RE: Just a few thoughts.
RE: Just a few thoughts.
- Subject: RE: Just a few thoughts.
- From: Randolph Marshall <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 09:42:38 -0400
On 6/17/02 1:03 AM, Sid Pevear wrote:
>
As for the material that Apple sends MUGs from ASW, I like some of the
>
QuickTime content and I do show it to our MUG and it is nice BUT the majority
>
of it is useless to MUGs.
I would respectfully disagree with you.
Often people make snap judgments on issues with out knowing the whole story.
Living down here in the Carolina's I by no means know the whole story but I
am willing to share with you what I do know..
The Blue Box (now the white box) from Apple Sales Web was created to help
individuals who sell Macintoshes. Or in other words this is for Apple
Employees and resellers. A long time ago, someone at Apple thought it would
be a good idea to include User Groups in that list, so now occasionally we
(MUGS) get the blue box.
It is my understanding that this blue box costs a lot of money to send out
to MUG leaders and that money comes directly out of Garr's budget. And lets
say that Garr wanted to send something out in the blue box, it would cost
him extra to include an additional MUG CD and that CD would be sent out not
just to User Groups but to everyone who gets the blue box (again the box is
white but for some reason I like calling it the blue box - guess I am a
Rhapsody hold back). So in a round about way it would be impractical (cost
wise) to distribute videos on CD of say the UGU seminars via the blue box.
Now, the blue box is not going to include valuable stuff every time.
On rare occasions there is going to be nothing of value to MUGs in the BB.
But most of the time there are some wonderful things in that box.
I have not received a BB in months and do expect to get one until after Mac
World, because (hopefully) there will be new product announcements at
MacWorld.
When you get a BB it will invariably have promotional materials from Apple
such as JPEGS that you can use for your organizations website to promote
Apple products. There are usually QuickTime movies which you referred to
as well as Specification Sheets in PDF form, Software updates, coupons,
deals and on rare occasions there are even full install versions of various
software packages. The point I am trying to make is, its free to you and
you often have to dig deep into those CD to find the software, etc. that is
being sent.
Heck our MUGs first copy of Mac OS X came in the blue box!
I share all this with you so you know that MUGs are only a small fraction of
recipients of the Blue Box. That you have to look deep in the bowels of
those CD for some of the stuff like software and Easter eggs. And there is
not necessarily going to be something every time in every box that is
helpful, but over the course of several years, I have found the contents to
be very helpful.
SUGGESTION: Make it a point to pass the contents of the BB around to
everyone on your leadership team so they can see what's there. It might
spurn a great idea or something more in your own group!
>
let us distribute Apple updates without us giving up our firstborn to do it. I
>
mean, come on, have you looked at what Apple legal makes you go thru to give
>
away a "free" product.
I have to respect this statement because I am trying to clear permission to
create and distribute training materials for older people and feedback is
not readily forthcoming from Apple on this issue.
However, with the internet and high speed access available to large numbers
of people getting software updates is not as big an issue as it used to be.
Yet, if you do not go to MacWorld, you do miss out on some substantial
offers, software, etc. that can be very valuable to your MUG.
For instance, because our MUG has started reclaiming computers and placing
them into schools, I went to UGU's program on putting computers into schools
at MWNY last year. Lorin (president of Washington Apple Pi) and his staff
cleared the way with Apple and Corel to create a reclamation CD so that old
computers could be reformatted, fixed and repurposed to schools.
We do such a thing here in Charlotte and this disk was a valuable tool for
our group in the two labs that we installed. Let me share how this
benefited Apple.
The lab we installed in a middle school was so effective that the PTA is now
determined to put in a whole new Mac Lab in for the kids with new Macs. So
that zero dollar investment of a license will soon sell $10,000 worth of new
Macs.
By giving this license to MUGs, the end result is the sale of more Apple
Computers. What we need now is the same thing with OS 8 on it so that more
computers can be reclaimed and we can help more schools and underprivileged
families.
You can help too, but asking vendors to support this effort. I have been
negotiating with to Corel to see if they would be willing to release a
license for Dabbler to User Groups so we can use this product in schools.
Dabbler is a great product that I surely hope will make its way back to Mac
OS X. It is the premiere training application for getting people to think
of how to use Painter. And if students learn Dabbler and like to draw,
eventually they are going to buy Painter.
But in the mean time it is not available, it is off the market and its is
not helping to sell Corel's products by providing a rich training ground to
encourage people to draw on their Macs.
----CONCLUSION----
Sometimes you have to look deeper than what you see on the surface to
understand the reality of what is going on with a situation. In the case of
the Blue Box, its not always going to be everything you expect, but then on
other occasions it's going to surprise the hell out of you and enable you to
do things you never expected.
In addition, we need to find a way to take the opportunities that are
presented at UGU/MWNY/User Group Breakfasts to the smaller MUGs who can not
afford to go.
Its a big wide world out there but if you do not know what is available your
going to be isolated and ineffective. MUGs in the Midwest, Southeast,
Australia, Europe, Latin America, etc. that can not make it to MW and UGU
are just as important to our effort as the ones who do attend.
What are your thoughts on how we can get the info, products and knowledge
from MW/UGU to those who are not able to be a part of this spectacular
event?
My personal best,
Randy Marshall
Pres., CarolinaMUG.com
BTW Sid, a big warm Carolina Howdy to your president/past president of Chico
MUG from Charlotte NC! I genuinely enjoyed talking to him last year and
finding out all the great things your MUG does!
_______________________________________________
augd mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/augd
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.