[school-discuss] SchoolForge as a visible entity

[SteelHead <bill@ries-knight.net>]

Schoolforge is rapidly approaching it's first anniversary.  In this time many 
people have learned to work together and share Ideas within the community.

I think it is now time for SchoolForge to become visible to the education 
community itself.  there are many ways this can happen, and most require the 
expenditure of real money.   We can buy ads in magazines, that is real 
expensive.  We can buy Banner Ads, but that is real hard to target.  We could 
buy a list and spam, but that is not an acceptable approach.  We can ask 
everyone to call the local School district and try to find someone to talk 
to.  Many have tried, few have succeeded.

A Better Solution is to show up in a place where educators and administrators 
are likely to be wandering around looking for a solution to meet their latest 
issues or long term planning.  Where do teachers and administrators walk 
around looking for solutions?  At teacher conferences.  At education 
conferences.  At education showcase events.

There are many of these education events held in almost any local region you 
can imagine.  Some are huge, some are small and some are very well focused.

Right now we have some friends in the Pacific Northwest that may be able to  
take part in the NECC conference in Seattle next summer.  
<http://www.neccsite.org> I know it is some time away, but a well planned 
presence at a conference of this type can provide some really fine exposure.  
The time for planning always seems long, but in looking at this event, I just 
noticed there is a short (for us) deadline in submitting a proposal for the 
conference.  
<http://ccenter.uoregon.edu/conferences/NECC2003/newcomers/default.php>
This would be a nice opportunity if some of the folks out there have a 
product service or approach to present to the education community, this is a 
great time and place to begin.  The deadline is October 9 2002 for proposals.

In the past we have taken SEUL.org to LinuxWorld and to a CUE conference 
<<http://www.cue.org >>.  At Linux world there were many interested in what 
Seul.org is involved in, but almost none were in a place to position any kind 
of an OpenSource solution in any school., let alone in a district.  At the 
CUE conference held in Sacramento two years ago,  we had a moderate response, 
added a few people to the Seul/edu mailing list.  We were able to keep costs 
at almost nothing because we were able to share space with Mandrakesoft. for 
this event. The folks at Mandrakesoft, like may other OpenSource companies, 
are not real hot on spending money on tradeshows that do not see an immediate 
return.  

We need to see what local as well as corporate resources can be marshalled to 
fund booths at events like this one and perhaps look at a few "personal" 
dollars for those that can attend these conferences, but are not financially 
independent.

Toss in your thoughts.

Bill Ries-Knight