Update June 8th -- the grass-roots approach of just installing it for people is one approach. Just put it on your friend's computers. See Mike's blog entry.
I love interesting information about how people think.
Specifically, I love real-world stuff about how people behave in groups, how individuals come to decisions--it's all really amazing and so not what you'd expect.
There was some fascinating stuff in the Sunday NYT from May 14th (I was just catching up over the weekend) about how what makes us happy is not what we think makes us happy. We think certain things should make us happy, and when they don't, we figure, well, maybe a bigger X or a cooler Y will make us happy. It's really the day-to-day stuff, like your car breaking down or coffee with a friend, that affects our happiness, not the big house (since things and events give less happiness with each exposure) or the big events (traumatic attacks, even) that make us happy or sad, overall.
One of my favorite quotes is from Iris Murdoch, who was right on without the psychological research. Roughly, the quote is "Happiness in life is dependent on having a continuous series of small treats."
I meant that introduction to be a little shorter but that topic is one of my favorites. Its theme, however, strongly relates to Dan Russell's guest blog on Kathy Sierra's Passionate Users blog. He talks about how essentially, you can convince people to do stuff all day long but they won't actually do it unless you make it reallllllly easy. It's the lockjaw study you might have heard of--students were shown a film on the perils of lockjaw, and were told that shots were available for free in the college health services center. They pretty much all said that Yes! They believed the film! and their beliefs had changed. And yet....3% of the students ever showed up for their shots.
Didn't matter whether it was a film about lockjaw dangers, a letter on lockjaw dangers, whatever--people were told and they believed it was the right thing to do, but they didn't do it.
What made the difference?
Handing out a map to the health center, and asking students after the film to make appointments to get their shots. Then 28% of students who viewed the film showed up to get shots.
Yes.
It's the little things.
This is one issue that plagues the open source/OpenOffice.org community. We wave our arms and jump around and shout about our frustrations and say "It's obvious! It's the best choice! Individuals can save hundreds! Schools can save millions! Governments can save zillions! It's easy to download? Why don't they switch?????"
Well, frustrated open source folks, take a deep breath. It's not that people don't believe that free is better. That's not the whole issue, at any rate. We might all be convincing gazillions of people a day that clearly, they could save money and licensing hassles with OpenOffice.org or Ubuntu. But unless they have a map and an appointment (or, better, have it installed on their computer), conversion isn't going to happen very quickly.
So how do we make it soooo easy for people to use open source software? How do we get 28% of the people we talk to to actually switch?
One approach of course is to get Oprah to give away Linux laptops at every show. That would be cool.
The new deal with Dell and Google might help a tad, depending on what Google software is preinstalled on those Dell computers.
I'm a little sleepy still and recovering from Memorial Day weekend so I must confess I'm not chock full of implementation ideas. But I wanted to get this out there and ask for suggestions. Get the idea-mill turning. Put the emphasis on the little things that are really important.
And now I must go have a cup of cocoa, to get my day started with a small treat.
Uh... yeah. I already use Oo.O on my home computer, because they made it easy to make .pdf's out of my writer documents. And I'd LOVE to switch to Base from Access... but, like, Access has all these little wizards and button-implementation-in-the-form doodads, and I don't have to know the coding (and that Access Switchboard Manager is the BOMB!).
Make Base that easy, and I'll switch. And I'll bet a lot of nonprofits (like the one where I'm assistant director) will, too.
Posted by: JIm Brittain | May 30, 2006 at 09:21 AM
The only way I have been successful at getting people to switch to OpenOffice.org is to simply refuse to (re)install Microsoft Office on their computers. Unfortunately most home users have either pirated copies of MS Office 2000, or it was pre-installed onto their computer when they purchased it and have since lost their CD. Once they know that I will not pirate anything for them they will try OpenOffice.org.
When I build computers I always give the option of using Linux at no additional cost, otherwise I force them to be legal and I charge extra to setup Windows, which ends up being about $150 more than a Linux setup. Also, if they do choose Windows I still setup their machine to dual-boot, which helps when they get a virus they can still access their documents.
So far I have probably setup 2 dozen dual-boot computers and have already installed 10 Linux only computers.
Posted by: Mike Petersen | May 30, 2006 at 02:13 PM
I agree with Mike...it's so easy for folks to ask, "Couldn't you just install Windows on that computer?" Now, I just say, "You can install Linux, and it comes with tons of programs. Give it a whirl. If you must have Windows, keep it for games but do the real work on Linux."
So nice to have "re-discovered" your blog, Solveig. I realized I was missing your voice in the conversation! So, I'm subscribed and you're in the Blogroll!
Take care,
Miguel Guhlin
http://www.mguhlin.net/blog
Posted by: Miguel GUhlin | May 31, 2006 at 08:00 AM
Hi Jim,
>> Uh... yeah. I already use Oo.O on my home computer, because they made it easy to make .pdf's out of my writer documents. And I'd LOVE to switch to Base from Access... but, like, Access has all these little wizards and button-implementation-in-the-form doodads...[snip] ... Make Base that easy, and I'll switch. And I'll bet a lot of nonprofits (like the one where I'm assistant director) will, too.
I agree, and unfortunately Base is just in its first rev. I wouldn't recommend Base much right now except for pleasant little mail merges and data entry. Reports are kind of limited. I'm actually not sure that OOo should go in that direction, there's so much work to do. I'm not up on my open source databases, but wouldn't a front end on Cloudscape or something be a better approach than the huge amount of work to get OOo Base up to Access ease of use? Just a thought.
Posted by: Solveig Haugland | June 06, 2006 at 11:26 AM
Hi Mike,
>> The only way I have been successful at getting people to switch to OpenOffice.org is to simply refuse to (re)install Microsoft Office on their computers. ... When I build computers I always give the option of using Linux at no additional cost, otherwise I force them to be legal and I charge extra to setup Windows, which ends up being about $150 more than a Linux setup. Also, if they do choose Windows I still setup their machine to dual-boot, .... So far I have probably setup 2 dozen dual-boot computers and have already installed 10 Linux only computers.
I reallllly like your approach -- a little tough love, plus this approach is very much like the study mentioned in the blog, of just putting the info in people's hands or at least on their hard drives. And of course, make it very clear what the cost of MS Office/Windows is. I think I'll update my Migrating Groups to OpenOffice.org with some more emphasis on just not having MS Office available, and giving users the choice of how to spend the money.
Posted by: Solveig Haugland | June 06, 2006 at 11:29 AM
Hi Miguel,
>> I agree with Mike...it's so easy for folks to ask, "Couldn't you just install Windows on that computer?" Now, I just say, "You can install Linux, and it comes with tons of programs. Give it a whirl. If you must have Windows, keep it for games but do the real work on Linux."
People really do need, and can benefit from, very simple stuff like having to try it. I mean me, too. In Linux (my easy Ubuntu install that I dreaded until I discovered how great it was) and just in general (how often do any of us go to the dentist? ;> ). Sometimes I think the wave of the future is to set up personal assistant/management businesses. Just sign up for $X a month to be told what to do and when to do it. ;>
Thanks for puttin' me in the Blogroll!
Solveig
Posted by: Solveig Haugland | June 06, 2006 at 11:32 AM