour with
them.  Microsoft is less of a "dominating force" in the economy than
the railways used to be in the 1800's.

Dismissing them is as good as giving up on having any influence on them.

> > Ten years ago, the people at the Ice House would have been instantly arrested
> > and portrayed in the media as some kind of whacked out doomsday cult.
>
> Not trying to give you a hard time here, but it, currently, is not 10
> years ago.  Given that, now imagine if it was 100 years ago.
>
> One hundred years ago...  what is that?  Three generations?  Just how
> far have we truly come in that time?

I have to call "nonsense" on this, in a big way.  Way wackier things
have been out there, and have been treated with some modicum of
"internal respect."

For instance, Saskatchewan's history includes *WAY* wackier stuff.
Through about the first half of the 1900s, the Doukhobors (a rather
extremist Russian Christian sect) had groups that periodically engaged
in naked protests.  Some would occasionally burn their own homes in
protest of government action.

Neither the government nor RCMP were particularly pleased by this, but
your extreme view didn't happen.

> Everyone is key, but first we must communicate with Key people.  (Note
> the capitalization.)

I did my bit today; had a chat with some technical sales folk at IBM
on how they might position pSeries + PostgreSQL against some
alternatives :-).  They may or may not win the sale; there were a few
key spots where they simply failed to understand how to sell OSS, and
I hope I helped with that.

Pointedly, they were very worried about PostgreSQL service offerings,
and thought it seemed risky when I suggested that the customer ought
to have some "budding experts" in house.

I told them:  If you pick OSS, having some local expertise is part and
parcel of it.  You want a "total product" where you need NO expertise?
 That's why you should buy DB2, Oracle, and such.  The customer
already said they weren't interested in that, so they've already
committed to drawing in some OSS expertise in house.

> > > Yes, Microsoft does publicity stunts. But it probably spends far more on
> > > behind-the-scenes lobbyists and PR than on special-event stunts, which
> > > is the part of the balance which we don't do. Folks in the community
> > > such as Colin, Marcel and myself have a great awareness of the value of
> > > PR; but we don't have the cycles to do it ourselves. Spending all one's
> > > advocacy resouces on stunts is very visible (thus what I referred to as
> > > a "feel-good" effect) tactic, but without less-visible gruntwork (and
> > > followup!) its net effects are dubious.
> >
> > That's the thing, though, right? Guaranteed is someone is committed enough to
> > stand outside in the cold distributing CD's next to a giant inflated penguin,
> > there's a very good chance that they are going to have the same level of
> > commitment to more grassroots activities such as the ones you allude to.
> >
> > I think that perhaps I got the impression in the earlier discussion that it
> > was an either/or thing, or that the giant penguin people were just completely
> > wrong.
>
> Not I.  From my perspective, I'd think both the Penguin People and the
> Penguin Politicians are necessary for us to have any chance of
> success.

The overall model is one where the total effect is the sum of all of
the components.

My "wild guess" is that the multipler on "ice house"-like events is pretty low.

In contrast, I'm not sure quite how to evaluate my conversation today;
if it turns out I helped with that sale, it's probably on the order of
a few million dollars that travelled around.  The more curious
question would be what happens next, where it conceivably influences
further sales strategy.

If it gets the sales guys thinking more creatively, I'm pretty happy :-).

My (probability-adjusted :-)) share of the $millions seems likely to
be more than the "ice house."

My intent is not to boast (I have no idea of what the ultimate result
will be; I may have merely flapped my gums for a while); the point is
that some quiet words here and there can have greater opportunity to
shift big things than they necessarily get credit for.

Finding strategic people to talk to is of value.  Most of the time, it
will fail, but that doesn't mean the effort was necessarily wasted.
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