From FTWiki

Background

As the FreedomToasters begin to move out of the "mainly-geek" environment (university CS departments, science centres, etc.) and into the mainstream (libraries, Pick&Pay, parking-lots, airport lounges) we, the FreedomToasterCommunity, face some new challenges in moving the OpenSource ideal forward and fostering community adoption.

Feedback from "ordinary" people encountering a FreedomToaster for the first time indicates that there is a large degree of confusion among the general public around "what this big box is". It seems that many "ordinary" people are too hesitant to touch the touch-screen and explore -- unlike geeks who are more likely to try and rip the covers off to find out what's inside  :-) We need to find ways to reach out to these people and encourage them to get in touch with their inner geek.

Then, too, local newspapers are mostly incredibly willing to provide support in the form of articles (free publicity!) and pictures. However, most journos on local papers are incredibly overworked, so we are much more likely to get articles published if we have a canned "press-article" to give them, explaining the whole FreedomToaster story. This allows local press to produce nice, supportive articles for their newspapers with very little work (which is what they want!) It also ensures that they get the story straight and don't inadvertantly screw-up the facts.

So, we need to think outside the box itself.

This is the starting point for group-editing and brainstorming a bunch of supportive educational materials - brochures, articles, Freedom Toaster - The Movie, a FreedomToasterTshirt, ...

For a start...

...let's focus on three areas:

• FreedomToasterBrochure - a single-page (single-sided) no-fluff write-up describing:
  • Who the ["Shuttleworth Foundation"] is, and why it started this project
  • The what, why and wherefore of FreedomToasters
  • What FreeSoftware is about (and that its legal to copy! - many, many people seem to doubt that this is so :-O)
  • That it is about community - the community that Toasters are intended to serve, as well as the volunteer communities who support the FreedomToasters and their contents
  • How ordinary people can get involved in the FreedomToasterCommunity, and how they can give feedback on their ToasterExperiences.

• The FreedomToasterContent itself!

A Repository of Helpful Stuff

• An E-mailProposal - Freedom Toaster for Bloemfontein Library

• Notice placed on the Locations/Knysna toaster to try and explain to non-geeks what this big-orange-box is all about, and to try and encourage them to explore for themselves. (OpenOffice.org document.)

• Freedom Toaster Press Introduction - 700-word newspaper-style article intended as feeder material for local press.