Nick, Great suggestions, especially the Marriott idea.  I could not attend either due to my military duties.... I have quite a few points with the Marriott chain and would be willing to give some up for a free room for that event if we could pack a couple (or few) people in! As a free movement, we have to start from the people, we don't have the resources to compete with Vist*.  This will be a ground up campaign for a lot of years to go. If you all want a room, let me know VERY soon because the rooms will fill up very fast if they are not already filled up.  BTW, you will be considered as platinum members....free snack and water when you check in. (for whoever I put the room name in) (reserve a twin queen room, suck it up and bring cots!)  I love hijacking M.S. events! Although I am still on active duty, <a href="http://www.ordnancemarine.com">www.ordnancemarine.com</a> is developed with nvu and <a href="http://oranceslicecomputing.com">oranceslicecomputing.com</a> is now online.  <a href="http://Orangeslice.com">Orangeslice.com</a> is a future project for when I retire.  My daughter picked the name out from open source....... Geek family! Les <div>On 9/19/07, Nicholas Kwiatkowski <<a href="mailto:kwiatk27@msu.edu">kwiatk27@msu.edu</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Although I was unable to attend the recent SFD, I would like to make some suggestions: -  Setup the event where there is LOTS of foot-traffic.  It doesn't matter how much advertisement that you are doing, the people who would go out of their way to the event are those who already know what Linux is.  While you may have to sacrifice an optimal location, the people you need to reach are those that aren't expecting to go to the event.         - See if the local CompUSA or Circuit City would lend you their training space for the event...  See if you can go around the location while people are shopping and interest them.         - Set up a booth on a game day on Campus.  This idea may need to wait until next year as you will start running into flying snow.         - Different malls allow for non-profits to setup a temporary booth for an afternoon, if you ask the right way...  Again, all it takes is for somebody curious to walk by and ask a question.         - Hijack a Microsoft event.  Microsoft / Cisco / Nortel etc., all have seminars around Lansing.  Find out when they are and get a room near theirs, or again, a booth to talk to the people who go to these seminars. For example, Cisco has an all day event at the Henry Center on Colins and Forest roads next week.  Microsoft has a larger 'Software Licensing Update' seminar at the Marriott in EL the first week in November.  With these, you already have a captive audience that is looking to either (a) spend money or (b) reduce the amount they are spending on these products. - Marketing the event.  Again, see if you can get into some of the community news papers, or have some of the local ISPs (ACD, arialink, etc) send out emails to their user bases.  See if some of the local computer shops (digilink, KTC, etc) would help you spread the word.  See if some local tech companies (TechSmith or LiquidWeb) would help out too...  Lots of these guys may even help you with some sort of coupon to help drive their business.  You need to pick a date and location now, and just get the flyers out, and work backwards from there. Hope some of these suggestions help!  I would love to see this event a smashing success :) -Nick Kwiatkowski MSU Telecom Systems, P&E Group -----Original Message----- From: <a href="mailto:linux-user-bounces@egr.msu.edu">linux-user-bounces@egr.msu.edu</a> [mailto:<a href="mailto:linux-user-bounces@egr.msu.edu">linux-user-bounces@egr.msu.edu</a>] On Behalf Of Clay Dowling Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 1:58 PM To: <a href="mailto:linux-user@egr.msu.edu">linux-user@egr.msu.edu</a> Subject: [GLLUG] Next public software advocacy event I know we're still licking our wounds from Software Freedom Day (or coming down--it might have been a bust but it was still fun), but I think that it's time to start planning the next advocacy event.  If we really rush and work our contact lists we might be able to have something by mid November. Mid November is really a good time, because a lot of people look at upgrading family computers over the holidays.  If we can show them free software, we can help them stretch their computer dollar further. Likewise, mid to late January is a good time to catch them because there's a new machine and they are looking for software. I won't be there to spur the discussion this Thursday, because it's my birthday and I'll be have Eduardo's beef with my wife. Clay -- Lazarus Registration <a href="http://www.lazarusid.com/registration.shtml">http://www.lazarusid.com/registration.shtml</a> _______________________________________________ linux-user mailing list <a href="mailto:linux-user@egr.msu.edu"> linux-user@egr.msu.edu</a> <a href="http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user">http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user</a> _______________________________________________ linux-user mailing list <a href="mailto:linux-user@egr.msu.edu">linux-user@egr.msu.edu</a> <a href="http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user">http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user</a> </blockquote></div> -- Running Linux? Are you completely out of your mind.  That thing is a rip-off.  It comes with no viruses, no Trojans, no malware , etc .......