More Plasma Active tasks for Google Code-In?

[Carl Symons]

Hello Active-ists

Thomas asked me to provide some information to this group for
additional input and feedback.

We have until 16 December to add tasks to those that are already
offered in the Google Code-In [1]. It might be useful to have GCI
students involved in researching aspects of PA markets, customers,
competitors, users. Offering such tasks could also serve to increase
visibility for PA.

I have research tasks related to KDE users already on the GCI list.
The description of one of those is below [2]. There is already a
person working on this who has developed some interesting
perspectives. The others are similar.

If there's interest here, I will write up a PA task, and mentor or
co-mentor. Below are some areas of inquiry that might be useful for
increasing the presence of PA in the market. We are looking for
actionable information, not just interesting information. In other
words, what are things that would be good to know in order to have
Plasma Active be more successful?

- What does the Plasma Active team want to know about tablet or mobile markets?
- What does the Plasma Active team want to know about existing and
potential users?
- What would motivate people to use PA instead of one of the market
gorillas--iOS, Android, Windows 8 (to be released sometime in the next
year or so)?
- Are PA customers primarily device manufacturers, coders, end users or _______?
- Perhaps free, open, programmable could be tested against walled garden OS/UXs.
- After determining primary customers, what is the best way to reach them?

Coming up with the right questions is actually a pretty significant project.

Keeping in mind that GCI is for high school students, what other
research results would be interesting?

I prefer to get this kind of understanding before doing promo stuff.
However, maybe we could find someone who could recommend some keen PA
promotion ideas, based intuition about audience.

This also speaks to the overall intention for getting GCI involved...
Plasma Active technical and UX design, implementation, software
development, collaboration, ambitious releases, etc. have been
successful. Toi some degree, all of those activities have an
underlying goal related to getting people to use Plasma Active. What
ideas do you have for moving in that direction?

Carl

[1] http://www.google-melange.com/gci/homepage/google/gci2011
[2]
"KDE users number in the millions. However, aside from general
information, not much is known about them. With better intelligence,
the KDE community could be more effective at reaching and serving KDE
users and potential users.
KDE outreach efforts are stymied by the lack of direct contact with
users. Typically, KDE technology is included seamlessly in downstream
Linux distributions such as Kubuntu, openSUSE and many more. It is
also available as an option for most Linux and similar operating
systems.
This project involves:
planning for the project
understanding and documenting pertinent background information,
the possibility of working with KDE development teams,
Creating research goals (what information should be gathered, how will
it be used, what would be helpful to know),
exploring and analyzing research methods, and
determining the effectiveness of various research methods.

This project is intended to produce well-reasoned recommendations; it
does not involve doing the actual research.
Expected results: At least five suggestions of methods for gathering
pertinent, actionable information, including pros and cons, rationale,
recommendations."


On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 3:48 AM, Thomas Pfeiffer <colomar at autistici.org> wrote:
> Hello Carl,
> this sounds like a good idea. Please send your questions to the mailing
> list for input from the team.
> I'll provide my input on the list then.
> Thank you,
> Thomas
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Carl Symons [mailto:carlsymons at gmail.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2011 12:21 AM
>> To: Thomas Pfeiffer
>> Subject: Re: More Plasma Active tasks for Google Code-In?
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 11:53 AM, Thomas Pfeiffer <colomar at autistici.org>
>> wrote:
>> > Hi all,
>> > there is a second wave of tasks for Google Code-In starting on
> December
>> 16th.
>> > I have not created any PA-related tasks for this wave yet, but seeing
> that
>> the
>> > results from the first wave so far were not bad, I'd say we should do
> some
>> PA
>> > tasks for the second wave as well.
>> > The following types of tasks are possible:
>> >
>> > - Code
>> > - Documentation
>> > - Outreach
>> > - User Interface
>> > - Research
>> > - Training
>> > - Translation
>> > - Quality Assurance
>> >
>> > I think we can come up with some more tasks of which the results may
>> actually
>> > be of use for us. I don't know if our code is easy enough for a
> schoolkid to
>> > get into in a few days (you developers know that better), but at least
> stuff
>> > like QA, translation, creating training or promotion materials,
>> documentation
>> > or research could be doable.
>> > Have a look at http://community.kde.org/GoogleCodeIn/2011/Ideas for
>> > inspiration.
>> > If you have an idea but don't have the time to write up a full task
> and/or
>> no
>> > time to mentor, just tell me and I can do the rest (well, except for
>> mentoring
>> > of Code tasks ;)
>> >
>> > For motivation, I just got this reply from the one who completed the
>> second
>> > task:
>> > "Hi, Thomas
>> >
>> > Thanks for the help on the task  Are there going to be any tasks
> similar
>> > to this after 16th, because I really enjoyed this"
>> >
>> >
>> > Regards,
>> > Thomas
>> >
>>
>> Hello Thomas,
>>
>> I have a couple of promo research tasks already on the list. The
>> research on end users seems to be going well. I just got an inquiry on
>> researching corporate users.
>>
>> Some sort of market or promo research on PA would be helpful. But I'm
>> jammed with tasks myself and don't have a good sense of the kind of
>> information we (PA) would find useful. I would write up a proposal if
>> I got some input from this group about what would be useful.
>>
>> What would the group like to know about the tablet or mobile markets?
>> Users of same?
>> what would motivate people to use PA instead of one of the market
> gorillas
>> maybe test free, open, programmable against whatever iOS and Android
>> offer.
>>
>> Coming up with the right questions is actually a pretty significant
> project.
>>
>> Let me know what you think and I'll add any thoughts I get from this
> list.
>>
>> Carl
>