user groups : educators

[Marielle Lange]

Nice to hear there is good interest there. Came across some new names  
as well, which is always nice. I have started encoding the names and  
email addresses of the ones who were interested in this.

I guess something I should tell as I don't like to have any hidden  
agenda. I signed a document which says that I accept to become a  
Revolution Community Partner. There is information about this on the  
forums:
<http://forums.runrev.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=343>

The original post, by Lynn Fredricks, on July 24 stated that:

> If you want to set up a Revolution User’s Group or a special  
> interest group in your local computer group, Runtime Revolution  
> wants to hear from you about becoming a Revolution Community Partner.
>
> Revolution Community Partners are local liaisons who are interested  
> in influencing and expanding the use of Runtime Revolution and  
> willing to present Revolution at their local user groups or even  
> participate in local conferences, conventions and industry shows!
>
> Runtime is looking for Community Partners who have good  
> presentation skills, know their Revolution and are reliable.
>
> And what do you get out of it? How about:
>
> 1. Coolness Factor. In our references lists (consultants and third  
> party vendors), Community Partners who are listed will get a  
> special designation. We are establishing the frequency but this  
> will mean a special designation for X amount of time after  
> participating in an event.
>
> 2. Exposure. Since we are doing this for both local events and also  
> trade shows, its an opportunity to meet and greet some Runtime  
> partners whom are very influential in the software industry.
>
> 3. $$$. We have a compensation model based on sales that result  
> from your efforts. You will get assigned a special code with each  
> event, then receive compensation based on sales that result from  
> your efforts.
>
> If you are interested in becoming a Revolution Community Partner,  
> please contact me directly to work out participation.
>
> You can ask questions here but compensation in general is handled  
> directly with Runtime.

The exact form of my involvement is being discussed. Nothing official  
or formal as for now.

I can just say that there is a big stand in a local bookstore.  
"Change the world". Plenty of books like "Meaning Inc.: The Rise of  
the 21st Century Company" <http://www.amazon.co.uk/Meaning-Inc-Rise- 
Century-Company/dp/1861978839>, Happiness 9 to 5, etc. etc.

Well, going for a meaningful life, at home and at work, seems to be  
the trend of the moment ;-).

What follows is not really part of these activities (as anyway there  
is nothing official yet anyway), more a personal initiative.

For any new member, you may be interested in checking out this  
discussion we had some discussion between users on revolution's  
possible contribution to education. This was in May-July 2005, right  
after they created the revolution-education list. This discussion can  
be found in the revolution-education list archive
<http://mail.runrev.com/pipermail/education-revolution/2005-May/ 
date.html>
<http://mail.runrev.com/pipermail/education-revolution/2005-June/ 
date.html>
<http://mail.runrev.com/pipermail/education-revolution/2005-July/ 
date.html>

It can also be found on this wiki, with the posts reorganized by  
theme/argument being made.
<http://revolution.widged.com/wiki/tiki-index.php? 
page=EducationWhatIsNeeded>

I wouldn't invite everybody to start a big discussion right now on  
this list. But what I am interested is thoughts about how to organize  
ourselves to avoid the problem we faced 1-2 years ago where  
discussion and enthusiasm was not transformed into concrete results.

Then, possibly not discuss this at full length before we have set up  
some efficient enough way to organize ourselves, however, let's start  
thinking about this. To minimize a possible dissipation of energy, I  
would suggest to keep a notepad at hand with you over the week or two  
to come and jot down some ideas and reflections.

Let's keep the "what Revolution Ltd (the company) should do for us  
educators" out of the picture for now. This has to come into the  
picture, of course. However if from the start we take the attitude  
that we just expect to sit there and wait for somebody else to enable  
everything, well, we will simply get the same results as 1-2 years ago.

Let's rather think of what we, as education users, want to do/achieve  
and what we believe to be our personal/social responsibility in  
helping this to happen. How can we organize ourselves and collaborate  
so to maximise any return on the time we may be able to put in to  
help for each one of us?

The truth is that we always tend to think that our life will be  
easier if *others* were to change the way they treated us. In any  
situation like that, two persons are in control of what happens next.  
That other person and yourself. As users, each one of us has some  
degree of control and power on the situation and the way it evolves  
in the 1-5 years to come.

And we may possibly persuade the other persons to follow if rather  
than be annoyed by him not understanding our perspective, we try to  
understand and adapt to his perspective. Revolution Ltd is a  
business, not a charity organisation. The smaller the number of  
requests we have and the better articulated they are, the more chance  
we have to convince the mothership to take action.

But it's not just about prioritizing and limiting our requests. It is  
also about putting in the list requests that are susceptible to be  
positively answered. What is *their* priority? Serve good markets.  
What is a market? "A market consists of a group of current and/or  
potential customers having the willingness and ability to buy  
products -- goods or services -- to satisfy a particular class of  
wants or needs. Thus markets consist of buyers -- people or  
organization and their needs -- not products".

Well, guys, we have to be do a bit of work to help them see that  
there is an education market for revolution  ;-). If we can make a  
business case for our needs and create a win-win situation for both  
parties, we have even more chance to convince them to invest time and  
effort better serving the education community.

In this perspective, it seems to me that something we should try to  
do in priority, is get an idea or the type of resources that seems to  
be important for a large number of us, that is the resources we  
should focus on in priority.

What are the main reasons for you to be interested in revolution, as  
educators? What are the type of needs that revolution seems to meet  
particularly well, better than other software? How does revolution  
empowers you as educators? What is it that you would like to achieve,  
in your educational activities, with revolution? Over the next 2  
years? In 3-5 years? What type of resources (software, textual  
content, training) that you could create or help create that would  
have revolution meet your educator needs even better?

I won't have the time to answer each single post on this. Next week,  
I will spend most of my time away from my computer, meeting persons.  
However, I will go through each post and reorganize them by trends  
and themes as I did with the discussion we had 2 years ago.

Marielle