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Ben Finney wrote:
I don't see why you condition evangelism on *not* being business; it seems to me evangelism is *all about* selling something.
Agreed. If we separate evangelism from the concept of selling something (be it a product, service or idea), then we're left with something quite vacuous. Evangelism for the sake of evangelism? That sounds dangerously close to selling the idea of selling ideas, a strangely circular beast that presents the obvious as something innovative.
My mind casts itself back to a book I saw at the height of the dot com era: "Designing the Killer App" was the title IIRC. The entire book basically said "a killer app is something that everyone wants, and it's a good idea to make one."
If we don't present something useful to our audience then we are potentially both wasting our own time and undermining the community as a whole. If - for instance - someone wanted a great office suite and we insisted on showing them the GNU/Linux desktop instead we're going to lose the sale and undermine their confidence in Free Software's ability to provide the solution to the problem. If we show them Openoffice.org and give them some copies on CD for free we're done the opposite: we've provided a solution and armed them with a deployment capability.
If we go into a board-room to make a sale and fail there is little point in suggesting that the presenter has accomplished the consolation prize of open-ended advocacy. A positive impression may or may not have been created. Acceptance of advocated models may or may not have taken place. It's almost impossible to measure, and the lack of a sale gives a reasonable indication that something has failed somewhere along the line.
Call me a scientist, but I prefer results we can measure.
Shane
- -- Shane Martin Coughlan e: shane@shaneland.co.uk m: +447773180107 w: www.shaneland.co.uk - --- Projects: http://mobility.opendawn.com http://gem.opendawn.com http://enigmail.mozdev.org http://www.winpt.org - --- Organisations: http://www.fsfeurope.org http://www.fsf.org http://www.labour.org.uk http://www.opensourceacademy.gov.uk - --- OpenPGP: http://www.shaneland.co.uk/personalpages/shane/files/publickey.asc